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Thread: sign the petition

  1. #221
    Quote Originally Posted by Lasterman View Post
    Be fair, it can't be easy to afford a Playstation 476 AND a tattoo of some crappy song lyrics on your tit.
    And some of them have some very long lyrics.

  2. #222
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    Quote Originally Posted by WanChaiMiller View Post
    Currently there are many companies relocation the Germany where, as I understand it, the rate of CT is 10% higher than the UK.
    But other trading costs are higher as explained above...re comment on VAT threshold being around £30k not £85k as here in UK.

    you missed political stability, access to finance and regionalised incentives (see Waverley project) when choosing a country to trade from, the UK is the easier to obtain finance to grow your business

  3. #223
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    Quote Originally Posted by gm_gm View Post
    But other trading costs are higher as explained above...re comment on VAT threshold being around £30k not £85k as here in UK.

    you missed political stability, access to finance and regionalised incentives (see Waverley project) when choosing a country to trade from, the UK is the easier to obtain finance to grow your business
    I was actually aiming the post at Kerr. But thank you for jumping in and reinforcing my point.

    Many more factor to consider when planning where to locate a business than simply Corp Tax as he keeps saying.

    You are quite right in adding political stability and access to finance or we'd all be trading out of Zimbabwe (I just didnt want to bang on and end up writing an essay).

  4. #224
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    Wonder if anyone has ever said "You know what, I think you might be right after all." following one of these?

  5. #225
    Quote Originally Posted by Lasterman View Post
    Wonder if anyone has ever said "You know what, I think you might be right after all." following one of these?
    Yes, happened to me when I read KerrAvon’s comment about MMM

  6. #226
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    Quote Originally Posted by WanChaiMiller View Post
    All things being absolutely equal then I get a variable like Corp Tax could be a deciding factor. But all things are not equal.

    For me location (like access to markets, cost of labour, available workforce, rent, rates, etc) is the prime consideration way ahead of Corp Tax.
    I spent I forget how many days pointing out to MMM that Corporation Tax is not the only factor. For example, in post 112, I told him: The level of taxation is one of a number of factors that a company will take into account when deciding where to operate, invest, pay tax and employ people. Amongst others will be labour costs, energy costs,rent/land costs and regulatory costs. I could have gone on with reasons.

    As recently as post 166, I told you that: I haven't suggested that corporate tax rates are the most important factor. They are a factor and are capable of being an insignificant factor or an important one depending on the size of any change.

    I don't see how I could have been any clearer.

    The fact is that Labour Policy, if implemented, will impose additional costs on business through corporate tax rates, an increase to the minimum wage and, according to this thread, additional public holidays. Businesses will react. As I pointed out to you in post 200: If there is an argument against the proposition that increasing the tax rate reduces the attractiveness of the UK to do business and will therefore lead to lower levels of investment then I am still waiting for someone to give it. As Grist points out, making a change to such a significant factor alters the equilibrium and will necessarily produce a reaction, with none of the possibilities being job/worker friendly.

    Whether you see other costs as being 'the prime consideration way ahead of Corp Tax.' is irrelevant. It's how businesses see any change. For some - possibly very many - the other factors at play that MMM was desperate to ignore will continue to keep them in the UK. For others the reaction will be to seek to reduce the size of their workforce or to cut costs in other ways. For some, it will be to freeze, reduce or end their presence in the UK. If anyone has an argument against that then please make it.
    Last edited by KerrAvon; 18-07-2018 at 05:30 AM.

  7. #227
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    Quote Originally Posted by WanChaiMiller View Post
    I was actually aiming the post at Kerr. But thank you for jumping in and reinforcing my point.

    Many more factor to consider when planning where to locate a business than simply Corp Tax as he keeps saying.

    You are quite right in adding political stability and access to finance or we'd all be trading out of Zimbabwe (I just didnt want to bang on and end up writing an essay).
    I spend far more time than I wanted to explaining to MMM - patiently and then not so patiently - that there are 'many more factor to consider when planning where to locate a business than simply Corp Tax'. Did you not read that? As recently as post 166, I told you that:

    I haven't suggested that corporate tax rates are the most important factor. They are a factor and are capable of being an insignificant factor or an important one depending on the size of any change.

    Do you have any new points to make and for me to respond to?

  8. #228
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    Quote Originally Posted by Grist_To_The_Mill View Post
    Yes, happened to me when I read KerrAvon’s comment about MMM
    For the record, MMM is the person who sets the tone for our debates.

