Tag Archives: comment central

Vince Cable has been writing on matters of tax for Comment Central.

Before we get into his piece, it’s worth mentioning that he will be at the Edinburgh Book Festival on 20th August. I bought my tickets the other day (alongside tickets to see Bella Mackie and Maggie O’Farrell) and you can too, here. Here’s the blurb for the event:

Former Secretary of State for Business and leader of the Liberal Democrats, the astute economist Vince Cable has settled into life after frontline politics as a prolific author on global affairs and the world economy. Today, he talks to us about Eclipsing the West: China, India and the Forging of a New World, in which he turns his formidable expertise on the superstates mapping out a new economic order. Chaired by Douglas Fraser.

Anyway, enough for the shameless plugging and back to the article.

He starts off with a very pessimistic view of our fiscal situation:

Britain increasingly resembles Italy: an economically stagnant, ageing, highly indebted, crumbling relic with a great history.

He says that Rachel Reeves is going to have to raise tens of billions in taxes, but he doesn’t much like the idea of taxing the rich:

Labour activists have their eyes on taxing ‘the rich’: a tiny group of undesirables who, supposedly, can’t fight back through the ballot box. But, as we have seen, even small numbers of country landowners threatened by IHT can make a lot of political noise. And, as with the non-doms, rich people are not idiots: they will move to minimise their tax liabilities. Withdrawal of tax reliefs on large pension contributions sounds like an easy hit, but will have unintended consequences for national savings. There are no easy options.

So if that’s not the answer what is?

The answer would start from the proposition that Britain wants, ideally, to be a bigger version of Scandinavia: well-funded services and welfare provision; a generous and civilised approach to poverty and distress at home and abroad; an innovative pro-business, open economic environment; and high standards of living measured not just in GDP but wider indicators of wellbeing and ‘happiness’.

And how?