Tag Archives: tax reform

David Thorpe

The decline of the high street: a liberal solution

By David Thorpe | Mon 11th June 2018 - 8:11 am

The death of the great British high street is an event rarely out of the popular press, and it has been so for a decade.

Mary Portas was appointed in a hail of publicity by David Cameron to find ways to save the high street as far back as 2011, nothing came of that and the problem has become much worse since the increase in business rates introduced last year, the creation of the national living wage and the dent to consumer sentiment caused by the UK’s vote to leave the European Union.

Now I quite like the national living wage announced …

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged | 62 Comments
Lord William Wallace

Campaigning for higher and fairer taxes?

By Lord William Wallace | Thu 28th December 2017 - 5:00 pm

We need to talk about tax. The IMF’s annual report on the UK economy recommends that taxes should be raised, in order to reduce the deficit further without cutting public investment and services. Philip Hammond, it is reported, would like to do so; but he is opposed by the ideological (and Eurosceptic) right of his own party, and by the influential group of free market think tanks who were cheerleaders for the Brexit campaign.

The Taxpayers Alliance and the Institute of Economic Affairs have repeatedly argued that it’s impossible to raise more than …

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged and | 45 Comments
Joe Bourke

Opinion: tax and benefit reform to help tackle youth unemployment

By Joe Bourke | Fri 24th February 2012 - 6:00 pm

In a two-part investigation, Joe Bourke looks at youth unemployment. Sunday’s part two will have details of policies designed to provide guaranteed employment for 16-24 year-olds. In part one, we discuss changes to the tax system that would make such policies affordable.

If the 2012 budget sees the personal allowance increased to £10,000 we will have achieved a key plank of the 2010 manifesto and provided some welcome relief to the squeeze on incomes that has come not least from the increase in VAT to 20%.

Whether the increase in the personal allowance is achieved in this budget or subsequently, we will soon need to …

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged , and | 8 Comments
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Recent Comments

  • User AvatarJoeB 20th Jun - 12:19am
    Martin, I am sure you are aware of the internal pressures Angela Merkel and other European leaders are under. It is to close borders to...
  • User AvatarJoeB 20th Jun - 12:11am
    Deprivation in London is spread across the city in small pockets, sometimes a handful of streets on otherwise affluent areas https://www.theguardian.com/uk/datablog/2012/apr/12/deprivation-poverty-london. Seven of ten local...
  • User AvatarGlenn 19th Jun - 11:54pm
    Martin I dunno why that is. It depends how you define problem. The basic problem re-EU immigrants as far as I can tell is that...
  • User AvatarMartin 19th Jun - 11:37pm
    JoeB: That is the sort of nonsense I was referring to. Glib statements like "to close Germany's borders" - how do you think that could...
  • User AvatarJoeB 19th Jun - 11:20pm
    Migration pressure is going to continue to grow and countries around the world will seek to close borders. The USA is separating children from their...
  • User AvatarMartin 19th Jun - 11:00pm
    There is too much conflation between movement into the EU with movement within the EU in this discussion. Do people really think that people from...