Third, poll after poll shows overwhelming public support for a tax on bankers’ bonuses; a mansion tax on multimillion-pound properties; a windfall levy on the oil and utility companies; a Robin Hood tax on financial transactions; and a one-off wealth tax of 20% on the richest 10% of households (which would raise a whopping £800bn and, according to YouGov, is backed by three out of four voters).

Increasing taxes on the rich to help reduce the deficit isn’t “class warfare”,

No, no Mehdi, that’s not class warfare at all.

We know that the average wealth of the top 10% of households is £850,000. That’s property, private pension plans, the lot. What you’re in fact asking is that just about anyone with a decent house in the SE and a pension needs to stump up £170,000 in cash.

No, not class warfare at all that, nothing like it.

Under UK tax rules, any non-resident athlete performing in Britain is subject to income tax on both their appearance fee and any associated worldwide endorsement payments. However, Danny Alexander, chief secretary to the Treasury, said the Government has decided to waive the rule to attract the best talent to the Games.

It is not the first time the tax break has been granted. Competitors at this year’s Olympics have been exempted, as were the footballers at last year’s Champion’s League final at Wembley.

“Tax provides the funding to run the country: hospitals, schools and everything else,” he says. “Every time someone pays cash in order not to pay VAT, the nation gets diddled.”

The nation is not the government, the nation is not the government finances.

The nation contains within it the government, of course, contains the government finances as a subsidiary part of said nation.

So it is true to say that tax evasion diddles the government, diddles the government finances, but not that it diddles the nation. For tax evaded gets used or spent somewhere else in said nation, by another part of said nation. Yes a builder having a bevvy off a non-taxed transaction is indeed still part of the nation. It isn’t lost to the nation at all: only to the government finances.

Which, as above, is not the same thing as the nation at all.

Actually, you need to be even braver than this. And steal a real political march on those to the left of you.

Annouce that the minimum wage, full time, full year, is to be the new personal allowance. One changes, both change.

This is just and right: if it is immoral that someone earns less than x then it is immoral that someone earning less than x is taxed.

It also entirely kills the living wage argument. For the difference between the minimum wage and the living wage, post tax, is almost entirely the tax and NI that people pay on the minimum wage.

And then there’s still an aspiration to go for: raising the NI limit to being the same as the income tax personal allowance.

To pay for this? Lower the qualifying income for the 40% tax bracket.

Without doing the calculations I would expect that you could do this leaving post tax incomes at that current 40% limit equal to today’s, higher taxes for those over it, lower for those under it.

Even if you cannot, yes, I do think making the top 10% to 15% of income earners (heck I’d support the top 50% paying more so that people working part time on min wage pay no tax) pay more tax so that the poor pay no tax is a good idea.

That treasure trove is the $3.1tn of tax, equivalent to 5.1% of global GDP, which according to international campaign group Tax Justice Network is illegally evaded in 145 countries, covering 98.2% of the world’s population.

That’s Ritchie’s report that is.

The majority of these flows are washed through tax havens. These secrecy jurisdictions act as cover from international tax authorities. Disturbingly, the obstacles placed by the global financial system that would allow individual countries to track down and repatriate this cash are prohibitively burdensome. This is why a new age of financial transparency and accountability is required. Five key reforms would lay the foundations for this:

And no, Ritchie’s report shows no such thing.

Let us, for a moment, assume Ritchie’s report is correct (and for once I’ve no problem with his basic methodology although I do of course with the conclusions he draws).

What he’s shown is that there’s a largish grey economy in many countries. And this grey economy ain’t people fooling around in tax havens. It’s the builder doing a job for cash, VAT off. Dozen eggs at the farm, no receipt.

This grey economy that Ritchie has measured just isn’t all about offshore at all. Tax avoidance might be, the black economy of illegal activities, the drugs etc, might well be, but this grey economy that is being measured here is pretty much a domestic phenomenon in each and every country.

So, however much you want to collect this tax, however much you want to get the tax avoidace industry, I’m sorry, but you’re spouting bollocks when you use this report to call for closing down offshore.

They’re just not related.

One possible answer is that Mr. Murphy can indeed pay higher taxes voluntarily simply by sending a cheque to the Treasury.

So set the statutory rates at what I think acceptable and let those who wish to pay more do so.

The point is this: we will always have big deficits as long as tax policy is radically different from the post-second world war average until about 1981. And Republicans now want to cut taxes, mainly on the wealthy, even further. So the GOP’s moaning about the deficit has no credibility whatever to anyone who knows budgets. But most people, and most reporters, don’t know that during the Eisenhower administration, the top marginal rate was 91%, and that it was 70% for the following two decades or so, and that capital gains (which accrue overwhelmingly to the rich) were usually taxed as ordinary income. That lack of perspective distorts a whole range of popular assumptions about social equity now versus, say, the 1950s.

Spot what he left out?

Yup, the brackets. That 91% kicked in at about $1.9 million in current dollars. Not the over $250k which is said to be “rich” now.

