I read with some horror about the behaviour of Italian footballers who want their clubs (i.e. the fans) to pay the additional super tax levied in response to the country's financial woes. I do have a little sympathy in view of the Berlusconi government's past excesses, but only a little. The horror is, of course, that already outrageously overpaid sportsmen think they are exempt for some reason. Again I have a little sympathy, though not much, with foreign players, but most players in the Italian league are Italian citizens.
The story renewed my interest, already expressed, in the proposals for the tax authorities to publish the amount of direct tax - income, capital gains and inheritance -which all citizens pay. This has a dual purpose.
One is to begin a change to the 'culture' of taxation, viewing it as a contribution to the common wealth, rather than a punishment levied by government. Indeed many of the 'rich' seem to believe they are being punished for being rich. This is not so, of course. They are simply being asked to contribute more because they have more.
The other is to 'flush out' the wealthier citizens who are paying virtually no tax. Imagine the, impact for example, if football fans learned that some of their players were paying less tax than themselves ? or of all of us learning that wealthy entrepreneurs were paying virtually no tax at all ? This would create huge political pressure either to persuade them to pay what they should or to persuade government that new legialtion is needed to collect tax effectively.
I don't believe there is a civil liberties issue here and I would not suggest publishing anyone's declared income. I wish I had the energy to start up a real campaign on this. Hopefully someone will
Monday 29 August 2011
Saturday 13 August 2011
Deconstructing disorder
Thinking more about the terrible events of the last week, I offer a word of caution and a suggestion.
There is a danger that we attempt to find 'holistic' answers to what is a multi-layered problem. Thinkers of both the right and left tend to ofer such holistic responses. The right refer to policing, crime and punishment solutions. The left concentrate on socio-economic solutions.
We need to deconstruct the issues. I suggest a five layered approach. These are also in order of time scale, the first ones being possible in the near future, the later ones being generational.
Level 1 - sort out policing, making streets safe, protecting people and property more effectively.
Level 2 - attack gang culture and all that goes with it.
Level 3 - micro socio-economic. This concerns issues surrounding the family failure, schooling, voluntary organisations etc.
Level 4 - macro socio-economic. This concerns the welfare system, inequality, aspiration, social mobility, opportunity, employment and training.
Level 5 - the cultural/moral climate. This is about the moral climate which encourages acquisitiveness, greed, consumerism, lack of moral restraint etc. This pervades all levels of society etc. - top to bottom.
If we do deconstruct the issues like this, we may be able to attack the problem more effectively. You can eat an elephant - but only if you take it one meal at a time.
There is a danger that we attempt to find 'holistic' answers to what is a multi-layered problem. Thinkers of both the right and left tend to ofer such holistic responses. The right refer to policing, crime and punishment solutions. The left concentrate on socio-economic solutions.
We need to deconstruct the issues. I suggest a five layered approach. These are also in order of time scale, the first ones being possible in the near future, the later ones being generational.
Level 1 - sort out policing, making streets safe, protecting people and property more effectively.
Level 2 - attack gang culture and all that goes with it.
Level 3 - micro socio-economic. This concerns issues surrounding the family failure, schooling, voluntary organisations etc.
Level 4 - macro socio-economic. This concerns the welfare system, inequality, aspiration, social mobility, opportunity, employment and training.
Level 5 - the cultural/moral climate. This is about the moral climate which encourages acquisitiveness, greed, consumerism, lack of moral restraint etc. This pervades all levels of society etc. - top to bottom.
If we do deconstruct the issues like this, we may be able to attack the problem more effectively. You can eat an elephant - but only if you take it one meal at a time.
Tax
Thanks, James for your remarks and for looking at the blog.
It is interesting why we can't seem to get to grips with tax avoidance and evasion. I think what you suggest is fundamentally true - that policy makers are frightened of driving away investment if tax is collected too effeiciently or at too high a rate. You are also right to mention what is, I think, called the 'Laffer Curve ' effect by economists. This is that, the higher the tax, the less is collected because people have a greater incentive to avoid high tax rates. It may work, though I am sceptical as I suspect the culture of tax aversion is too deep seated here.
