Laffer Curve....

[Paul Waine]

Some will enjoy this..... others may find it difficult to read.

In The Times, today.

Who has the political courage and skill to sell tax cuts for the rich?

Comment: Mark Littlewood, director-general of the Institute of Economic Affairs

However our departure from the European Union is finally resolved, the next prime minister will have to consider a longer-term, festering policy problem. Britain’s tax burden as a proportion of national income is at its highest for nearly half a century and our tax rulebook is the lengthiest and most complex in the western world. Although it is littered with endless loopholes, which are typically exploited by the wealthy, the slice of the government income contributed by high earners has been edging ever upwards.

The various candidates in the Tory leadership contest have put forward proposals to reduce at least one tax or another. Boris Johnson has suggested raising the threshold at which the 40p rate kicks in to £80,000. Sajid Javid would consider scrapping the top rate of 45p. Jeremy Hunt favours a substantial reduction in corporation tax to 12.5 per cent, putting us on a par with the Republic of Ireland. Dominic Raab has committed to a longer-term plan to cut the basic rate on income to just 15 per cent.

All of the pretenders to the Conservative crown are caught with a messaging problem linked to the contemporary fashion for judging the merits of a tax change by the particular cohorts who immediately benefit or suffer from it. A former cabinet minister implied to me last week that his greatest concern about the Johnson proposal was essentially presentational — it would give the impression that the party was more concerned with the reasonably well- remunerated than with those on low or average incomes. I also gather that Treasury discussions over the reform of stamp duty are heavily influenced not by considerations of its distortive and perverse economic effects, but by fears that any sensible reform could be shown on a bar chart to be of proportionately greater benefit to the relatively affluent.

Unless the next government can escape from the prison of requiring that any specific change in taxation can be shown to instantaneously benefit the poor more than the rich, we are likely to continue down the path of our tax system becoming ever more contrived, impenetrable and even failing to sensibly maximise government revenue.

The prevailing meme that the affluent must pay their “fair share” and those with the broader shoulders should be expected to carry a heavier burden conveniently and frustratingly ignores the question of exactly how heavy such a weight should be in order to be deemed optimal. The strong impression given is that whatever the prevailing burden on the rich actually amounts to, it should almost certainly be heavier.

Such a mentality unsurprisingly has led over recent years to the better off contributing more and more to the exchequer, both in cash terms and as a percentage of the state’s overall takings. The number of people paying the 40 per cent income tax rate has increased by nearly two million since the turn of the century and has approximately trebled since 1990. The top decile of earners now account for about 60 per cent of all income tax receipts, while the bottom half contribute less than 10 per cent between them. The super-successful — the highest 1 per cent of earners — now pay nearly 30 per cent of the income tax burden, almost three times as much as when the highest rate of tax was an eye-watering 83 per cent in the 1970s.

The economic evidence — however awkward for elected politicians to present — is that in many areas, we can probably increase state revenues and even the proportion of this revenue contributed by the wealthy if the government is actually willing to reduce headline rates of tax. In numerous areas, we are very likely on the “wrong side” of the Laffer curve. This simple but brilliant concept, pioneered by the American economist Arthur Laffer forty years ago, established that tax rates can often be so high that they dampen economic activity to such an extent that the money collected by the state would be enhanced if they simply had the courage to lower prevailing rates.

Laffer’s analysis has been borne out in recent years. Cuts in corporation tax — widely criticised as a “giveaway” to businesses — have led to greater returns to the inland revenue. Hikes in capital gains tax had exactly the opposite effect. The sad truth of our present tax regime is that much of it has been constructed to virtue-signal rather than to incentivise economic growth and properly fund public services.

Those competing to be the next prime minister have at least dipped their toes into the water of the tax debate, an area of policy largely neglected since the financial crisis. However, rather than simply debating each specific proposal, every candidate should be asked what, in broad terms, they think the optimal total tax take should be. It currently stands at about 38 per cent of national income. If, over the medium or longer term, the Tory leadership candidates would like to see this lowered to, say, 30 per cent, then it is almost impossible to see how that can be achieved without the tax burden on higher earners being reduced more substantially than for lower or average earners. A failure to grasp this nettle — and to honestly explain the rationale behind it — will mean we simply continue to fiddle with a broken and impenetrable taxation system rather than overhaul it.

