Tag Archives: richard murphy

Laurence Cox

Review of “The Joy of Tax” by Richard Murphy

By Laurence Cox | Mon 20th February 2017 - 4:47 pm

Last year Richard Murphy, well-known through his involvement with the Tax Justice Network, expanded his ideas into a paperback book The Joy of Tax. His association with Jeremy Corbyn may cause Liberal Democrats to reject his ideas, but I argue here that even if we reject his solutions, which include both Basic Income and local Land Value Tax, we should take seriously his criticism of the existing tax system and his analysis of the purpose of taxation.

After a short historical introduction in which he develops the idea of tax as being the band that holds together the Social Contract between a people and their government, he examines how the Government raises its revenue. We are all familiar with the three big taxes: income tax, National Insurance and VAT, which together raise just under 65% of all taxation, national and local, but Murphy also looks at the large number of taxes that raise the remainder and the justification for them.

He covers six reasons why Governments should tax:

Continue reading »
Posted in Books | Also tagged | 9 Comments
Advert

Recent Comments

  • John B Grout
    Excellent piece, Josh. As for seeking others' thoughts on the pitch, here are mine: Labour and the Greens want to do things for you, the Conservatives and R...
  • David Evans
    It's an interesting article, which gives us more to think about, but when it ends with "Government and politics can strive toward this platform ... giving ind...
  • Neil Sandison
    This one of a series of articles recently published in the Liberal Democrat Voice that defines our social liberal values . Frequently the hot house of Westminst...
  • Pawel Urbanski
    This is the right problem to be working on, and I think the answer may be less about the words than about the moments. In my experience people learn what we sta...
  • Simon Robinson
    It's good to have an MP putting herself forward for this. The manifesto seems a bit vague though. All good thoughts and nothing you can really disagree with, b...