Dialing in from abroad, Assange has said:
I admit that I have never been Richard Murphy’s greatest fan. I met him once, and decided that I could not deal with him. Something made me uneasy, and on occasion, you have to act on instinct.
The first is to offer congratulations to those who got the grades they hoped for. Working as hard as many did in quite exceptional circumstances justified the results. No one would have wished these sixth form years on those getting results yesterday. I also think the absence of other opportunity is an obvious explanation for grade inflation that seems to have been ignored, but which I suspect very real. Work was the substitute activity of choice when there was not much else to do. I am inclined to believe these results more than most do.
So, clearly, we should close the schools, have 20 minutes a day on Zoom and education standards will soar.
He never does think through what he’s saying, does he?
As an aside, did the boarding schools close? Just a thought but I can imagine a certain pissedoffness among those paying £40k a year for Eton if the little bastards weren’t actually leaving the des res to go to Eton.
I have reflected this in my own teaching work at university, where I have resisted exam based appraisal.
Snigger, that would mean Spudnomics being marked up by someone who knows economics.
As education needs to be reappraised anyway, given the inevitable changes in the way that we live and the demise of so many supposed careers that is now inevitable in the face of climate change, what is the point in retaining the hierarchy that maintained them?
Sweet Jesu. Climate change means we don’t have to teach children to think.
So what might this be about? Almost nothing, I suggest, unless what is really being considered is the use of blockchain.
And that’s when I got this idea. It’s about creating untraceable money. So here is the Treasury trying to actively undermine HMRC, by the look of it.
The entire point, the distinguishing feature, of the blockchain is that every single unit of it is entirely, wholly and completely traceable back to the very first moment of the Big Satoshi. Exaclty because of the blockchain bitcoin is more traceable than cash.
The End of Free College in England: Implications for Quality, Enrolments, and Equity
Richard Murphy, Judith Scott-Clayton, Gillian Wyness
NBER Working Paper No. 23888
Issued in September 2017
NBER Program(s): ED
Despite increasing financial pressures on higher education systems throughout the world, many governments remain resolutely opposed to the introduction of tuition fees, and some countries and states where tuition fees have been long established are now reconsidering free higher education. This paper examines the consequences of charging tuition fees on university quality, enrolments, and equity. To do so, we study the English higher education system which has, in just two decades, moved from a free college system to one in which tuition fees are among the highest in the world. Our findings suggest that England’s shift has resulted in increased funding per head, rising enrolments, and a narrowing of the participation gap between advantaged and disadvantaged students. In contrast to other systems with high tuition fees, the English system is distinct in that its income-contingent loan system keeps university free at the point of entry, and provides students with comparatively generous assistance for living expenses. We conclude that tuition fees, at least in the English case supported their goals of increasing quality, quantity, and equity in higher education.
Amazingly, no, not the Senior Lecturer. But wouldn’t it be fun if word got out that it was?
He quotes Eamonn Butler:
Without constitutional rules to prevent minorities being exploited by majorities, democracy will turn into mere majoritarian populism, or into rotating elected dictatorships.
Then, via a link to schools segregation in Virginia, we get to this from Smurf:
What’s the link with Charlottesville? Well, that’s where much of this economic logic began, and not least as part of the resistance to the process of granting equal rights. And as the right wing have got more powerful, and their think tanks more aggressive it is appropriate to make clear that their aim is to defend fundamental divides in society.
So, how and why was school desegregation, indeed all of Jim Crow, overturned? Constitutional protections preventing minorities being exploited by majorities, exactly that protection from majoritarian populism.
Thus we at the ASI are racist fascists because we support the constitutional limitations which prevent something like Jim Crow.
That’s pretty good even by Richard Murphy’s standards.
We have actually seen the Spudmeister making this mistake:
People often use the GDP formula to erroneously derive conclusions about economic causation. For example, in the wake of the financial crisis of 2008, some proponents of “stimulus” spending argued that a boost in government spending on infrastructure would obviously raise GDP because the textbooks tell us that GDP = C + I + G + (X-M). If the government increases G, according to this argument, GDP obviously must increase, as an increase on the right-hand side of the equation “had to” be balanced by a comparable increase on the left-hand side.