Such a bold approach may even result in electoral dividends. Most voters may turn out to be more concerned about their own tax burden edging downwards than whether someone else’s has fallen by an even greater amount.

The protracted and agonising Brexit process has led to cynicism that we can have our cake and eat it. But on taxation we surely can. It just requires a shift away from being too concerned about exactly who pays what and, instead, a commitment to rewarding enterprise and productivity.

[Greenmile]

The Laffer Curve / trickle down theory / voodoo economics has been repeatedly debunked, but some right wingers just can’t let it go, since it gives them a justification to take (public services) from the poor and give (tax cuts) to the rich

[Imploding Turtle]

The Laffer curve proponents can **** right off. We've heard your bullshit before, and we fell for it. Just like we fell for trickle-down economics. **** off.
Close the loopholes. Make these ***** pay the taxes they are supposed to be paying, not just what they can't get out of paying. Maybe then we could afford to fund the social programs that their customers rely on to keep being their customers.

[HieronymousBoschHobs]

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... rich-funny" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

By Michael Burke, 27th June 2012

...

Listeners to the Today programme on Radio 4 on Wednesday were treated to a knockabout interview with the architect of the Laffer curve: a graph which purports to show that lower tax rates for the rich will lead to higher tax revenues.

It's also a theory which has been widely discredited, both on a theoretical level and in practice. Because with the Laffer curve – perhaps unusually for economics – we have a historical instance of it being implemented by a direct proponent. Laffer was an associate of the Reagan administration, which had a staged cut in the marginal higher rate of personal income tax from 70% to 28%. The effect on the budget deficit was also striking. Reagan doubled it to $155 billion and tripled government debt to more than $2trillion. His successor, Bush senior, was forced to raise taxes as the deficit doubled again.


Not all taxes were treated the same. Payroll taxes were increased. So taxes were cut for higher earners while workers paid more. Corporate and capital gains tax rates were also cut in an earlier outing for current "austerity" policies, the transfer of incomes from labour and the poor to capital and the rich.

The Laffer curve relies on the twin assumptions that the rich create the output in an economy and that they need incentives to choose idleness over work. But there is little evidence to support these hypotheses. On the contrary, economists from Adam Smith to Karl Marx have known that all value in an economy is created by labour. Those who labour are obliged to work in order to purchase the necessities of life.

The question is why such an utterly failed policy is now being revived by the BBC, the Murdoch press and the Tory party. If Reagan had not been constitutionally barred from running for a third term, he probably would have won the 1988 presidential election by a landslide. Our own neo-Reaganites and neo-Thatcherites are desperately unpopular, and imagine aggressive tax cuts might restore their own poll ratings, despite the unpopularity of the last budget, which cut the marginal rate of income tax from 50p to 45p.

What they have forgotten, and what accounted for Reagan's popularity, is that the US government's budget deficit was funded by borrowing from abroad, primarily from Japan. Nobody in the US was forced to pay for it. This created the famous "twin deficits" on both the government's budget and on the external accounts of the whole economy. Reagan was able to simultaneously cut taxes for the rich and massively increase military spending in a successful attempt to bankrupt the Soviet Union while living standards rose for the majority of the population as the US went from a lender of capital to the rest of the world to a borrower from it.

...

"Michael Burke works as an economic consultant. He was previously senior international economist with Citibank in London. "

...

[HieronymousBoschHobs]

Mark Littlewood, a man who is ideologically committed to shrinking the size of the state, writes "The economic evidence — however awkward for elected politicians to present — is that in many areas, we can probably increase state revenues and even the proportion of this revenue contributed by the wealthy if the government is actually willing to reduce headline rates of tax. "

http://www.igmchicago.org/surveys/laffer-curve" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

"About the IGM Economic Experts Panel
This panel explores the extent to which economists agree or disagree on major public policy issues. To assess such beliefs we assembled this panel of expert economists. Statistics teaches that a sample of (say) 40 opinions will be adequate to reflect a broader population if the sample is representative of that population."

...

Not a single one of these economists agrees with the claim that cutting taxes will raise tax revenue.


https://economistsview.typepad.com/econ ... urve.htmli" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

...