    MMM is clearly passionate in his beliefs and I have a measure of respect for him for that. If he were able to debate without being so rude, I would have a lot more respect for him.

  9. #229
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    Quote Originally Posted by WanChaiMiller View Post
    Kerr.......With that being the case, why can't a Labour supporter indicate how many job losses they consider acceptable to fund the tuition fee bribe?.....

    None. The money already exists in the economy. We pay it out in Student loans. Only difference is we find a different way of repaying it without it falling on the individual. Business benefits and should accept some of the responsibility.
    Nearly forgot this one.

    Cancel your next rent or mortgage payment and when chased tell your landlord/bank that 'the money already exists in the economy' and see what happens.

    Under the current system, the individuals who stand a chance of directly benefitting from a university education and who take out a student loan are required to make repayments when their earnings exceed a given threshold. The result is a very well funded university system with some of the most respected and research heavy institutions in the world.

    If Labour ever have to pay out on their bribe, the burden of sending somewhere like half of kids to university will fall upon the taxpayer, whether that is corporate or private individuals. Yes, everybody (corporate and otherwise) benefits from a well educated workforce, but do the Left really want the burden of paying for university education to fall across the population - all the way down to the lowest earning of taxpayers? It's easy to make the argument when talking about, say doctors, engineers, physicists and pharmacologists, but not so easy when talking about, say graduates in Sociology, Medieval Studies or American Studies from some mickey mouse establishment.

    Of course, like most things currently Labour, taking the very high cost of funding of university places back into government is likely to see a return to the 70s where university funding was so low that only a very few people were able to obtain a place and a university education became the preserve of an, often privileged, few.

  10. #230
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    Quote Originally Posted by KerrAvon View Post
    I think you may be getting confused. You claim with my 'The fact I was referring to was the actual amount that a tax cut costs the public purse if there are no behavioural responses.' whereas what you actually said back in post 151 was 'The one certainty is that by raising corporation tax X amount would raise X amount for tax revenues, that is a FACT. How did your FACT about raising Corporation Tax become one about reducing it? I'm fascinated. Are you sure that you know what you meant?

    When you have worked out whether the fact that you were talking about related to cutting or raising tax do let me know, but I will tell you in advance that it is not as you claim that the net effect of a tax change is a a solid, factual amount, X – Y that can be calculated. Even taking into account behavioural responses and calling that Y it is only ever possible to estimate both X and Y (with Y being particularly hard to estimate with any accuracy) so why it may be a factual amount, it can only ever be estimated.

    You are also wrong when you say that the Corporation Tax cuts cost us £16.5 billion in services. In making that claim you ignore the behavioural changes that you acknowledge exist and also ignore the fact (or FACT) that the country is running a budget deficit and so rather than being a loss to public services the best case you could make is that the deficit was somewhere less than £16.5bn p.a. than it would have been.

    I see that you are quoting the IFS on Corporation Tax. You miss out the observations that:

    In the same way that we would expect rate cuts to be less costly in the medium to long run because lower rates boost investment, we would expect rate increases to be more expensive because they reduce investment which, over time, would translate into the UK having a smaller capital stock.

    You miss out that despite now having a low headline rate:

    Compared with other countries, the UK has a much less competitive tax base, largely due to a particularly ungenerous set of capital allowances.

    You also miss out:

    Under current plans, corporation tax receipts are set to form a smaller, and possibly decreasing, proportion of receipts in the future. This is not necessarily a concern. It has long been recognised that corporate income taxes can distort incentives in a number of harmful ways, and they are thought to have a particularly damaging effect on economic growth. Corporate tax is top of an OECD ranking of the most damaging types of tax.

    Perhaps most importantly for your argument, you miss out the obvious:

    Corporation tax is ultimately paid by people - through reduced pension and savings growth, job losses, lower wages and higher prices.

    To be fair, it's not clear whether it is you that is selectively quoting the IFS or whether you just pulled the headline figure from a dodgy Labour Party press release, but either way, selective quoting is a dangerous game.

    Here's the IFS on Corporation Tax: https://www.ifs.org.uk/publications/9207

    You would accept approximately 2,113 job losses in return for an increase in corporation tax that would offset the manifesto policy on student? By 'student', I assume you mean the Tuition Fee bribe? I suspect you are not taking the risk of job losses seriously (perhaps working on the basis that you are in public service and so won't be affected - I'm alright, Jez). Come on, give a serious figure -you support the bribe so be clear about what consequences you are willing to accept for it - 2,113 would probably represent the losses from a tiny part of a supply chain if, say, Siemens decided to quit the country or Pfizer got it's hands on Astrazeneca and stripped it.

