It would be laughable now to call the Labour Party either the party of the Left or indeed of one that still pursues Social Justice (apologies to my truly socialist and learned Labour supporters who fray about its party demise)after its decision to reverse its much celebrated welfare Acts of 1945,, as they were consigned to the annals of history in this weeks vote to cap Welfare in the House of Commons However, its also not true that the language of austerity is not one that learned people didnt get or didnt understand. The problem for Labour is that, as it pursued its attention of getting back into power at just about in any cost, when it did so, it soon realised it was no longer in a position to change the course of the civil servants who after 18 years of Tory truncation and interference, could not alter the trajectory for change. It actively pursued the agenda of tax cuts and in the main for business. One would think after 13 years of unparalleled growth (or boom more likely), initial low UK debt, a massive charter for change supported by a wave of hope and promise in the UK electorate it could have rebalanced the way for the UK to progress. Austerity cannot be talked about without talking about taxation and in particular corporate taxation. and this is where this article completely falls down. One does not go without the other. For the Austerity mantra to succeed, you must first prove that tax receipts are not enough to sustain an economy so cuts are defined necessary, we all know that. New Labour in 1997 entered a wary world of Business Tax Advisors put forward by the corporate world and greed on three things; That there should be Business relationship managers within the HMRC to relate with big business. I know, I know... arent Business supposed to be scared of the tax man. Secondly, that there should be a reduction in staff, which from 1997 to 2010 was reduced from 110,000 to 55,000 staff in HMRC. Now there is 45,000 and to be reduced to 25,000 staff, less than 25% its size from 15 years ago. Lastly, that, there would be negotiation and wriggle room on tax bills and that big business would be on the committees and be close to senior government officials to help design future tax policy. Given that 65000 staff have lost their jobs with an average wage of around £22K per anum and at least £40 Billion losses a year, it doesnt take a mathematician to work out that that one hell of a loss per employee, who incidentally pays tax into the real economy. (answers in comments section please!) The effect is devastating, leading to at least by HMRC estimates between £40-60 Billion in losses annually. Scandals abound, with Vodaphone walking away from £10BILLION tax bill after lunch with head of HMRC and now companies such as Deloitte and Touché, KPMG and others coming up with up to 1000 tax efficient schemes every single year. HMRC today, have 3500 staff today chasing a half billion of benefit fraud, yet only 300 staff chasing the tens of billions of business tax avoidance. Austerity is Labours Frankenstein, born from the loins of 18 years of Tory rule, but nurtured and given the sustenance to become a fully grown monster, that even Mary Shelley would have cowered from. Austerity dogma and the collection of taxation cannot be consciously uncoupled by the intelligent press. To do so can only further perpetuate the myths that are killing our welfare state. Scotlands future as an indpendent nation state means, we can learn from these wrongs and put them right, starting with an entirely blank sheet of paper to write our new taxation laws down upon in a clear, fair and concise way. For further info on this, please read, The Great British Tax Robbery. Chris Law
Posted on: Sat, 29 Mar 2014 14:13:14 +0000
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