...Ed Lazear:

This is the Laffer curve issue. There is little (if any) evidence that rates exceed revenue-maximizing levels. See Mankiw, Feldstein.
Or David Autor:

Not aware of any evidence in recent history where tax cuts actually raise revenue. Sorry, Laffer.
Or Michael Greenstone:

All evidence that I'm aware of suggest that cutting tax rates "marginally" from their current levels would DECREASE revenues, even 5 yrs out
Or Kenneth Judd:

That did not happen in the past. No reason to think it would happen now.
Or Anil Kashyup:

May look plausible on a cocktail napkin (or at a cocktail party), but not true empirically in the US.
Or Pete Klenow:

Not enough time for capital to respond much (physical, human, technology), so it would require implausibly large labor supply elasticities.
Or Robert Hall

See previous question. In addition, few studies suggest we are already at the max of the Laffer curve, though we may be close.
Or Austan Goolsbee:

Moon landing was real. Evolution exists. Tax cuts lose revenue. The reasearch has shown this a thousand times. Enough already.
There are many people who have an interest in making you believe otherwise, but tax cuts are inconsistent with deficit reduction -- they make the deficit problem worse

...


Embarrassing from our newspaper of record.

[dsr]

This Laffer curve is obviously right to some extent. The top rate of tax when Denis Healey was Chancellor was 101%. When this was cut, it raised more money. And the Reagan example the other way is pretty extreme, cutting taxes down to 28% from 70%. They're both extreme examples.

Has it been tested in small numbers? Can we compare, while stripping out other factors like changing personal allowances, the effects of a 5% cut or rise?

[rob63]

This Laffer curve is obviously right to some extent. The top rate of tax when Denis Healey was Chancellor was 101%. When this was cut, it raised more money. And the Reagan example the other way is pretty extreme, cutting taxes down to 28% from 70%. They're both extreme examples.

Has it been tested in small numbers? Can we compare, while stripping out other factors like changing personal allowances, the effects of a 5% cut or rise?

Are you sure about 101%? Love to know how that works...... just looked it up, Healey had it at 83%

[Clarets4me]

Are you sure about 101%? Love to know how that works...... just looked it up, Healey had it at 83%

At one point, under the 1974-79 Labour Government, there was an extra 15% on " unearned income ", which caused the top rate in some circumstances to be 98% ... For a period under the Labour Government of 1964-70, around 1968 following the Devaluation crisis of 1967, anyone with investment income of over £15,000, paid a rate of 136% on each pound of income ....

https://www.income-tax.co.uk/history-of-income-tax/

[Hipper]

Surely there can be another explanation of 'the fact' that:

'the top decile of earners now account for about 60 per cent of all income tax receipts, while the bottom half contribute less than 10 per cent between them. The super-successful — the highest 1 per cent of earners — now pay nearly 30 per cent of the income tax burden, almost three times as much as when the highest rate of tax was an eye-watering 83 per cent in the 1970s':

Inequality.

[mdd2]

Whatever but the changes to taxation on pensions and pension contributions are causing havoc to the NHS and sorry to be elitist but the relatively high earning Consultants and GPs are voting with their feet and/or reducing their NHS workload or declining to do additional work to avoid massive tax bills.
Whatever curve that, is I know not, but what i do know is that almost out of the blue as a result of a 5 yearly increment in salary someone can get a big tax bill because of the rise in their theoretical pension pot as of course there is no pension pot in the NHS.
Some are being hit with a £30k tax bill, albeit as a one off and are having to borrow to pay it as at their stage in life they have little capital due to outgoings as is the case with most in their 40's and 50's
And of course this will hit the elderly and less well off who have more ill health and more need of the NHS.

[Colburn_Claret]

Taxation is a necessary evil
It's a very fine line making it fair and what seems fair probably varies, depending on which side of the fine line you sit.

I would say a bigger issue is not how we raise it, but how we spend it.

[dsr]

At one point, under the 1974-79 Labour Government, there was an extra 15% on " unearned income ", which caused the top rate in some circumstances to be 98% ... For a period under the Labour Government of 1964-70, around 1968 following the Devaluation crisis of 1967, anyone with investment income of over £15,000, paid a rate of 136% on each pound of income ....

https://www.income-tax.co.uk/history-of-income-tax/

And then for 1 year there was a retrospective "Super Tax" of 3% on unearned income (dividends, interest, etc.) so that top rate was 101%. In other words, if you had savings, you were better off keeping them under the bed rather than in the bank. And if you were inclined to run a business, better off stopping in bed.

[If it be your will]

.

