Posted by Christie Malry on
May 28, 2012 at 9:57 pm
Because it's a load of bollocks. There is no 75% income tax rate; even when you add in national insurance, there's simply no way that you can generate a marginal tax rate of 75% for those on low incomes.
Ah, you say, but Ritchie means the marginal rate of additional taxes and benefits withdrawal. Well, perhaps he does. But that's not the same thing at all as "paying tax at 75%". Having started with nonsense, it's hardly surprising that he ends up with a stupid conclusion.
That, more than anything, is why those on £1 million shouldn't pay tax at a marginal rate of 75%.
Filed under: Economics, Taxation with tags fucknut, idiots, marginal tax rates, richard murphy, ritchiebollocks, welfare benefits
11 Comments »
Posted by Christie Malry on
May 27, 2012 at 2:35 pm
UKuncut and their hangers-on have been getting very excited about their latest stunt: a party outside Nick Clegg's house. They made a particular point about how family friendly their latest protest was, and how many children were present at the protest.
Well, I'm afraid I take a dim view of children being used in this way. It is always inappropriate to indoctrinate your children like this and to drag them along to your political protest when they should be doing something more kid-friendly. You know, like going swimming or playing in the park. UKuncutters using their children to make a political point is profoundly selfish. Be political if you want to but, for God's sake, let your children enjoy their childhood.
But it's not just profoundly selfish. It's really profoundly selfish. While Ukuncutters talk about austerity, the truth is actually that we continue to run a substantial budget deficit. The costs of services that are being consumed by us today aren't being paid for out of our taxes. They're being stuck on a giant IOU, to be paid for by future generations. Yes, that's right - the children who UKuncut are dragging along to their photo opportunities will be forced to pay for our generation's overconsumption.
If UKuncut's children were allowed to think for themselves, they'd probably vote in favour of budget cuts. Because it's ludicrous that they should be forced to pay for something that they will never see the benefit of.
Filed under: Economics, Politics with tags austerity, deficit, fucknut, idiots, nick clegg, selfishness, ukuncut
2 Comments »
Posted by Christie Malry on
May 24, 2012 at 9:55 pm
Over at the PCS website:
It could collect the tax due but not paid at present which, in total comes to maybe £95 billion pounds a year plus £25 billion of tax outstanding at any point of time, or £120 billion in all. It may just be coincidence that the annual deficit is near enough also £120 billion a year at present, but if it is, it’s a sufficient coincidence to point out just how significant the tax gap is.
Er, Ritchie, it is pure coincidence that a wildly inflated estimate happens to be the same order of magnitude as the annual deficit. The idea that their similarity "proves" that the estimate is in any way correct is farcical.
Filed under: Taxation with tags error, fucknut, idiots, pcs, richard murphy, tax gap
No Comments »
Posted by Christie Malry on
May 24, 2012 at 9:26 pm
In 2010, Richard Murphy (in)famously estimated that the "tax gap" is £120bn.
Since that time, we have had an emergency budget review and two finance bills. There have been substantial changes to the tax system, including changes to individual and corporate tax rates and VAT. National insurance has also changed, as have the levels at which these various taxes apply. We've had some very important decisions around particular cases, such as the decision by HMRC to settle with Vodafone over its CFC dispute rather than continuing to fight (and potentially lose) the case. And it may not feel much like it, but we have had GDP growth since Q2 2010.
Also we've had a number of commentators, including this humble blogger (but also, importantly, HMRC), raising serious criticisms of perceived errors in Ritchie's estimate.
The economic and political environment are very different now compared to 2010, and the tax system has changed considerably.
Yet, Ritchie wants us to believe both that his estimate of the tax gap is completely unaffected by all of these changes and also that there is no need to take account of any of the criticisms that have been levelled at his work.
Really? I mean, really?
I have always believed his estimate to be unbelievable, but his insistences that his estimate is totally impervious to any change in the external environment and that every single one of his critics is wrong are simply not credible.