Oh, and, of course, it was that well known rightist Republican JFK who pointed out that such rates were counterproductive, lowered them and saw an increase in revenue collected (well, he didn’t actually see it as a grassy knoll shot him but his successor did).

Plus, of course, he’s making the usual Anglo-Lefty mistake of thinking that you can pay for big government by taxing the rich. You can’t, to pay for big government you need to have a broad based consumption tax. Otherwise you’ll kill economic growth.

Interesting point of the day. The US tax system is more progressive than that of most other OECD countries.

While the Institute of Fiscal Studies has argued that the 50pc top rate of income tax does not raise much revenue after increased avoidance is taken into account, the new HMRC figures indicate otherwise.

They may also suggest one reason why the Government has recently put plans to scrap the top rate on hold.

Err, no, we don’t actually know yet.

About 5m people have yet to file self-assessment tax returns.

And that’s why.

We know absolutely that some people brought forward income from the first year of the 50 p rate to the last year of the 40 p one. Sting, for example, took a £10 million dividend from his management company in that last 40 p year.

What we don’t know is how many people took how much money in that manner. Something we won’t in fact know until those 5 million tax forms are filed and evaluated. For those 5 million forms are for the first year of the 50p.

It is possible (but of course not certain) that we will see a fall in income from the previous year and thus a fall in tax revenues from the previous year. As the effects of that bringing forward of income fall out of the calculations.

Now, whether or not the 50 p rate raises money or not depends upon those forms. Which is going to be interesting to find out.

But what is truly stupid, entirely insane, is to be making the decision about the 50 p rate before those forms are filed and evaluated so that we find out whether the rate raises tax revenues or not.

My bet is that it doesn’t, but I’m just as eager as everyone else to find out whether I’m right or not.

Income tax payments hit record high of £153bn
Income tax receipts hit an all-time high of more than £153bn last year, with VAT and most drink and tobacco duties also reaching new peaks, according to HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC).

Isn’t it a surprise?

With inflation at 5% or so nominal tax paid rises.

Who would have thought it, eh?

His comments follow the revelation that Barclays has stockpiled billions of pounds of “losses” to reduce future tax bills, despite not having made a loss at group level for over a decade. They also come shortly after the pledge by Bob Diamond, Barclays’ chief executive, for “banks to be better citizens”.

He then goes on to repeat the nonsense he spouted yesterday.

I mean seriously, what the hell is this with ” ” around losses?

As an example: I’ve no idea about the Telegraph’s finances but I’m sure that there are some parts of the group that make losses, other parts that make profits. You get to offset one against the other. That’s certainly true at the Guardian Media Group, is it not?

However, when you start going over tax jurisdiction boundaries then it’s not quite so simple. You don’t get to say well, we made a loss in Spain therefore the tax on our UK business is reduced. The loss in Spain gets “warehoused” until you’re making a profit in Spain against which you can offset those previous losses.

So it’s entirely obvious that you can have losses in an international group, even while having overall profits…..and thus tax credits in places even while having overall profits.

So what is Aldrick doing? Is this simply that he’s got the wrong end of the stick? Or is he being told to write this nonsense?

You can also get some interesting information about progressivity from the two charts. A rough measure of that is the difference in the (average) tax rate shown on the two charts. A bigger difference shows a more progressive tax system:

• U.K.: 22.3%
• Italy: 21.1%
• America: 20.7%
• Canada: 20.1%
• Japan: 18.8%
• Germany: 16.6%
• France: 16.2%
• Russia: 0%

Not surprisingly, England tops the list: that’s why all their rock, movie, and sports stars live in other countries.

Leave aside the Yank’s inability to distinguish between the UK and England (although damn, this one should know better, he used to busk on the London Underground).

The difference in average tax rate between low earners and high earners is higher in the UK than in the other countries. We have a more progressive income tax system.

Doesn’t seem to do us all that much good on the inequality front though, does it? So, err, maybe a progressive income tax isn’t the solution to income inequality?

L x s – (1-L) x S > C

But fairness cuts both ways. Today’s report on the tax leniency shown by the Revenue towards big corporations indicates that toughness towards the poor is not replicated by toughness towards the rich. The estimate was of some £25bn in taxes gone missing, the bulk of it concealed by an insistence on “commercial confidentiality”, otherwise known as incompetent secrecy.

You wouldn’t have let the most junior cub reporter get away with that mangling of the truth.

There is £25 billion of tax which may or may not be due. Which is in the system for it to be decided, possibly by the courts, as to whether it is due or not.

What rather grates is that Jenkins is a great civil libertarian: he does not say that as and when the State accuses us of something we should just go “It’s a fair cop Guv’”.

He says that we have a system to decide these things, the presumption of innocence, a court system, hearings, sight of the evidence and even the ability to say “Err, no, you’re wrong even if you are a bureaucrat”.

Vodaphone paid just £1.25bn towards a tax bill that should have been some £6bn.

No, it didn’t.

I’m really looking forward to the NAO report. I think this lie has gone on long enough, hasn’t it?

