Equally, I am not sure that a corrupt plutocracy, based on populism and privilege is the right way. But just because that is what the Conservative party represents to me, doesn’t make it a fair or accurate representation of your position.









COVID has been scary because of the virus killing people. We had political leadership deeply ill suited to the task (and yes, Corbyn would have been bad too), but I’d still take that over a focus on libertarianism under these specific circumstances.



Greater freedoms, we’d agree in principle but we’re probably thinking about different freedoms on something like Brexit. You might celebrate the national freedom to diverge from EU regulations, whereas I might regret the loss of personal freedom to live and work in the EU.

Personal freedoms for me are - having who I want in my house and garden, being able to visit my parents when it suits us both, being able to travel where and when I want, being able to have physical contact with another person who is happy to have physical contact with me, being able to exercise more than once a day etc. these were all basic human rights that the government decided we were grown up enough to manage and banned. I have to wear a mask in certain circumstances - there is very little evidence to suggest they actually help etc.



How much wealth is created by mates of Boris very little - whilst its far from ideal it isn't a game changer in bigger scheme of things. Corbyn was going to repeal all the union legislation to accommodate his union funders - that would have had significant impact on everyday working life.

Oh dear

You do know that I've been a company director for over 25 years and own my business dont you ??



Just because I believe in people paying their taxes, based on their level of income and not ducking, diving and avoiding their share, doesn't make me a communist or loony leftie.



Some of us have a strong sense of equality and social responsibility and are not driven by GREED

I think most people think like you in respect of people paying their way - at the top end the government is taking close to 50% of people's earnings same as Germany & France higher than the US, Japan - The top 1% pay 30% of all the IT take, how much more do you think is equitable?



The tax dodgers are few in the true scheme of events and it is primarily international businesses where the loopholes appear - so unless you are prepared have one taxation system across the world there will always be challenges.

Well, in a highly globalised economy, a global taxation policy wouldn't be an unreasonable proposal. IMO, the answer isn't necessarily a higher rate of taxation, but a fairer system of taxation. For example, you can move money anywhere you want in order to avoid tax, however, you can't move customers. So instead of taxing companies based on where the money is, tax them based on where their customers are. For example, If Amazon make £100m in profits in a year, and 10% of their customers are based in the UK, then Amazon would be required to pay tax on £10m at the UK rates of taxation.



Something like this wouldn't be that difficult to implement, it's just the political will is lacking, especially in this country where providing access to our offshore tax havens is one of the most appealing aspects of our economy to 'investors', and in many ways props it up.

Your idea sounds great on the face of things.

However, business is not straight forward, especially for companies trading and with bases in different countries.

For instance, if you had a base in the UK and one in the USA and one of these businesses was losing money, with the other making a reasonable return, would you allow that company to mitigate it's losses in the other country and referring this to your example of Amazon, how would you allow them to offset investment costs in new territories against well established bases elsewhere.

As I said, far from straightforward and where would you go with businesses that relied on their sister companies as far as manufacture was concerned. Say a car manufacturer, pulling in components from multiple parts of the company to manufacture vehicles in a particular country.

Where should they take any profit and where should they pay their tax ?

If you base it on total global profits for the company overall, it wouldn't matter if the company had bases in different countries. The only factors are the total global profit and the percentage of the company's customer base in each country.

Nice idea.

However, the Americans are already kicking up a stink at a potential 1% levy for on line sales in the UK.

There isn't a hope in hell of them sacrificing potential tax contributions form some of their US based global companies.

Not a chance - say you are a big Pharma and all your R&D is in the UK - these costs can be billions so how do you correctly redistribute those costs to accurately reflect them in the cost of the drugs - accrual concept for those accountants amongst us? When drugs go in to manufacture the profits are huge so the profitability looks great but you must include the development costs to get a true reflection. Transfer pricing is a very tricky subject and get the correct balance is an unenviable task.

So is moving money through a web of 100s of shell companies in order to avoid tax and launder money, yet it's at the heart of our current financial system, and companies bend over backwards to do it.

There are things we can do to make our financial system fairer without raising taxes, it all comes down to political will. Sadly, the politicians are as culpable as the bankers, accountants and criminals that perpetuate this system.

There are a minority of legitimate businesses that behave in the way you suggest - it is expensive and is not without risk. Illegal businesses are doing this stuff all the time - their profits are huge and they have to afford the skills required to make these actions pay.



If all you were dealing with were internal companies I would agree - unfortunately that is not the case and it is these bigger international companies who stand to gain most from internal shifting of costs. Our needs as a nation are not the same as say Germany or Japan so to deliver what is a very reasonable suggestion all would need to be aligned and that will never be the case. Even in the UK - Guernsey, Jersey and the Isle of Man all have different tax regimes.

Its everywhere though ,take your average construction site ,90% will be self employed working for the same companies using ir35 or limited company status ,its all tax avoidance

Your small to medium company owners will use the most tax efficient means possible ,ie low weekly wage with dividends paid and taxed at corporation tax levels