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Rally behind Tax Justice for 2009 Budget
Did you know that over 15 times as much money is lost through tax avoidance at the top than is lost to benefit fraud at the bottom? That's £15BN of public money lost to a powerful elite who can afford to pay tax advisers: so this is an urgent call to sign up to our Tax Justice Rally!
Whilst our government focus their energy on benefit fraud through its ‘We're Closing In' campaign it is the wealthiest and most privileged who are costing us the most and exacerbating inequality.
You only have to look at the recent behaviour of shamed ex-city banker ‘Fred the Shred' or the startling statistic that the wealthiest 1% own 21% of the nation's wealth to realise who the real cheats in today's society are.
If those at the top choose not to pay their fair share it has grave consequences for all of us: it effectively robs our society of the necessary funds that could end child poverty or the money needed to increase unemployment benefits and help alleviate the conditions which drive the most vulnerable in society to commit things such as benefit fraud in the first place.
With this in mind, in the run up to the 2009 Budget, we'll be calling on the Chancellor of the Exchequer to use every means at his disposal to close in on tax avoidance, close in on tax loop holes and deliver greater tax justice. We'll also be launching a dossier that further highlights and reveals the true extent of Personal Tax Avoidance in Britain today - keep a look out for that next week.
You can help by signing up to our Tax Justice Rally (held with The Fabian Society, The Other Tax Payer's Alliance and Tax Justice Network UK) which will officially launch our dossier and 7 days of pre-Budget campaigning: the rally will take place from 6pm on Wednesday 15 April at the TUC's Congress House, Great Russell Street, London. High-profile speakers include: Jon Cruddas MP, Kate Green of Child Poverty Action Group, Richard Murphy of Tax Justice Network UK, the TUC's Adam Lent, The Fabian Society's Tim Horton and we're delighted that Treasury Minister Angela Eagle MP has agreed to come along and listen to our concerns.
Let's work together to ensure there's No Turning Back to the pre-crash tax system and campaign for greater tax fairness for the many not the few in the 2009 Budget.
Sign up to the Tax Justice Rally
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Comments
on 12 April 2009, 4:47:30 PM
"Most legislation - still less Statutory Orders - are NOT considered in detail by anyone at any stage of the process, including the drafters, not least because the speed of the legislative process and the Whips' office deliberately excludes adequate opportunity for reflection and debate."
on 12 April 2009, 1:42:01 PM
I'll respond to your question with a seriousness it doesn't deserve. Yes, I'd include Brendan barber as a lobbyist, albeit as a very transparent and not a particularly successful operator. Working from light to darkness, I'd also include the members of Association of Professional Political Consultants, the crackpots of the Taxavoiders' Alliance, down the the murkiness of ad agencies who throw in a PR package for their clients, PR agencies, lawyers, accountants, hired hands in the Mother of Parliaments through to Uncle Tom Cobley and all.
"You seem not to understand that most tax breaks are put into law by politicians thinking (often erroneously) that they're going to encourage some pet project of theirs."
You certainly have a more naive view of the budgetary process (and the political process, more generally) than I do. Most legislation - still less Statutory Orders - are considered in detail by anyone at any stage of the process, including the drafters, not least because the speed of the legislative process and the Whips' office deliberately excludes adequate opportunity for reflection and debate. Why do you think the withdrawal of the 10% tax band was accepted so easily by the PLP and then came back to bite New Labour so hard? Why do you think this government's been able to get away with mortgaging the future and throwing money at the banks instead of sensibly placing them in administration to let the gamblers take their loss and, instead, focussing its efforts at demand management by taxing those with the ability to pay and tranferring the income to those most likely to spend: pensioners, the unemployed and sick, the disabled and their carers, and the working poor?
on 12 April 2009, 1:06:53 PM
Those paid lobbyists....those would be people like Brendan Barber at the TUC then, he who supports the research and development corporate tax credit then? That sort of thing?
Or Gordon Brown who, as Chancellor, would cook up a tax relief scheme at the drop of a hat?
Like long term capital gains tax at 10%?
You seem not to understand that most tax breaks are put into law by politicians thinking (often erroneously) that they're going to encourage some pet project of theirs.
on 11 April 2009, 10:47:16 PM
on 11 April 2009, 10:45:10 PM
Sadly, I think you have chosen to enhance your ignorance a little too well on the websites and blogs of the policy and numeracy free zombies of the wannabe right.
