Tim Worstall

At the ASI. Disagreeing with Cameron over “foreign aid”.

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What I want to know is the following: What is the number for foreign corporation tax paid for “large companies”. Here’s the background. Reuters has an analysis up arguing that large corporations (as HMRC defines them) are paying less tax than they used to while large corporation profits have risen over the past decade. I [...]

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Yes, I agree, I think that his Bill should indeed be passed into law: So what would I like someone to do? I’d like a General Anti-Tax Avoidance Principle to be included in UK law. Not the nonsensical apology of a general anti-abuse rule that the government is proposing but something like the Bill Michael [...]

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Those who will be subject to this rate of taxation are rent-seekers. No one can ‘earn’ that much otherwise. Addressing that rent-seeking behaviour is vital if society is to survive. In that case progressive tax on the rewards from rent-seeking is vital. It’s as simple as that. The imbalances that rent-seeking is creating, in wealth, [...]

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The hypocrometer pegged when Obama opined that putting armed guards in schools was not the answer to Newtowns. Barack and David send their children to Sidwell Friends School. Sidwell Friends employs 11 armed guards. Seriously. 11 armed guards. Not counting the Secret Service people-well armed, I assure you-that protect Obama’s children. Our kiddies, the kiddies [...]

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The Financial Services Authority has not launched a single enforcement action against any regulated business for failing to comply with its remuneration code since the rules were introduced three years ago. Err, if everyone is obeying the law then there don’t need to be any enforcement actions, do there? The code was designed to cut [...]

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A group of senior politicians in Brussels is to propose “second-class” EU status for Britain in a dramatic shift in thinking by the strongest supporters of a united Europe. They are to suggest that the UK should become an “associate member” under plans which would result in it staying in the EU’s single market but [...]

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Margaret Hodge, who has taken on companies such as Starbucks, Google and Amazon over tax avoidance, said that she had to take on her own relatives after an attempt six years ago to take Stemcor, the steel-trading company founded by her father and run by her brother, offshore. She said: “It would be perfectly legitimate. [...]

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Commuters bear brunt of new year fare rises And who should it be then? A commuter travelling from Canterbury to London will from Wednesday have to pay £4,812 for an annual standard class season ticket, an increase of £1,332 (38 per cent) since January 2008. The cost for thousands of season ticket holders journeying from [...]

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If so, which on this list will sue?

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John Bercow’s attempt to call time on Westminster’s hard-drinking culture was in tatters last night after plans for a total ‘no-alcohol’ policy for Commons staff were ditched. The Speaker has taken action to curb excessive drinking at the Commons after Labour MP Eric Joyce assaulted colleagues in a Westminster bar. Waiters are now told to [...]

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One of the most boring catfights in US political economy is over whether the Social Security trust fund really exists. Essentially, more has been taken in payroll taxes in the past than needed to be spent on social security in the past. That money was then spent by other arms of government. And a special [...]

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But of course smoking was different, wasn’t it? There’s no slippery slope leading to the same sorts of restrictions on other things at all: This month, the National Child Measurement Programme reported that one-third of children are overweight by the time they leave primary school. This should have the food industry’s attention. Instead, “big food” [...]

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At the ASI. IPPR and the Resolution Foundation can go boil their heads.

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France’s constitutional council has dealt a blow to beleaguered Socialist president François Hollande by rejecting the new 75% rate of income tax due to come into effect on Tuesday. Clearly the spirit of the law is that Parliament wants that 75% to be paid and so everyone should do so. But the Constitutional Council says [...]

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He came to the school I was at, Downside, once to give a little talk. Not all that surprising as a couple of his kids were there (leading to much fun in the Mail when Emma R-M was discovered to be deputy head boy. Not quite, she was female assistant to the head boy while [...]

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Crime falls 10% despite police cuts The government has reignited its war of words with the Police Federation by releasing new figures showing crime has fallen steeply in the past two years despite sharp reductions in police budgets. My immediate thought is that if there are fewer coppers reporting crimes then reported crime will fall. [...]

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At the ASI. If being able to see a tree where you live makes you happier then why not grant planning permission in forests?

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So the objective failure of free markets to deliver widespread wealth can only be answered by even freer markets. For it’s not this one, is it? Even the most casual of looks around the world will show that markets have done exactly that, delivered widespread wealth. North Korea, without them, is impoverished. China, when it [...]

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What do I mean by magic? Forget Merlin. Forget Potter. I mean the belief that there is ever a short cut out of the constituent limitations of our humanity. That there is a way, instantly, with the flick of a wand or a credit card, of changing ourselves from one thing to something else entirely. [...]

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