Filed under: Politics, Taxation with tags budget2011, budget2012, error, gdp, hmrc, idiots, richard murphy, tax gap
No Comments »
Posted by Christie Malry on
May 24, 2012 at 7:38 am
And this is juicy (emphasis added):
At a time when demonstrators with the UK Uncut movement are protesting about the ability of large corporations and rich individuals to avoid big tax bills, there is a dissonance in the heavy-handed tactics being used against those accused of wrongly claiming relatively small amounts. Vodafone, for example, has been accused of pressuring HM Revenue & Customs into accepting a potential tax liability reduced by £6bn; both Vodafone and HMRC deny the charge, but there is a feeling that some instances of tax avoidance are treated with more leniency than others.
This is just pure gibberish. Tax avoidance is legal, so - quite simply - there is no liability in a tax avoidance situation. The entire UKuncut campaign is all to do with highlighting this sort of tax avoidance, where companies have legally and legitimately minimised their tax bills but, had they structured things differently, would have paid more tax.
The Vodafone case was all to do with whether UK law on controlled foreign companies (CFCs) is inconsistent with European law. It didn't look too good for the UK, I'm afraid, and the UK is subsequently changing its law on CFCs. So, had Vodafone appealed the case all the way, it could well have won, opening the floodgates for billions of pounds of copycat claims from other companies. To portray Vodafone insisting on being treated in accordance with the law as "pressuring HMRC" is totally idiotic.
Filed under: Taxation with tags amelia gentleman, controlled foreign companies, guardian, hmrc, idiots, ukuncut, vodafone
2 Comments »
Posted by Christie Malry on
May 23, 2012 at 10:05 am
A reader reviews The Courageous State!
PS Up late last night with Richard Murphy i.e. The Courageous State which I got yesterday through the post – almost as gripping as Harry Potter!
And almost as many facts too.
Posted from WordPress for Android. Post may be amended or reformatted later.
Filed under: Entertainment with tags idiots, richard murphy
No Comments »
Posted by Christie Malry on
May 22, 2012 at 11:13 pm
Ritchie on flat taxes:
Superficially flat taxes look attractive. People like the idea of simplicity. It's an easy sell. The fact that it takes 417 pages to explain the proposal suggests that this idea is not simple though, and that's because it isn't. The PR pitch is that flat taxes are simply about multiplying your income, less a tax allowance that is the same for everyone regardless of circumstances, by a fixed and single percentage rate to calculate your tax bill. Not true. Flat taxes are in reality a massive exercise in re-engineering relationships within society.
You'll have spotted in Ritchie's work on the tax gap that he frequently seeks to deny companies the deductions and other tax incentives that have been handed to them by Parliament. All deviations from the profits for financial reporting purposes are treated as aggressive tax avoidance. Similarly, he wants to deny rich people from getting a tax deduction for their charitable donations.
So, despite his rhetoric about flat taxes, the bulk of his work has been to argue in favour of a flatter tax system. Does he even realise?
Filed under: Taxation with tags flat tax, guardian, idiots, richard murphy, tax gap
1 Comment »
Posted by Christie Malry on
May 22, 2012 at 10:53 pm
This is part of his campaign to save face after his work got a thorough pasting by HMRC in their evidence to the Treasury Committee:
If it’s good enough for HMRC to include it in the tax gap it’s good enough for me. The problem is for them to explain why they’ve chosen to understate the tax gap as a result of ignoring this number, not for me to justify its inclusion. And that’s especially true when there are very good reasons for including it.
...
That’s why I’m right to include this figure in the tax gap and HMRC are wrong to exclude it.
So he's right to include it because HMRC includes it, but they're wrong to exclude it, so he's right to include it.
Errrrr...
Actually, it's Ritchie who is wrong. Late paid tax is part of the gross tax gap, but not the net tax gap. The gross tax gap is irrelevant because it's reduced by amounts paid in the current period that relate to earlier periods. Ritchie's estimate ignores this, so persistently overstates the true amount of the tax gap - the amount of tax that we think we should be collecting in the current period but aren't.
Filed under: Taxation with tags hmrc, idiots, richard murphy, tax gap, treasury committee
No Comments »
Posted by Christie Malry on
May 22, 2012 at 7:38 am
Ritchie shows his idiosyncratic approach to knowledge acquisition:
Perhaps the best quite on the issue is this, from Rolling Stone.