However, the textbook formula does not mean that (say) a $100 billion increase in G must go along with a $100 billion increase in GDP. For all we know, a $100 billion increase in G might cause a $40 billion drop in private consumption (C) and a $60 billion drop in private investment (I). In this case, GDP would remain unaffected, and the private sector would shrink to perfectly offset the growth in government. The textbook GDP formula is consistent with both outcomes, so the accounting tautology, by itself, tells us nothing about the impact of an increase in government expenditures on the economy.
Sigh.
As several comments have been pointing out:
So, a question: should the group have been able to enjoy £103 million of tax subsidies for its losses because other companies in the Arcadia Group were presumably able to offset these against liabilities owing?
Is there good reason why the state should support continually loss making companies in this way?
Is a time limit on the number of years during which losses will be supported appropriate?
Would this sum have been better used helping clear the pension deficit?
I think these are appropriate questions to ask.
A further appropriate question to ask. Unitary taxation, an idea stoutly backed by one Richard Murphy, the Sage of Ely, means that a group of companies is taxed as just that, a group of companies making up just the one tax unit. But here, with regard to Arcadia and BHS, the demand is that they should not be treated as the one economic unit, which is what that offset does, but instead be considered separately.
Is there no beginning to the consistency of Richard Murphy?
Just so that everyone knows where this number comes from.
Richard Murphy was hired by the union which junior level HMRC workers belong to. In order to produce a report which justified the reversal of the cuts in the number of HMRC employees which Gordon Brown had ordained following the merger of the Inland Revenue and Customs.
This was the point and purpose of the report and of the hiring of Murphy. It was nothing at all to do with how to make the economy function better, nor how to close a deficit or anything at all like that.
Purely, find a way that we can argue that the merged organisation should not have fewer staff.
Thus all of the recommendations about how to close the tax gap contain “hire more people at HMRC”.
And that really is it.
EU committee meeting with the Great Man. 1.10 in.
Someone else can listen to that: makes my teeth ache.
Align income tax and capital gains tax rates
Tax avoidance happens when someone sees an opportunity to reduce their tax bill in ways not anticipated by the law. That requires two things. The first is a loophole, and the second is a reduced tax rate. Closing loopholes is obviously a way to tackle tax avoidance, but so too is closing tax rate differentials.
One obvious area where significant tax differentials are being created is between income tax and capital gains tax, where much lower rates are applied to capital gains than are to income, giving a massive incentive for people to try to misrepresent their income as capital gains.
There is an obvious way to tackle this abuse, which was adopted by Nigel Lawson when he was Conservative Chancellor of the Exchequer, and that is to require that any taxpayer pays their capital gains tax bill at the same rate that would have been used if the gain have been subject to income tax.
These rates should now be aligned.
Yep, fine with that. Top income tax rate at 28% sounds just great to me.
Mr Vine appears to have been using his ten-year-old daughter Martha to avoid tax payments.
The presenter of the Jeremy Vine Show and the TV quiz Eggheads, has been funnelling cash through a limited company, Jelly Vine Productions, of which she is a shareholder.
Hmm.
Richard Murphy, an accountant at Tax Research, said: ‘He is obviously using the company to reduce his tax bill. It is perfectly legal, and perfectly allowed.
‘What is a little unusual is his daughter. Let’s be honest, she is unlikely to have said, “Daddy, I want to spend my pocket money on shares in the company”.’
Jelly Vine Productions’ accounts do not disclose how much it has paid out or whether it has paid dividends to all three family members, or just Mr Vine himself.
Mr Murphy said Mr Vine could have named his daughter as a shareholder for ‘long-term tax-planning’ purposes, reducing the tax she would pay if she inherits part of the business.
Actually, it’s not just legal and allowed, it’s actively promoted by Richard Murphy:
Self-employed workers and those in partnerships could benefit from considerable tax advantages by switching their business to a limited company, following tax changes in the Budget last year.