[AndrewJB]

The Conferencee Board of Canada published research in 2011 that looked at the impact on growth of various mechanisms. Tax breaks to corporations and high earners were shown to have a positive Impact on growth only one sixth as that would of an equal increase in welfare payments to unemployed people. Government investment - especially in areas of economic deprivation - was also a much bigger driver in growth. Can’t look for this report right now, but I’ll here will be a link somewhere.

Beyond this, I can’t see why ethics should be put to a ne side. One hundred and twenty thousand additional deaths since 2010, when austerity began. And high earners are angling for another tax break?

[CrosspoolClarets]

The corporation tax issue is a fact - causation is not necessarily proven but we have raised more at lower rates than we did at higher rates.

That makes it worth trying again. If it works, great. If it doesn’t, reverse it.

Same with the top rate of income tax. If the overall tax take goes down, reconsider it, if it goes up, invest it in public services.

Boris is under pressure to explain how he will fund the £9bn tax giveaway. A better question would be how would he fund it if it fails to pay for itself by bringing in more tax through increased economic activity. This notion that each debit must have a credit is daft. In the public sector we have “invest to save” schemes which only pay back later, but pay back handsomely when they do. It is the same here.

Economists are very good at debating Laffer curve merits and things, but at times they are best just shutting up and letting those who genuinely add value to our society make some bold decisions, like Boris is now (and to be fair, what Corbyn suggests he will do too).

[dsr]

One hundred and twenty thousand additional deaths since 2010, when austerity began. And high earners are angling for another tax break?

That needs a link, and an explanation of what "additional deaths" means.

[If it be your will]

.

[mdd2]

One hundred and twenty thousand additional deaths since 2010, when austerity began. And high earners are angling for another tax break?[/quote]

And here's me thinking that the death rate was falling
Aged SMR 2007 Men 1299/100,000 women 939/100000
2016 Men 1128/100,000 women 838/100000
2017 Men 1124/100000 women 837/100000
I will grant you that projected cohort life expectancy has fallen for the first time in the most recent publications but a large part of that is due to
the new disease of poverty-obesity and there are large discrepancies in LE based upon income despite a free NHS which begs the question is it poverty of pocket or poverty of mind (education) that is responsible.

[If it be your will]

.

[AndrewJB]

That needs a link, and an explanation of what "additional deaths" means.

https://fullfact.org/health/austerity-1 ... gKcxfD_BwE" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I first read it in the Guardian, so hopefully this will provide a wider accounting of how the figure was arrived at, and how accurate it is.

[aggi]

Who'd have thought that the Laffer Curve would be such a hot topic on a football messageboard?

Personally I think it is somewhat true for very large changes in tax rates but not so much for smaller ones.

I'd agree that increasing taxes by 5% may not give a 5% increase in tax revenue but it does result in an increase in tax revenue. Avoidance measures aren't necessarily straight-forward. Generally you've got to pay someone to do it, invest time in it, possibly tie your money up so it can't be accessed, etc. Some will do them but many won't unless the impact is huge.

One thing to note with taxes is that they're a bit like season ticket prices. It's easy to cut them but it's very difficult to put them back up.

[AndrewJB]

I'd like to read that report.

This is one area your Green Party has disappointed. I would love to see them argue passionately for a 'zero growth' policy. Explain that growth has reached its sustainable limits and should be stopped (annual economic growth of 3% doubles the size of the economy every 20 years). Explain that the way to improve living standards for most is not an ever-expanding economy in the hope a few crumbs fall off the table, but more redistribution. Share the same sized pie up more equally.

They very nearly went down that road when they were packed full of (otherwise homeless) left-wingers in the Blair/Brown/Miliband era. It looks like most left-wing Greens deserted them for Labour when Corbyn came to the fore, and the Green Party is slipping back into a neoliberal tendency of 'put taxes up on fossil fuels' so the poor are priced out of them.

On the other hand, the deserting Greens have massively influenced Labour policy. On environmental issues, Labour are close to where the Greens are these days.

If I find a link to the report I'll post it. As a Green member I'm not anti-growth, but to me growth could be positive and negative. Members seem to have a wide range of views, and a few have liked my idea of a wealth ceiling (for example), Others have called it "too communistic" Having said this, I haven't met many who espouse neo liberal ideas, though I don't doubt they exist.

[dsr]

https://fullfact.org/health/austerity-1 ... gKcxfD_BwE

I first read it in the Guardian, so hopefully this will provide a wider accounting of how the figure was arrived at, and how accurate it is.