How about, though, an idea that operates in Norway, I think ? The amount of tax each individual or compant pays each year could be publicly available. This might, just might, create a climate in which more people might be more willing to pay the tax due. I am not wealthy but pay a good deal of tax because I earn a good deal, and I am proud of how much tax I pay because I am contributing to the country's services and welfare. I don't like paying it, but recognise I should contribute. If I learned that a premier league footballer paid, say, £2 million income tax last year I might feel more kindly disposed to him and his ridiculously overblown salary. Sadly I suspect that most of them pay considerably less through legal avoidance schemes.
Finally there is the American system. We could do away with tax exile status. If you are a British citizen you should pay tax on what you earn in the UK, wherever you live. As soon as you set foot on British soil, the tax authorities wil present a tax demand and you cannot leave until you pay it.If anyone wants to avoid UK tax I think they should live abroad permanently.
There is here, by the way, an obvious link with events of the last week in our city centres, isn't there ?
It is interesting why we can't seem to get to grips with tax avoidance and evasion. I think what you suggest is fundamentally true - that policy makers are frightened of driving away investment if tax is collected too effeiciently or at too high a rate. You are also right to mention what is, I think, called the 'Laffer Curve ' effect by economists. This is that, the higher the tax, the less is collected because people have a greater incentive to avoid high tax rates. It may work, though I am sceptical as I suspect the culture of tax aversion is too deep seated here.
How about, though, an idea that operates in Norway, I think ? The amount of tax each individual or compant pays each year could be publicly available. This might, just might, create a climate in which more people might be more willing to pay the tax due. I am not wealthy but pay a good deal of tax because I earn a good deal, and I am proud of how much tax I pay because I am contributing to the country's services and welfare. I don't like paying it, but recognise I should contribute. If I learned that a premier league footballer paid, say, £2 million income tax last year I might feel more kindly disposed to him and his ridiculously overblown salary. Sadly I suspect that most of them pay considerably less through legal avoidance schemes.
Finally there is the American system. We could do away with tax exile status. If you are a British citizen you should pay tax on what you earn in the UK, wherever you live. As soon as you set foot on British soil, the tax authorities wil present a tax demand and you cannot leave until you pay it.If anyone wants to avoid UK tax I think they should live abroad permanently.
There is here, by the way, an obvious link with events of the last week in our city centres, isn't there ?
Wednesday 10 August 2011
Halifax, Nova Scotia, riots
I recently discovered, while doing some research, that rioting and looting of this kind has a particularly interesting and bizarre antecedent. It may place things in some perspective and we can learn lessons from it, perhaps. It concerns the bizarre incidents on VE night (May 7-8) in Halifax, Nova Scotia in 1945.
When the War in Europe ended, about nine thousand allied and other seamen poured out onto the streets of Halifax, which had been a vital port in the war. There had been prohibition in Halifax in the war and there was little booze to be had. Rioting and looting immediately broke out. At first it was mainly booze they were after but, having got it and drunk it, more general disorder ensued. Vehicles and buildings were set ablaze, authority figures attacked, shops broken into and contents looted. By the second morning the looters included many of the civilian population of Halifax, including women and schoolchildren (some in school uniform). Contemporary photographs show pictures quite similar to those seen recently in British cities, with looters carrying away racks of clothes, shoe boxes and food. It was only when the naval authorities ordered the men back to their ships and hostels that things quietened down. Remember, too, this was supposed to be a joyous occasion !
The official statistics are staggering, especially considering Halifax’s population was barely 60,000 at the time : stolen were nearly 7,000 cases of beer, 1225 cases of wine, 55,000 bottles of spirits and a brewery was looted of 60,000 pints of beer, 2,600 plate glass windows were broken, 207 businesses looted and a further 564 suffered some damage, 363 people arrested, most for serious offences. Three people died, though one was the result of alcoholic poisoning! All this occurred in one night and day ! The official report afterwards blamed lack of control of sailors by the naval authorities, insufficient police and faulty tactics – where have we heard that before ?
