On CiF last Monday Gregor Gall, Professor of Industrial Relations at Hertfordshire University, took Polly Toynbee to task - not for her diagnosis of societal ills (which he praised) but for her suggested remedies"
I'm on Polly's right politically but I'd still support far more stringent tax laws too prevent these avoidance tactics - but while they’re legal let’s keep our criticisms for the government for letting them stand, not the people or companies for using them.
"she is also one of the most frustrating commentators because, after correctly identifying the main agents of social injustice and inequality, she then appeals, illogically, to these selfsame people to change their wicked ways"I'm guessing Polly didn't read Gregors article because she does the exact same thing today with a muddle-headed article on tax law. The thrust is an effort to shame big corporations and wealthy individuals who employ expensive tax lawyers to avoid paying their 'fair share' of tax:
"The Guardian's revelation of Tesco's Cayman Islands tax arrangements reminds the world that our tax lawyers are world-beating at "tax-efficiency". When such an emblematic company takes such steps, it speaks volumes about national tax avoidance culture. Check out the recent report The Missing Billions from tax expert Richard Murphy, for the TUC, who identified £25bn of tax lost from the exchequer. He lists major companies whose tax payments don't begin to reflect the size of business and profits they seem to command in Britain. Note the tiny tax paid by BSkyB, Hanson, and Legal & General. It may be legal but that's not the point: profitable companies shouldn't be able to shuffle assets to pay less tax. Where is the public shame at "socially responsible" companies avoiding the spirit of the law?"The key phrase (although not for the reasons Polly would suspect) is the one underlined and in bold - the entire point here is that these are legal activities. But - and here's the bit open to misunderstanding - by stressing that this is legal tax avoidance I'm definitely not saying 'tough Polly, it's legal - you don't have a case' - I'm suggesting that should be the core of your case. Instead of an article largely built on trying to shame businesses and wealthy people into paying more tax than they legally have to (an absurd proposition - none of us do it) it should be an article shaming Gordon Brown and Alastair Darling into changing the law in the first place. There is some of that in the article of course but the balance is all wrong - the overall tone is one of berating big business and wealthy individuals for simply keeping to the letter (if not spirit) of the law. I guess that's a function of Polly letting her political allegiances get in the way of an otherwise good point she has to make and that's part of the criticisms Gregor Gall made earlier in the week.
I'm on Polly's right politically but I'd still support far more stringent tax laws too prevent these avoidance tactics - but while they’re legal let’s keep our criticisms for the government for letting them stand, not the people or companies for using them.
8 Comments:
The Board and executive of any public company have a duty to its owners to care adequately for its assets. Were management to adopt Toynbee's suggestion, they might well find themselves facing action from shareholders.
Why don't people recognize the political and intellectual bankruptcy of this woman?
Your love affair with Polly Toynbee is depressing C. Your answer to the un-workability of existing hugely complex tax laws is to introduce a lot more. How clear could it possibly be that this will never work and the only people that suffer will be the ordinary tax payers obliged to fork out for yet more bureaucrats fill in more forms.
Taxes are not collected from the super rich they are collected from the coping lower middle and working classes and any discussion of taxation should be in this frame work not the pantomimic Wilsonian illusion of " Corridors of power and conspiracies of wealth"
When Polly Toynbee writes an article about the aspirations of ordinary people she will be worth taking seriously but this fantasy world she inhabits is pointless to engage with.
I `d suggest you move on
I have no particular affection for Polly NM - I just look at the detail of what she's suggesting and rate it on its merits. You appear to distrust her regardless of the merits or otherwise of what she says because you never actually engage on any of the detail or rebut what she says.
Your argument about the complexity of the tax code is a red herring too - CGT used to be levelled at the same rate as Income Tax under the Tories - 40%. Hence it was simpler and required less regulation or legislation.