Certainly not accurate.

They have used actual death statistics from 2010 to 2014 and concluded that 45,000 people (9,000 per year) were dead who would have been alive if government spending had been higher. Well, I don't know whether that is accurate or not, but at least it's based on actual data.

Then, because they didn't know how many deaths there were in 2015-17, they made an estimate based on the data they had for 2010-14. Then they estimated how many people should have died between 2015-17 based on the figures up to 2009, and compared the two estimates, and concluded that it was 75,000 (25,000 per year). That isn't statistics, that's weather forecasting.

[CrosspoolClarets]

(laughing): No! Let's do the opposite experiment this time! Let's put taxes up for the high earners and large corporations. If it works and increases tax revenues, great, invest it in public services. If it doesn't, reverse it.

We've carried out your experiment loads of times in the last 40 years, only for it to be shown it doesn't work! (And please don't use a single example over a brief period, in one single tax and say 'Look! It works!", because that would be an absolute nonsense!)

This page summarises the issues quite well.

https://www.economicshelp.org/blog/2134 ... e-revenue/

Basically, the conclusion is that cutting CT makes tax revenue go up - as long as other countries don’t follow suit and that it leads to additional investment in the UK. I think that’s fair. The reverse is probably also true - your rise may well raise some cash, as long as companies don’t jump ship due to it (which I think would happen).

[Hipper]

As far as companies go the best way to raise taxes is to stop the existence of tax havens.

[Paul Waine]

There is no objective evidence the Laffer Curve is real. This is why the IFS, IMF, Financial Times, and any neutral body or economist does not believe it to be real (at least not when dealing with any normal rates of tax). The FT recently asked Arthur Laffer himself where the evidence was for his curve. Knowing he couldn't fob them off with silly trinkets about corporation tax receipts over a 5-year spell in the UK, trinkets that could easily be explained away, he was only able to cite Mongolia (he tried Reagan, but it fell flat). The IEA is a lobby group funded by very wealthy individuals and giant corporations wanting to pay less tax.

The better question is why is it not real? It stands to reason that higher tax rates could crimp innovation, entrepreneurial activity and thus dampen growth. High taxes could also increase motivation for tax evasion. Thus, overall, total tax receipts could fall as tax rates increase. The Laffer Curve makes sense. (Though the theory requires substantial increases in growth to make up for the lower tax rates - this is where it struggles to find supporting evidence.)

There is also a competing, total opposite theory: this says that increasing tax rates increases total tax receipts over and above what you would expect from the tax rises themselves. It goes like this: Higher taxes pay for better schools, hospitals, police, upkeep of roads, infrastructure etc. All the things that lead to a better educated, healthier, safer population operating in less chaotic circumstances. A well funded HMRC is also more able to collect taxes and reduce evasion. Over the long term, therefore, higher taxes actually increase growth. Higher tax rates increase tax receipts twice - due to higher tax rates and a larger economy.

Can I find persuasive objective evidence supporting this latter theory? No. But it stands to reason every bit as much as the Laffer theory does. I just wish Laffer proponents would accept they cannot find persuasive evidence for their theory either. Maybe the two effects cancel each other out, and overall if you increase tax rates you get higher tax receipts, but not explosively so. As simple as that, really.

Thanks, iibyw, a good argument for an alternative point of view.

I agree that the IEA is on the "right" of the argument. I think it's fair to say that a great many on the other side are on the "left."

I'm sure both you and I can agree that education is critical to a strong economy - and a strong economy is required to generate the taxes the state requires to spend to support the population and invest in the economy.

I was surprised to read that the IEA quoted CT cuts as evidence of the Laffer curve. There's too much noise in the system from the financial crisis, when most profits crashed and losses were suffered and these losses offset against future CT obligations. Similarly, can we isolate the impact of QE?

When I was growing up there would be a report almost every week about the "brain drain" i.e. "smart" people leaving the country to earn their living elsewhere. Often this was put down to the higher standard of living that was available in the country these people moved to - and tax rates were one of the reasons, though not the only one, why there were better opportunities elsewhere.

