May 2015 UK General Election Campaign.

[Zanza]

In Tamas' ideology a vicious circle mechanism like this that ultimately destroys tax revenue for the benefit of the rich (corporate owners) is probably something good. Starve the government of money and it can do less "harm" as he sees it.

My point was that Amazon gets a competitive advantage because it pays less tax than smaller competitors who can't afford to go to tax-manipulating Luxembourg.

So, MAYBE, if everyone was as lenient on corporations as Luxembourg is via its trickery, then the positive effect on corporate growth and heavier competition would outweight the negative of less tax money for the state to play with.

I understand your argument as you made it before. I just find it very unlikely to happen. As we don't have a couple of laboratory societies to experiment on, we will probably not be able to find out who's right.

[alfred russel]

Corporate income taxes are a challenging way to generate government revenue, for a lot of reasons. I think it would be better to keep them low and offset the lost government revenue with higher income taxes on high earners.

[Admiral Yi]

Corporate income taxes are a challenging way to generate government revenue, for a lot of reasons. I think it would be better to keep them low and offset the lost government revenue with higher income taxes on high earners.

High earners are probably as mobile as, if not more mobile than, corporations.

[alfred russel]

Corporate income taxes are a challenging way to generate government revenue, for a lot of reasons. I think it would be better to keep them low and offset the lost government revenue with higher income taxes on high earners.

High earners are probably as mobile as, if not more mobile than, corporations.

As in expatriating between countries? No way--and at least in the US case you have to renounce citizenship--you can't just move out.

Corporations don't often move between locations, but every corporation of any size with international operations strategizes ways to keep revenue in low tax jurisdictions and expenses in high tax jurisidictions (to the extent that benefits them).

[Zanza]

High earners are probably as mobile as, if not more mobile than, corporations.

Not really. A lot of people actually want to live in nice places in their home country. I bet a huge share of British high earners lives and pays taxes in London compared to those that live abroad. Virtually all that still need to work for their money at least.

[Valmy]

Corporate income taxes are a challenging way to generate government revenue, for a lot of reasons. I think it would be better to keep them low and offset the lost government revenue with higher income taxes on high earners.

High earners are probably as mobile as, if not more mobile than, corporations.

Well the US already has a model for dealing with those people

[Gups]

Corporate income taxes are a challenging way to generate government revenue, for a lot of reasons. I think it would be better to keep them low and offset the lost government revenue with higher income taxes on high earners.

IN the UK, corporation tax earns about £50bn a year and income tax £150bn. If corporation tax were abolished and the whole burden fell on higher rate tax payers, we would be looking at punitive (90%+) rates starting at a pretty low level.

[alfred russel]

Corporate income taxes are a challenging way to generate government revenue, for a lot of reasons. I think it would be better to keep them low and offset the lost government revenue with higher income taxes on high earners.

IN the UK, corporation tax earns about £50bn a year and income tax £150bn. If corporation tax were abolished and the whole burden fell on higher rate tax payers, we would be looking at punitive (90%+) rates starting at a pretty low level.

For practical reasons corporate taxes shouldn't go to zero. If they were reduced to the 10-15% range, that would probably require ~£30bn to fund the gap (I think your current rate is ~28%), or ~£500 per person in the UK. I think that should be an achievable tax increase in the UK, though I don't know the particulars of what your personal rates are and who is paying them.

If this was to take place, it only seems just the additional tax burden would be concentrated on the groups benefiting from the reduction in corporate taxes.

[mongers]

And how surprising was that? If you're going to convince voters that another layer of government is a good idea you've got to tie it to something people have emotional ties to. Most people's ties run from County straight to country. "North East Region? Huh?" 

So...these would be your regional assembly areas?

No, partly for the obvious reason that many of them are too small, partly because County Council is already a government level, and partly because despite the roll-back of some of the 1970s reforms that saw Rutland reappear, some of them are still artificial to the people living in them.

Yorkshire (North, South, East and West Riding) is probably the only "Region sized" area that could be successfully devolved on the model Labour tried in the late Nineties. Possibly East Anglia has a strong enough identity as well, although that's "iffy". I can't think of anywhere else.