The permanent secretary has already said he will retire, but the rot at the top reaches beyond one individual. The priority must be to bring in non-executive directors who can speak for taxpayers, workers and civil society and challenge those of the over-represented voice of the business world – and make sure it pays its dues.

Prem and Ritchie I think, don’t you?

Actually, I think I’d like to see that happen too. Reading the minutes (because of course they would all be terribly transparent, wouldn’t they) would be a source of endless amusement.

What do you mean that the amount of tax I think they should pay isn’t what the law says they should pay?

I have particularly liked the way they go on about how HMRC must be independent, seen to be independent and impartial, then insist that HMRC shouldn’t keep the tax matters of individuals (personal or corporate) confidential from politicians.

Politicians who would, never, ever, be anything less than entirely impartial when in possession of detailed information about the tax affairs of an individual (whether corporate or personal).

Imagine, as an example, what Chuka Baby would do if he had access to the details of bank taxation. Actually, no need, given the way he lied/dissembled/completely misunderstood for political grandstanding reasons when he was told about Barclay’s corporate taxation payments.

We are particularly uneasy about the blanket confidentiality applied to cases raising governance concerns or where mistakes were made in reaching settlements, because we are unable to scrutinise what went wrong in these cases. Details of some of these cases only came to our attention because they appeared in the media. It is deplorable that we received more information from the media and from a whistleblower than from the Department itself.

With reference to the Vodafone case the only original media source was Private Eye. Everyone else (yes, Ritchie and I included) is a secondary source, trying to parse what the hell they meant.

And what they did do was simply ignore the impact of the Cadbury case on CFC laws. Vodafone provided for UK tax up to the decision in Cadbury. Cadbury made it quite clear that the then HMRC interpretation of CFC was not valid. Thus provisioning stopped.

The numbers the PAC are using, bandying about £6 billion, £ 8 billion, stem from this basic mistake of believing Private Eye. Not realising that the law was changed by that court decision. I have had confirmation directly from a member of the PAC on this point.

In one case, we sought information on the details of a settlement in which an error had been made with the effect that the company concerned did not have to pay interest due on its tax liability. The C&AG told us that this resulted in a loss of up to £8 million in interest forgone. We have since received evidence from a whistleblower that the total value of interest payable in respect of this particular settlement could be as high as £20 million.

Note the very precise wording there.

The admission that £8 million in interest was foregone as a result of the mistake.  The claim by Mba that the case shouls have entailed £20 million in total interest.

The way that paragraph has been constructed (and it is repeated elsewhere) makes you think, hey, they say that £ 8 million wasn’t paid but the whistleblower says £20 million wasn’t paid!

No, look more closely at the actual statement. The case involved £20 million in interest. £8 million in interest was not paid. Whatever the truth of the matter, that’s actually what they are saying there. Norte what they have not said: that £20 million of interest should have been but was not paid.

Tax disputes between HM Revenue & Customs (the Department) and large companies are a consequence of the complex and international nature of modern business. Disputes can arise about the facts of a particular case, about the interpretation and application of tax law, and about the legitimacy of tax avoidance schemes. At 31 March 2011, the Department was seeking to resolve over 2,700 issues with the biggest companies, including disputes over outstanding tax, with potential tax at stake of £25.5 billion.

No, there isn’t £25 billion unpaid.

There is £25 billion that HMRC is claiming should be paid. This is a rather different statement.

For, as numerous court cases over the years have shown (Cadbury about CFC, M&S about foreign losses, M&S again about VAT once wasn’t it?) what HMRC claims is payable is not always the same as what the law says, ultimately, is payable.

One of the complexities is that EU law trumps domestic as in the CFC rules.

And yes, it is true that where there is a possible conflict in the myriad of laws that govern us we do have access to the courts to try and resolve those conflicts. Whether as individuals or as those associations of people known as companies.

Just to try and make this point more strongly. Before the Cadbury decision the amount claimed by HMRC would have been part of that time period’s equivalent of that £25 billion. But as we know, that money was not actually payable.

There is not £25 billion of unpaid tax. There is £25 billion in dispute over whether it is payable in tax or not.

To reduce this number you could do any one or all of three things.

1) Simplify tax law so that there are not such disputes. Certainly, more effort should be made to make sure that UK tax law agrees with EU tax law: that latter having primacy.

2) Speed up the legal system. People have been trying this for centuries but the lawyers will have their billing hours.

3) Deny people the right to appeal decisions. This can certainly be done but welcome to the dictatorship.

A handy guide to reading the news reports today. And the usual blogs. Anyone who says there is £25 billion in unpaid corporate tax is lying, ignorant or both.

This is the amount that is in dispute, including amounts being decided upon by the courts system. And as we’ve seen time and again, what HMRC says is tax due just isn’t always what the courts say is tax due.

In the interests of full disclosure I should say that I’ve paid tax at the 50% rate ever since it was introduced.  I may not do so in the 2012-13 tax year.  I can tell you that there’s a psychological impact from direct taxes exceeding half your marginal earnings: it’s OK for you not to care.