If companies in Britain paid, proportionally, as much tax as they did in the last year of Mrs Thatcher’s prime ministership, the country would be £30bn better off. There would still be a deficit, but the fiscal situation would be transformed. The crisis talk of the unprecedented reshaping of the state to the same level – in terms of percentage of GDP – as it stood in the 1930s would recede. It would not be necessary.
The chancellor has nothing if not sensitive political antennae. This kind of claim cannot be allowed to get any traction. It is a political imperative that he and his allies keep the national conversation away from the structure of the tax base. Instead they need to concentrate firmly on the shortcomings of the allegedly inefficient state and featherbedding of the welfare system – always taken as axiomatic – and thus the inevitable necessity for their reshaping and downsizing. The Conservative party’s brand is toxic enough without being seen as being soft on companies and tough on the poor and average citizen.
Continue reading...