Wessex.   

[Josquius]

Questions to Brits: regardless of Milliband's awkwardness as a human being, is he a capable politician at least, so that you could disregard his, uhm, quirks?

He is a terrible politician.
Putting aside the politics part of politics however and he would be a very good person to have running the country.

Labour is kind of split on devolution. Some want an economy that's centrally planned other's believe in more local democracy and accountability. Blair's first government tried to push through a series of regional assemblies but (except for London) they were not popular with the electorate.

And how surprising was that? If you're going to convince voters that another layer of government is a good idea you've got to tie it to something people have emotional ties to. Most people's ties run from County straight to country. "North East Region? Huh?" 

Despite the lack of a cool name (we need an advertising campaign for Bernicia) the north east is pretty firmly the north east. The old Durham-Northumberland split doesn't really enter into modern folk's minds at all.

The reasons for that referendum being 'rejected' by  the few dozen people who actually bothered to vote were more down to it being a terribly ran confused mess of a thing that was postal ballot only and mixed together with a series of local referendums on local border changes (which failed...but were passed anyway).

Try that referendum now after we've seen and understood where it has gotten Scotland and you would see the referendum would be much less of a damp squib.

[Agelastus]

No, partly for the obvious reason that many of them are too small, partly because County Council is already a government level, and partly because despite the roll-back of some of the 1970s reforms that saw Rutland reappear, some of them are still artificial to the people living in them.

Yorkshire (North, South, East and West Riding) is probably the only "Region sized" area that could be successfully devolved on the model Labour tried in the late Nineties. Possibly East Anglia has a strong enough identity as well, although that's "iffy". I can't think of anywhere else.

Wessex.   

I doubt there's enough Hardy fans these days for that.

[garbon]

No, partly for the obvious reason that many of them are too small, partly because County Council is already a government level, and partly because despite the roll-back of some of the 1970s reforms that saw Rutland reappear, some of them are still artificial to the people living in them.

Yorkshire (North, South, East and West Riding) is probably the only "Region sized" area that could be successfully devolved on the model Labour tried in the late Nineties. Possibly East Anglia has a strong enough identity as well, although that's "iffy". I can't think of anywhere else.

Wessex.   

I doubt there's enough Hardy fans these days for that.

I saw they are releasing another film adaptation of one of his books.

[mongers]

No, partly for the obvious reason that many of them are too small, partly because County Council is already a government level, and partly because despite the roll-back of some of the 1970s reforms that saw Rutland reappear, some of them are still artificial to the people living in them.

Yorkshire (North, South, East and West Riding) is probably the only "Region sized" area that could be successfully devolved on the model Labour tried in the late Nineties. Possibly East Anglia has a strong enough identity as well, although that's "iffy". I can't think of anywhere else.

Wessex.   

I doubt there's enough Hardy fans these days for that.

I saw they are releasing another film adaptation of one of his books.

He is still quite popular here; besides ignore Agelastus, from his own description he sounds like a landless peasant without a connection to his 'region' 

[Sheilbh]

Has anyone a connection to the Midlands?

[Agelastus]

No, partly for the obvious reason that many of them are too small, partly because County Council is already a government level, and partly because despite the roll-back of some of the 1970s reforms that saw Rutland reappear, some of them are still artificial to the people living in them.

Yorkshire (North, South, East and West Riding) is probably the only "Region sized" area that could be successfully devolved on the model Labour tried in the late Nineties. Possibly East Anglia has a strong enough identity as well, although that's "iffy". I can't think of anywhere else.

Wessex.   

I doubt there's enough Hardy fans these days for that.

I saw they are releasing another film adaptation of one of his books.

He is still quite popular here; besides ignore Agelastus, from his own description he sounds like a landless peasant without a connection to his 'region' 

Why would I/we want to share a region with Leicestershire?

Besides, our historical links are with Cambridgeshire, not where we're currently lumped (the "stolen" soke of Peterborough and the Earldom of Huntingdon, as examples.)