Food for thought...
When the War in Europe ended, about nine thousand allied and other seamen poured out onto the streets of Halifax, which had been a vital port in the war. There had been prohibition in Halifax in the war and there was little booze to be had. Rioting and looting immediately broke out. At first it was mainly booze they were after but, having got it and drunk it, more general disorder ensued. Vehicles and buildings were set ablaze, authority figures attacked, shops broken into and contents looted. By the second morning the looters included many of the civilian population of Halifax, including women and schoolchildren (some in school uniform). Contemporary photographs show pictures quite similar to those seen recently in British cities, with looters carrying away racks of clothes, shoe boxes and food. It was only when the naval authorities ordered the men back to their ships and hostels that things quietened down. Remember, too, this was supposed to be a joyous occasion !
The official statistics are staggering, especially considering Halifax’s population was barely 60,000 at the time : stolen were nearly 7,000 cases of beer, 1225 cases of wine, 55,000 bottles of spirits and a brewery was looted of 60,000 pints of beer, 2,600 plate glass windows were broken, 207 businesses looted and a further 564 suffered some damage, 363 people arrested, most for serious offences. Three people died, though one was the result of alcoholic poisoning! All this occurred in one night and day ! The official report afterwards blamed lack of control of sailors by the naval authorities, insufficient police and faulty tactics – where have we heard that before ?
Food for thought...
thoughts on the riots
Some interesting observations, I hope, on the immediate political reaction to the rioting :
Interesting that the Government seems to have dumped Theresa May as spokeswoman (she should be out front, after all, she is Home Secretary) and have wheeled out Michael Gove instead. The Government seems to think Gove has a good public image as he is often thrown to the wolves on Newsnight. I rather disagree, he comes across as stiff and patrician.
How long will the Government be able to hold out against charges that it is reducing police expenditure at a critical time ? Police cuts will certainly have to be reduced at some stage.
Ed Miliband is resisting so far trying to make political capital out of it - very sensible. Somebody tell Harriet Harman though.
Nick Clegg - oh dear. he really does look a sorry sight. Out of his depth.
Will somebody please tell various spokepeople to stop saying "this is purely criminal behaviour". We have got the message. Nobody thinks it is political. We knew that by Sunday morning, for God's sake.
Much more will obviously be said and written in the months to come, but I think there are two principal issues her :
1 The frontline 'shock troops' of the riots - those who challenge the police, target and damage property, start fires etc. are part of a new phenomenon - consolidated gang culture. The long term answer lies in challenges to gang culture and all it entails.
2. The second waves - those who are there to loot - reflect a deaper seated fault in our society - that is greed and consumerism fed by excessive inequality. That will require a long term change in the culture and the structure of the economy. It will need generational change on the scale we saw in the 1980s when rampant greed and consumerism rose to new heights, in my view at least.
In short I think this is two problems, not one.
http://www.hoddereducation.co.uk/Colleges/Government---Politics.aspx?mRef=CNM01.
Interesting that the Government seems to have dumped Theresa May as spokeswoman (she should be out front, after all, she is Home Secretary) and have wheeled out Michael Gove instead. The Government seems to think Gove has a good public image as he is often thrown to the wolves on Newsnight. I rather disagree, he comes across as stiff and patrician.
How long will the Government be able to hold out against charges that it is reducing police expenditure at a critical time ? Police cuts will certainly have to be reduced at some stage.
Ed Miliband is resisting so far trying to make political capital out of it - very sensible. Somebody tell Harriet Harman though.
Nick Clegg - oh dear. he really does look a sorry sight. Out of his depth.
Will somebody please tell various spokepeople to stop saying "this is purely criminal behaviour". We have got the message. Nobody thinks it is political. We knew that by Sunday morning, for God's sake.
Much more will obviously be said and written in the months to come, but I think there are two principal issues her :
1 The frontline 'shock troops' of the riots - those who challenge the police, target and damage property, start fires etc. are part of a new phenomenon - consolidated gang culture. The long term answer lies in challenges to gang culture and all it entails.