    I think the country has fewer public servants than it is desirable for it have over the longer term, which is why I support growth friendly policies rather than the destructive, short termist, sound bite friendly, anti-growth policies that Labour are offering. That's kind of the point of my involvement in this thread.

    How am I trashed by my own source when it says exactly what I said it did? I think you may be confused again. I said that the report confirmed the progress that had been made in reducing poverty in this country, which progress only faltered after the financial crisis of 2008 and the aftermath thereof, which is what it does say. We are dealing with the consequences of a profound shock to the world economy, coming to terms with the emergence of several powerful economic competitors and, latterly, dealing with the uncertainty surrounding Brexit. Of course times are difficult. In quoting JRF you are, however, once again, selectively quoting and miss out passages such as: Over the last 20 years the UK has seen very significant falls in poverty among children and pensioners , which begs the question that I ask is why would you want to turn your back on the economic strategies that have delivered that and return to the 'tax, spend, cover your eyes and ignore reality' policies of the 70s.

    I like the JRF very much, but is important not forget their agenda when reading their output. They also use 'relative poverty' as measure of poverty, which produces the absurd outcome that doubling the income of everyone in the country would have no effect on poverty rates.
    I’ll try to be clearer. By FACT I mean the amount that if you are the IFS, you take the amount of corporation profits at one point in time and perform a calculation of how much public revenue would be lost if (from that amount) if you cut 1% (or any other %) off the corporation tax. I’m taking it as a calculation based at any one point in time. This I presume is how the IFS arrived at the amount of 16.5 billion per year it could cost the public purse to cut 1% off the corp tax rates BEFORE (sorry about having to emphasise my key words using caps, I’m trying to help you understand) behavioural responses come into play. I acknowledge that at this point, the 16.5 billion becomes at estimate and I’m happy, if it makes you happier to refer to it as the IFS does, as an estimate.

    So – I repeat, before behavioural responses, the IFS estimates that a 1% cut (or cut, as you like to say) costs the treasury £16.5 billion pounds. I accept that such a cut is likely to have a positive economic impact to some extent and would agree with the IFS points generally. But what I and others on here are primarily concerned about is to what extent does the benefits of such cuts to the economy:

    1. Make its way back into public revenues to compensate for the huge amount of money lost annually to our services? You can provide no evidence of positive benefits to public services to justify such a cut to our purse. To be clear, I’m not denying that there will be reciprocal positive impacts to business and employees for such, but the world I see developing around me in recent years, in my work, in schools and from people who work in key services, the evidence is that money is being cut from services that is not coming back down. This is the fundamental aspect of what we are trying to get over to you. If these cuts don’t somehow lead to improvements in our public life and services, then your claims that it generates wealth doesn’t go far enough, and I think this is the crux of where you and us are so opposed.

    2. Help to compensate for the job losses to the public services that such cuts have made in recent years. You blandly squirm around my question by saying that we have fewer public servants than it is desirable, but as you are pushing me to answer ridiculously unanswerable questions, I ask again: how many job losses in the public sector are you willing to accept for a further 1% cut on corporation tax?

    Re: JRF foundation and the your rather comical observation that “selective quoting is a dangerous game”. Do you not see the irony in the FACT that you have read both reports and have done exactly that, using key quotes to back up your own world view? (I refer back to my initial reservations about re-entering this debate – that we would just end up quoting sources at each other, again!). But as it happens, I think it is fair for the JRF to point out (and for you to highlight) that there has been an improvement in poverty levels from the mid 90s, but crucially this stopped circa 2012 and since then the JRF have warned of a serious downturn:

    • 400,000 more children are living in poverty than in 2012

    • 300,000 more pensioners are living in absolute poverty than in 2012

    • “Very little progress has been made in reducing poverty among working age adults”

    When was the first corporation tax cut? 2010 when it was cut from 28% and has incrementally gone down every under successive governments to it’s current 20%. And if the IFS is estimating amounts to the effect of £16.5 billion per 1% cut, might it be that the huge amount being lost to the public revenues (with no evidence of it’s recovery and trickle down into either public life or services), might the amount of cuts, and the impact on the society we see around us be related?

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