Cutting that - first to 24% then 10% then 18% was messy and complicated the tax code, not to mention cut the receipts from the tax. So in this case Polly is arguing for the tax regime the last Tory government had and you're arguing for the mess that Brown has created.
And that's before we look at the fairness of the amounts paid..!
Hi,
Tescos also promote tax avoidance for their customers through Tesco Jersey (as do their competitors)
http://www.tesco.com/entertainment/product.aspx?R=830829&
Incidentally Tesco Jersey is now located in Switzerland.
I agree the government should fix this.
I have no particular affection for Polly NM - I just look at the detail of what she's suggesting and rate it on its merits. You appear to distrust her regardless of the merits or otherwise of what she says because you never actually engage on any of the detail or rebut what she says
That’s not fair but were it to be the case isn’t that how we decide most things . We cannot all be experts in everything and so over a period of time you acquire a hierarchical set of trusts and reliances looking further into things yourself as and when your experience tells you it is necessary. This is how people decide about most issues. That is why it is not necessary for me to read to Lisbon treaty to know what’s going on ,and one reason why someone able to quote endless facts at you may make almost no impression. It is also why who says something is easily as important as what they say.
This is a characteristically Conservative way of valuing and pooling experience you evolve views you do not reinvent them from scratch every day .
If I look at everything Polly Toynbee says with the assumption she is dealing with me dishonestly, that seems perfectly valid to me. I have , made the complaint that her perspective exaggerates the importance of the rich and ignores entirely the effect of tax on the vast majority. You cannot allow such people to ‘’frame’ arguments to their advantage . When she was editor of social affairs at the BBC she got away with it but we have moved on.
ON CGT...I think you have changed the subject
...and you do love her Blairy - boy ,because you like the idea that one person can sit with a few books around and solve the worlds problems.I might almost add Cassilis and Polly sitting in a tree K I S S I N G
"so over a period of time you acquire a hierarchical set of trusts and reliances...That is why it is not necessary for me to read to Lisbon treaty to know what’s going on... This is a characteristically Conservative way of valuing and pooling experience"
Sorry Paul but that's nonsense - you've just offered up an eloquent and superficially impressive defence of what amounts to ignorance and prejudice. Would this "hierarchical set of trusts and reliances" be aided in its evolution by the odd Daily Mail leader column per chance?
Either pick apart the detail of what Polly's proposing or don't - to carp from the sidelines that 'she can't be trusted' isn't grown up debate and puts you in the same pot as the nutters on the far left who aren't interested in facts just ideology.
There are few things as profoundly un-conservative as being that wilfully blind to the fact....
I suspect you are making what may well be a quite valid statement of class superiority in your snipe at the Mail .If you prefer that you have opinions and I have prejudices I will in a sense agree .. .
Toynbee bores me but the limits of reason are interesting . I would might if I had the time attack it from a mystical point of view ,( Blake ? perhaps ) but the Earl of Rochester’s vicious attack is more fun( A Satire Against Mankind)
….Reason, an ignis fatuus in the mind,
Which, leaving light of nature, sense, behind,
Pathless and dangerous wandering ways it takes….etc.
Pyrrhonism as manifested in Conservative thinkers like Montaigne are important
“ It is easy enough to condemn a polity as imperfect since all things mortal are full of imperfection; it is easy enough to generate in a nation contempt for its ancient customs : no man has ever tried to do so without reaching his goal but for replacing the ones you have ruined with better ones , many who have tried to do so have come to grief”
Margaret Thatcher made the connection between old and new explicit in her description of the information reaching her fathers a shop via the pricing mechanism. The point is no-one actually knew all the facts . No-one could . Polly Toynbee thinks the man in Whitehall ‘does’ know best. ”
Accepting her right to a hearing and mode of discourse then is already a backward step .I would not assume that any strain of Western though somewhat at odds with the standard pack of enlightenment political theorists , is “superficial” C . .. I rather think the reverse but then I probably just got that from the Daily Mail( miaaaaow)
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