[...]
In other words, we’ll do what we like, we don’t care about the rules and we’ll deny what we’re doing, using the most expensiev lawyers money can hire if need be to do so .
I think that sums banking up.
Reading this, it's hard to imagine he was ever much of an auditor. You see, he's started with what he wants to believe, scouted around for something that supports it, and then latched onto it as proof of his position.
Audit methodology, on the other hand, would start with what you want to test, and look to devise tests that, on balance, would be expected to falsify that position if it is indeed false. In that respect, there are similarities between audit methodology and scientific methodology, as the APB pointed out in their think piece on professional scepticism. Both science and auditing start from the humbling perspective that the scientist/auditor may be wrong. Ritchie, on the other hand, starts from the arrogant perspective that he is always right.
Filed under: Auditing, Other blogs with tags apb, banks, idiots, richard murphy, scepticism
No Comments »
Posted by Christie Malry on
May 19, 2012 at 12:22 pm
Eoin Clarke is back with one of his unsourced graphs:
The 10 companies above [Shell, BP, HSBC, BHP Billiton, AstraZeneca, GSK, Barclays, Vodafone, BAT, BG Group] made a combined profit of £100 billion last year. During the same period the UK economy stagnated, adding less than £5bn to its GDP. During the In addition, wages stagnated, unemployment grew, inflation rocketed, VAT was hiked to 20% and millions of people had benefits cuts. In total the government collected £48 bn in extra taxes from workers through national insurance and consumers in VAT. At exactly the same time, George Osborne cut profit tax by 1% in 2011 (and by a further 2% this year). Are you thinking what I am thinking?
I doubt it. Because I'm thinking "Dr Eoin Clarke is a fucking idiot". Here's why:
- These are global companies. While some of them may have originated in the UK, and they still have UK stockmarket listings, these are global companies that make their profits globally. The share that comes from UK markets is a lot smaller than the amounts they generate globally.
- His profits figures are complete and utter bollocks. He claims the companies made £100bn of profits in 2011. I've checked his figures, and they in fact made combined profits of £132bn. That firstly proves that he's attempting to use the consolidated global profit and secondly proves that every single number that Eoin gives on his website should be treated with extreme suspicion.
- His tax paid figures are complete and utter bollocks. I suspect he has tried to extract them either from UK standalone financial statements or from the disclosures given in group accounts. Neither will work. Instead we should observe that these companies had cash taxes paid in 2011 of £37.6bn (most of which relate to their profits earned in 2010 of £76bn). That hardly fits the rhetoric that these companies aren't paying their way in the global economy.
- There are two big oil companies in his list. Don't forget that oil companies are typically subject to additional non-profits based taxation that won't appear in the "tax charge" line of the accounts. These are big numbers: approximately £8bn globally for BP in 2011.
- There are two banks in his list. Banks are also subject to additional non-profits taxation in the form of the banking levy. This also does not appear in the "tax charge" line of the accounts.
- It's completely idiotic to compare the global profit made by companies in one year to the increase in GDP of the UK economy in one year. I've called him on this before, but it seems he's too stupid to understand.
- And the benefit the UK gets from these companies goes far beyond their corporation tax payments. These companies are big employers of UK citizens. They administer the PAYE and VAT systems on behalf of the government without recompense (and largely without complaint). Their shares provide pension companies with somewhere to invest, and the dividends they pay help support pensioners in their retirement. On top of this, they fulfil our needs - for energy, for healthcare, for financial services and, erm, for cigarettes. You'd frankly have to be a complete moron to believe the only benefit we get from them is tax.
It's really extraordinary that someone with a PhD could be so incapable of using sources and referencing his work properly. Somewhere there is a PhD supervisor with a bad case of insomnia...
Filed under: Economics, Taxation with tags astrazeneca, barclays, bat, bg group, bp, corporation tax, eoin clarke, fucknut, gdp, glaxosmithkline, hsbc, idiots, pensions, shell, vodafone
4 Comments »