I don't know enough about the US tax system. I know that for at least the last 20-30 years, if you are a US citizen you have to pay US income tax, wherever you live and work. So, an American working in London will still pay US taxes - in addition to the UK taxes they are due to pay. Of course, there are offsets where the taxes are comparable. I find it a little difficult to align Laffer's "curve drawn on a napkin" with the US system, if it was the same when he drew his curve as it is today. If you can "escape" a country's tax system by moving to another country, then I can see the argument that lowering taxes can attract people to return - and this may be a big part of the growth in UK tax receipts in Maggie Thatcher's time. If US citizen moving outside the US doesn't "escape" the US tax system, I guess Laffer was relying on the entreprenurial "animal spirits" being triggered by the incentive of keeping more of what you earn for yourself.

[bfcjg]

Read all the above and not one of them is as usefull as the Todmorden curve.

[Imploding Turtle]

As far as companies go the best way to raise taxes is to stop the existence of tax havens.

And close loopholes that make some tax evasion legal.

[dsr]

And close loopholes that make some tax evasion legal.

Tax evasion is always illegal, by definition. Use of loopholes to avoid paying tax is tax avoidance.

[Imploding Turtle]

Tax evasion is always illegal, by definition. Use of loopholes to avoid paying tax is tax avoidance.

Yes. I know what tax avoidance is, thanks. I'm not a moron. It's a legal form of tax evasion, which is why, if you notice, i said "some" tax evasion.

[dsr]

Yes. I know what tax avoidance is, thanks. I'm not a moron. It's a legal form of tax evasion, which is why, if you notice, i said "some" tax evasion.

Yes, Humpty. I suppose coming from someone who thinks the government is subsidising Asda by not charging VAT on food, then there is no reason at all why you shouldn't use a different definition of tax evasion to everyone else.

BTW, it's possible to not know the difference between tax evasion and tax avoidance without being a moron. I wouldn't assume that you were a moron if you didn't know the difference, and I wouldn't assume anyone else was a moron because they didn't know the difference, and I won't asssume that you're a moron because you do know the difference but choose to ignore it.

If I assume you're a moron, it won't be for that reason. And being infinitely more polite than you are, I wouldn't let such a thought appear on a public forum.

[rob63]

At one point, under the 1974-79 Labour Government, there was an extra 15% on " unearned income ", which caused the top rate in some circumstances to be 98% ... For a period under the Labour Government of 1964-70, around 1968 following the Devaluation crisis of 1967, anyone with investment income of over £15,000, paid a rate of 136% on each pound of income ....

https://www.income-tax.co.uk/history-of-income-tax/

I'll have a look, thanks for the info.

[Imploding Turtle]

Yes, Humpty. I suppose coming from someone who thinks the government is subsidising Asda by not charging VAT on food, then there is no reason at all why you shouldn't use a different definition of tax evasion to everyone else.
...

Just making it up as you go along over there in your little world, aren't you?

[dsr]

Just making it up as you go along over there in your little world, aren't you?

Are you saying that the government is NOT providing subsidies on books, food, childrens' clothes, and domestic fuel, simply by charging less tax than they do on other stuff?

[Imploding Turtle]

Are you saying that the government is NOT providing subsidies on books, food, childrens' clothes, and domestic fuel, simply by charging less tax than they do on other stuff?

I've no problem with the government subsidising consumers on life's essentials. Why would you think I have? Oh right, you don't think I have, you just want to pretend to think i have so that you can spread the idea that I have.

[dsr]

I've no problem with the government subsidising consumers on life's essentials. Why would you think I have? Oh right, you don't think I have, you just want to pretend to think i have so that you can spread the idea that I have.

The problem with you using words to mean what you want them to mean, instead of what the rest of the world believes them to mean, is that so often what you say makes no sense. I have no objection to you believing in the principle of government subsidy of food; I just thing it's funny that you believe that by not charging tax on it, they are subsidising it.

After all, I don't charge tax on your food either. But I wouldn't claim to be subsidising you.

[Rowls]

Yes. I know what tax avoidance is, thanks. I'm not a moron. It's a legal form of tax evasion, which is why, if you notice, i said "some" tax evasion.

I've liked this post for the sheer chutzpah and gumption of it all.

Unusually brilliant in its double-think, even for you.

[Imploding Turtle]

The problem with you using words to mean what you want them to mean, instead of what the rest of the world believes them to mean, is that so often what you say makes no sense. I have no objection to you believing in the principle of government subsidy of food; I just thing it's funny that you believe that by not charging tax on it, they are subsidising it.