I've no doubt your mum and dad find this a matter of the deepest regret, and its no doubt a deep source of profound shame to your grandparents.
Your friends probably found you an embarrassment long ago.
And, if I were in your position, I'd try to master the history of the Peelites (or at least get your mum to buy you a comic about it) before you choose to make stupid remarks about my relationship to the pointyheaded neurotics of the SWP (and your mirror reflection in the political zombie stakes).
Part of the reason I have so much contempt for right drongos of your argumentative ilk, is that you have even less intellectual power than the most obtuse, amoeba brained New Labour parasite. And, the average SWPer at least understands the basic principle of causality, or, if not that, at least that such a thing exists, even if it is beyond the bounds of comprehension at this point in time.
Or you really may be Derek Draper or his unemployed mate Damian, or perhaps both, trying to fill in time because there is nothing you can usefully do to help man or beast so you might just as well annoy the rest of the world. Why not just ask Jacqui Smith for the names of a few films which may provide you with some basis to of comfort to ease the lonely nights?
on 11 April 2009, 9:17:37 PM
on 11 April 2009, 7:02:40 PM
And this is your idea of a source? And I'm expected got to round it up using on the assumption that any business larger than a street corner retailer pays corporation tax worth including in the calculations? You obviously subscribe to the Damian McBride/Derek Draper school of political spin. Be serious, please!
"Would that be the Guardian that made £300m of profit but thanks to using off-shore tax avoidance schemes managed to get the tax down to £-800,000 (yes, they got HMRC to pay them £800,000). Oh, but you must be talking about a totally different Guardian, one that employs honest journalists with integrity."
Strangely, both Marx and Hayek argued that truth will emerge from the forces of material corruption, for one from the dialectical confrontation between capital and the increasingly dispossessed, for the other from competition in the marketplace. Neither seems to have made much mark down your way, though.
on 11 April 2009, 4:52:40 PM
Well, I'd post a link, but the paranoia of the left knows little bounds, and links are banned here in Compassland. You'll have to use Google to find the piece in the Spectator by Fraser Nelson ("Labour planning new 45p top rate of tax") and the piece in the Independent by Hamish McRae ("Top-rate tax may not raise a penny"). They give the figures for income tax alone - 23% - but you'll need to add corporation tax included in the "wealth" figure to fully round it out.
"And, in the light of the Guardian series on individual and corporate tax avoidance"
Would that be the Guardian that made £300m of profit but thanks to using off-shore tax avoidance schemes managed to get the tax down to £-800,000 (yes, they got HMRC to pay them £800,000). Oh, but you must be talking about a totally different Guardian, one that employs honest journalists with integrity.
on 11 April 2009, 4:12:01 PM
No. It's an argument against the corruption of the legislative process by, amongst others, paid lobbyists. And, in the light of the Guardian series on individual and corporate tax avoidance, chance would be a very fine thing if this government were ever to become motivated enough to enforce the tax laws against wealthy individuals and powerful corporations which are in place.
on 11 April 2009, 3:39:47 PM
That's an argument against Parliamentary democracy, not one against people obeying the law as it is written.
on 11 April 2009, 3:35:26 PM
What is the source for this impressively dubious assertion?
"No, that's £15 billion that Parliament has deliberately decided not to collect by providing allowances and reliefs to encourage certain, to Parliament at least, desirable activities.
Do try to keep up will you?"
Parliament itself seems to have a very hard time keeping up with the activities of the paid lobbyists whose primary purpose - corruptly or not, but certainly not in the full light of day - is to influence the course and content of tax and other legislation by working to ensure their clients get as free a ride as possible. In this context, the concept of trying "to keep up" is oxymoronic as you can get.
Oh, and Stan, please can you explain the precise way you think that causality flows in this statement and how it relates to the way the world actually works: "Tell that to the genuine claimants who not only receive less than they might otherwise be paid, as a result of the fiddling that's going on..."
on 11 April 2009, 2:29:38 PM
The top 1% pay 40% of the nation's taxes. How much higher should that go before you consider it "fair"?
on 11 April 2009, 12:24:05 PM
No, that's £15 billion that Parliament has deliberately decided not to collect by providing allowances and reliefs to encourage certain, to Parliament at least, desirable activities.
Do try to keep up will you?
on 07 April 2009, 5:38:02 PM
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