The change will enable anyone earning profits of about £30,000 a year to save up to £3,500 of tax. Even after the extra costs of running a company, savings could be almost £3,000. There are very few other ways available to save 10 per cent of your income and suffer almost no disadvantage as a result.
Glad we’ve got that settled then, this practice is wholly tax compliant.
After all, it must be, sa this is how the LHTD ran his own business and tax affairs for some time.
According to MPs on the Pubic Accounts Committee, PricewaterhouseCoopers helped companies cut their corporation tax by setting up bases in Luxembourg, in blatant accordance with the law.
A spokesman for PricewaterhouseCoopers said: “Because we’re not utter fucking morons we tend to look at the laws as they are rather than how some people think they should be.
“And then right, get this – we do our job.
“If you don’t like the laws then you should talk to the people who make them. I’ll give you a great big fucking clue – it’s not us.”
He’s saying that using a partnership saves you NIC compared to the corporate form.
And who do you know who operates through a partnership? Why, Mr Richard J Murphy, of course!
Why does he view his use of a partnership to be tax compliant, when other businesses that receive an apparent tax advantage from their business structure are criticised as tax avoiders?
Mr Elphicke, a former tax lawyer, said: ‘Tax avoidance isn’t just a problem with big corporations. It’s also a problem with big unions who bankroll the Labour Party.
Sadly, no, because he is at least conversant with the law. It’s pure political opportunism lying therefore in Elphicke’s case, not ignorance.
Labour’s biggest union donors pay nothing in corporation tax despite making millions on their investments, new figures reveal today.
So, why don’t they pay any corporation tax then?
Instead they exploited an obscure provision in the law which allows them to offset costs such as sick pay, accident compensation and employment tribunal costs against their income.
Because they don’t owe any.
Corporation tax is paid upon profits, as we know, not upon income. Thus, if they spend the income of the union on doing things that unions ought to be doing there’s no profit and thus no tax.
There’s nothing terribly difficult about all this, is there?
We have also now become aware that my involvement in TJN has caused some confusion between these focuses of attention and who is responsible for what work and that has not always been helpful. As such we’ve agreed that from now on I will have no formal role within the Tax Justice Network and will not speak for it in future.
That decision has also been precipitated by considerable demands on my time over the last few months that have arisen as a result of the serious illness of a close relative. As a result of those demands I have been advised that I should reduce my work commitments and have accepted that try as I might I have little choice but agree, and on reflection it is my involvement with the Tax Justice Network that has to go.
Richard Murphy, of Tax Research UK, called the latest switch from the private sector to the state “the creeping control of the state by the big business elite”.
He said: “We’ve had people who are very senior who have moved over to the state, but never the very top.\”
I share the outrage. It is appalling that people come in from the Big 4 Tax Dodgers and then conspire with their former employers to crush the democratic will of the people by occupying important positions in government.
For example, Margaret, Lady Hodge, is now chairman of the Public Accounts Committee: after a thorough training by her masters at Price Waterhouse in the 90s.
It\’s disgusting, isn\’t it, shouldn\’t be allowed.
In my opinion, of course.
Our proposed system is based around two simple components:
1. Basic income payment – Minimum Income Standard . All families would receive an unconditional, tax-free basic income payment that would be set at levels sufficient to alleviate poverty.
2. Unified Income Tax (UIT). The current Income Tax system and the entire National Insurance Contributions system would be replaced by a single Income Tax structure which would be clear and progressive.
A citizens\’ basic income and unification of tax and NI.
I agree, they\’re only a decade or so behind us neoliberals but better late than never, eh?
He posts a graph showing the differences in the evolution of employment numbers in the US and the eurozone. Nota bene, *eurozone*.
Then comments:
This is the impact of delivering a stimulus or not. It’s called employment, or not.
Or the difference between Obamanomics and Osbornomics:
How in hell you can blame Osborne for eurozone policies I am really not sure at all. Might be worth blaming Brussels, or the ECB, but Osborne?
What\’s even more amusing is the background to this of course. The only number that looks at all good in the UK economy currently is the employment one. No one\’s entirely sure why as yet but we seem to have a lot (and it is a lot as well) less unemployment than all the other numbers tell us we should have.