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

  • Andy Daer
    Alex reminds us of the historical reasons why British prime ministers need to take responsibility for the awful consequences of our failures during the Mandate ...
  • Margot Wilson
    So refreshing to see that history recognised. 'Absent from the wider public consciousness' is certainly the case....
  • Alex Macfie
    I don't understand why Ed decided to jump on the banknote bandwagon, when the overlap between the people who are bothered about that sort of thing and those who...
  • Dennis Delice
    I love this parallel you've made; I couldn't help but think the same. Rather than responding to shots being taken in a defensive mentality, we are are strugglin...
  • paul barker
    There is one obvious trend that looks unstoppable, The Decline of Reform. That is unalloyed Good News but it does have the side effects of A Conservative Recove...