After all, I don't charge tax on your food either. But I wouldn't claim to be subsidising you.

Do you tax me on anything else? Nope. Therefore you're not subsidising anything by taxing me less on something.

The literal definition of a subsidy cites lower-than-normal taxation on a product.

Here:


What is a Subsidy
A subsidy is a benefit given to an individual, business or institution, usually by the government. It is usually in the form of a cash payment or a tax reduction. The subsidy is typically given to remove some type of burden, and it is often considered to be in the overall interest of the public, given to promote a social good or an economic policy.

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/subsidy.asp" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Imploding Turtle]

I've liked this post for the sheer chutzpah and gumption of it all.

Unusually brilliant in its double-think, even for you.

You're just saying words you don't know the meaning of. Know how i know? Because you won't explain your opinion.

Please explain your opinion that what I said was "double-speak".

[Rowls]

You're just saying words you don't know the meaning of. Know how i know? Because you won't explain your opinion.

Please explain your opinion that what I said was "double-speak".

Here's some help with a few of the words you might have struggled with (definitions from your friend, Google):

Cutzpah: "extreme self-confidence or audacity (usually used approvingly)"
Gumption: "shrewd or spirited initiative and resourcefulness"
Double-think**: "the acceptance of contrary opinions or beliefs at the same time, especially as a result of political indoctrination"

I'm as prone to a Malaprop as anyone else out there but these words were all apposite and elucidated my thoughts with precision. Happy to help you understand though.

** note that I used the word "double-think", not "double-speak" as you incorrectly wrote. These two phrases have slightly different meanings.

[Imploding Turtle]

Here's some help with a few of the words you might have struggled with (definitions from your friend, Google):

Cutzpah: "extreme self-confidence or audacity (usually used approvingly)"
Gumption: "shrewd or spirited initiative and resourcefulness"
Double-think**: "the acceptance of contrary opinions or beliefs at the same time, especially as a result of political indoctrination"

I'm as prone to a Malaprop as anyone else out there but these words were all apposite and elucidated my thoughts with precision. Happy to help you understand though.

** note that I used the word "double-think", not "double-speak" as you incorrectly wrote. These two phrases have slightly different meanings.

I also not that you still didn't explain how I am guilty of double-think. As predicted.

[Taffy on the wing]

https://fullfact.org/health/austerity-1 ... gKcxfD_BwE

I first read it in the Guardian, so hopefully this will provide a wider accounting of how the figure was arrived at, and how accurate it is.

You're wasting your time!...DSR won't bother to read it, he can't be bothered with "facts".
If it's not in the Daily Mail...it's not true!

[Hipper]

Oh dear, here we go again. An interesting thread damaged by squabbling.

IT posts something and he is attacked. I have to say on this occasion IT has done nothing wrong and it is dsr and Rowls that have done the damage. Why?

[Burnley Ace]

Oh dear, here we go again. An interesting thread damaged by squabbling.

IT posts something and he is attacked. I have to say on this occasion IT has done nothing wrong and it is dsr and Rowls that have done the damage. Why?

It was his deliberately provocative use of "some tax evasion legal" hoping to get a response (which he did) pointing out the well known distinction between evasion and avoidance. Is an ISA a loophole? Is a pension a loophole?

Taxing companies in the country that they generate the revenue/profits and stopping the accounting transfer to low tax countries would make a difference.

[dsr]

You're wasting your time!...DSR won't bother to read it, he can't be bothered with "facts".
If it's not in the Daily Mail...it's not true!

That is a spectacular number of mistakes for such a short post. Primarily (and ironically) you claim I won't be bothered to read it even though post 23 on this thread proves that I have read it. (Though obviously I was wasting my time because you didn't bother to read it, being unbothered by other people's comments).

And I don't read the Daily Mail, except in the odd link if there's no paywall.

[Hipper]

It was his deliberately provocative use of "some tax evasion legal" hoping to get a response (which he did) pointing out the well known distinction between evasion and avoidance. Is an ISA a loophole? Is a pension a loophole?

Well, in my innocence I thought I knew exactly what he meant but if some see it as 'provocative... hoping to get a response' why do they rise to the bait?

[Imploding Turtle]

"Thanks for helping us scam billions upon billions out of taxpayers by giving us a bullshit excuse to lower taxes on me, my mates and the people that fund my party. Here, have a medal to show our appreciation."

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white- ... d_nn_tw_ma" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;