The real reason squeezing the rich makes us all poorer February 26, 2014 RADICAL reform of income tax is not only desirable, but completely possible. To achieve it, however, proponents of change need to provide a strong evidence base for a much flatter tax system, with a much lower top rate in the UK in particular. We need to show that the optimal revenue-raising top rate of tax [...]
Big firms face account probe February 24, 2014 ACCOUNTING standards are under increased scrutiny from HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC), which suspects poor financial practice means too little tax is being paid by big firms, according to lawyers Pinsent Masons. The law firm said HMRC believes as much as £442m is underpaid, up 57 per cent on the £282m it was looking into [...]
Russia must back down over Ukraine to avoid a catastrophe February 24, 2014 VLADIMIR Ilyich Lenin was a monster. He was a central theorist of communism, a key player in the Bolshevik revolution, a commissar, a leading instigator of the Red Terror and other massacres, and the first leader of the Soviet Union. For decades, busts of Lenin adorned the communist empire; they were finally torn down in [...]
Taxman cracks down on builders February 23, 2014 Construction firms coughed up £122m in extra tax to Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs (HMRC) during the last year, according to accounting services group NoPalaver. The figure is a 55 per cent increase on the previous year, when only £78.9m was taken in extra tax. The charges are levied through the construction industry scheme, which [...]
SNP’s Salmond insists that Scotland could join EU February 17, 2014 Scottish first minister Alex Salmond insists that no EU member state has indicated it would block a move for a newly independent Scotland to join the political union. That clashes directly with European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso, who on the BBC's Andrew Marr show said that "it will be extremely difficult to get the approval [...]
Britain is now being taxed so much that the pips are squeaking February 6, 2014 BRITAIN has become dangerously reliant on a small-number of highly paid and wealthy individuals for its tax receipts. If these people decide to leave the UK, or for some reason suddenly earn or spend less money, the public finances would suffer disproportionately. That is one of the conclusions I draw from a fascinating report published [...]
Britain is now being taxed so much that the pips are squeaking February 5, 2014 BRITAIN has become dangerously reliant on a small-number of highly paid and wealthy individuals for its tax receipts. If these people decide to leave the UK, or for some reason suddenly earn or spend less money, the public finances would suffer disproportionately. That is one of the conclusions I draw from a fascinating report published [...]
Thirteen people facing charges over tax claims for film losses January 30, 2014 THIRTEEN people including seven investment bankers were charged yesterday over a film tax scheme that HMRC claims cheated the exchequer out of £2.5m. The Crown Prosecution Service said that the charges relate to two partnerships, through which the defendants allegedly conspired to submit false tax returns as far back as 2007 to claim tax relief [...]
Labour’s proposed tax grab will backfire even before it starts January 27, 2014 HERE is how Labour’s misguided, punitive and anti-growth 50p tax plan could backfire almost immediately. If the Tories go into the election promising to keep the top rate of tax as is, and Labour to increase it by 5p, and it continues to look like Ed Miliband will triumph in May 2015 (albeit on a [...]
Labour’s 50p tax populism ignores the most important debate of the century January 27, 2014 ED BALLS’S announcement that the 50 per cent top rate of income tax could make a comeback is an act of political opportunism devoid of any economic sense. Opinion polls may show that two-thirds of voters would support such a hike, but satisfying the politics of envy is a dangerous economic game. Raising the top [...]