2. The second waves - those who are there to loot - reflect a deaper seated fault in our society - that is greed and consumerism fed by excessive inequality. That will require a long term change in the culture and the structure of the economy. It will need generational change on the scale we saw in the 1980s when rampant greed and consumerism rose to new heights, in my view at least.
In short I think this is two problems, not one.
http://www.hoddereducation.co.uk/Colleges/Government---Politics.aspx?mRef=CNM01.
Tuesday 9 August 2011
the riots
I want to strike a slightly optimistic note on all this.
Feral youths of the kind we are now seeing have existed for some time. In the past they have been largely engaged in smaller scale criminality - hassling people, shoplifting, drugs, car crime, gang fighting, vanadalism etc. because this has been endemic but relatively low level we have been able, not exactly to ignore it, but to treat it as containable.
The difference here, of course, is that they have gathered in large, semi- organised groups and have engaged in mass actions, rather than individual or small group crime. Why I am trying to look on the bright side is that this will force us, as a society, to confront the issue of feral youth. So, something meaningful may well at last result.
Incidentally, appeals to 'parents' are a complete waste of time. Most of these youths and a few girls, will be from the care system, will have no parents effectievly, or will have parenst who are inadequate at best, leading chaotic lives at worst. These rioters and looters are on the streets BECAUSE there is no family in operation.
Feral youths of the kind we are now seeing have existed for some time. In the past they have been largely engaged in smaller scale criminality - hassling people, shoplifting, drugs, car crime, gang fighting, vanadalism etc. because this has been endemic but relatively low level we have been able, not exactly to ignore it, but to treat it as containable.
The difference here, of course, is that they have gathered in large, semi- organised groups and have engaged in mass actions, rather than individual or small group crime. Why I am trying to look on the bright side is that this will force us, as a society, to confront the issue of feral youth. So, something meaningful may well at last result.
Incidentally, appeals to 'parents' are a complete waste of time. Most of these youths and a few girls, will be from the care system, will have no parents effectievly, or will have parenst who are inadequate at best, leading chaotic lives at worst. These rioters and looters are on the streets BECAUSE there is no family in operation.
Sunday 7 August 2011
holiday season
I am normally one of those who accepts that even senior politicians are entitled to their holidays and that the world will not fall apart while they are away. On this occasion, though, I think there may be exceptional circumstances that demand that they return to their posts. My reasoning is simply that part of the current 'crisis' arises from the jitteriness of the markets (incidentally, how appalling it is that the Western economic world can be so badly affected by the frenetic behaviour of the men in red braces, hyped up on adrenalin or ketamine or whatever, men who seem to treat trading floors like club dance floors and are motivated solely by greed and fear). We need some calm so that rational decisions can be made. This will be considerably helped if the key players are seen to be doing something (even if they are not). Markets tumble on uncertainty and that must be knocked quickly on the head. So, sorry but I think at least the Prime Minister has to come back and be seen to be meeting the other key characters, even if it is only to swap holiday snaps.
Incidentally, there seems now to be a growing feeling among economic and business experts that the inevitable way out of the current crisis will be considerable increases in money supply - dolars, euros and sterling - which will create inflation. Inflation of course automatically reduces the real value of debt. I wonder whether this is a price worth paying, at least in the medium term, until order can be restored and the men in red braces are put back in their boxes ?
http://www.hoddereducation.co.uk/Colleges/Government---Politics.aspx?mRef=CNM01.
Incidentally, there seems now to be a growing feeling among economic and business experts that the inevitable way out of the current crisis will be considerable increases in money supply - dolars, euros and sterling - which will create inflation. Inflation of course automatically reduces the real value of debt. I wonder whether this is a price worth paying, at least in the medium term, until order can be restored and the men in red braces are put back in their boxes ?
http://www.hoddereducation.co.uk/Colleges/Government---Politics.aspx?mRef=CNM01.
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