Paul Johnson of the IFS stated in an interview on the BBC’s ‘The World This Weekend’ that:
I think both main parties are making up numbers here in terms of what they can get from tax avoidance and evasion. The Conservatives are committed to getting £5 billion a year extra;Labour are trumping that by saying £7.5 billion…
It’s almost impossible to know upfront what you can achieve by cracking down on avoidance and evasion.You can do so much that you begin to put off real economic activity… so you do have to be careful about exactly how you do this.
I wondered if this would filter through to the rest of BBC punditry on the election….Mark Mardell moved rapidly on and ignored it.
My cynical self was happily surprised to see not long after a BBC report that did indeed make mention of the IFS comments….all a little too late perhaps after days of attacking the Tories for their supposedly unfunded policies…where have been the feet-to-the-fire questioning BBC interviews on Labour funding?:
Labour to raise £7.5bn from tax avoiders
Tax avoiders would face bigger fines as part of Labour’s plan to raise an extra £7.5bn a year, if the party wins the general election.
The policy is likely to form a central part of Labour’s election manifesto, which is due to be launched on Monday.
Ed Balls said Labour would carry out an immediate review of the tax collection system to close loopholes it wins power in May.
But Paul Johnson, the director of the independent Institute for Fiscal Studies, has said both main parties are “making up numbers” in terms of what they can raise from tax avoidance and evasion.
Speaking to the Radio 4’s The World this Weekend, he said: “The Conservatives are committed to getting five billion a year extra. Labour are trumping that by saying seven and a half billion. It’s almost impossible to know up front actually what you can achieve from cracking down on avoidance and evasion.”
Now though the BBC has started to revert to type and is slowly massaging Johnson’s words out of existence…downplaying them and their significance for Labour…here is the latest BBC report on Labour policies..
Labour manifesto pledge for no ‘additional borrowing’
Labour is to “guarantee” that each of its policies will be fully funded and require no “additional borrowing”, as it launches its manifesto on Monday.
Leader Ed Miliband will unveil a “different manifesto” – one that “isn’t a shopping list of spending policies”.
The Conservatives and Lib Dems have repeatedly warned that a Labour government would borrow irresponsibly.
But Mr Miliband will argue the Tories would go on a “reckless spending spree”
Then we get the bit about the IFS…notice the difference, the complete lack of those critically damning words…
With political parties are under increasing pressure to explain how they will fund their pledges, the Institute for Fiscal Studies complained on Sunday that they were making “lots of promises” without producing much detail on how to deliver them.
That’s it? ‘Lots of promises with little detail’….No, Johnson said much more that was as damning for Labour as for the Tories….such as they’re making the numbers up and its impossible to know what money can really be collected in tax revenue.
Never mind those awkward details, ‘Prudence’ is back according to the BBC in the rest of the very puff-like article for Labour…
Analysis, by Iain Watson, BBC political correspondent
It looks like a political role reversal. While the Conservatives are promising more cash for the NHS – without detailed costings – Labour is putting fiscal responsibility on the very first page of its manifesto.
Labour says it is like no other election document it has ever produced. Out goes a list of spending commitments and aspirations, in comes what it calls a “budget responsibility” lock.
The BBC is accentuating the positive for Labour…and has already forgotten that Labour is making up its figures as much as the Tories giving us the old lie about Labour fiscal probity... ‘Labour is putting fiscal responsibility on the very first page of its manifesto.’
This is the sole critical part of the article…
They are likely to face increased questioning over what cuts they are contemplating to government departments as a consequence.
But he doesn’t actually have any himself to ask…we just get a long list of the goodies that Labour is offering us for the election.
So not a penny of extra borrowing from Labour….and yet they have a shopping list of promises as long as your arm…they originally said they would fund that 50/50 tax and borrowing…..so now it is to be funded solely from taxation….presumably by soaking the rich till the pips squeak…perhaps they should pay attention to what else Johnson said…
You can do so much [cracking down on tax avoidance] that you begin to put off real economic activity… so you do have to be careful about exactly how you do this.
I’m sure the BBC will be raising such issues, and his comments from January on keeping non-dom status, with Balls tomorrow on the Today programme with vigour and rigour…snigour.
The BBC will come to defend their beloved religion of peace no doubt….
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/11531140/Extremists-are-setting-up-anti-British-schools-report-claims.html
“..the BBC has started to revert to type and is slowly massaging Johnson’s words out of existence…downplaying them and their significance for Labour.”
Editorial by omission is one the the most pervasive, effective but nigh on impossible to prove aspects of a very shoddy BBC ‘professional’ operation.
Every so often something contra-narrative slips through, and even if fleeting is soon erased.
There may be some trace left in a small backwater to drag out to show there was ‘coverage’ if challenged, but the needs of the narrative will see all stories evolve and get repackaged for the top of the hour headlines or breakfast sofas without any speed bumps.
The leader of the opposition has told the BBC that their future is assured under him. Doesn’t get much clearer than that.
“Labour to raise £7.5bn from tax avoiders
Tax avoiders would face bigger fines as part of Labour’s plan to raise an extra £7.5bn a year, if the party wins the general election.”
Tax avoidance is NOT illegal. How can labour justify fining people who do not break the law? How can they justify imposing taxes on people illegally.
People who avoid tax still pay every penny that they are legally obliged to pay. They are not breaking the law.
What this is in reality as a promise to stop certain acts of avoidance being legal. In other words, creating more new taxes.
So this will be an extra £7.5 billion pound tax bill on British businesses.
Perhaps they’re going to fine the Government(themselves) for creating the loopholes. Sounds the sort of cunning plan they’d come out with.
They can’t fine people who don’t break the law. What happens in reality is that companies and individuals self assess their tax and HMRC raises enquiries where it disagrees with what you’ve self assessed. Most aggressive “tax avoidance” schemes depend on an interpretation of the rules which is subjective, so there will be an enquiry process with the possibility of litigation through the courts at the end of it. If the taxpayer concedes or the court finds against them then at that stage they get slapped with a penalty (or fine). It’s all a lot more grey than the “legal tax avoidance” and “legal accounting tricks” that the lazier parts of the press reference would make you believe.
That sounds right. Tax avoidance in itself is not illegal, but some of the tax avoidance schemes are very complicated, and vulnerable to legal challenge. If they fail, then fines and penalties are payable, but in that case, the court will have found that the scheme does not constitute legal tax avoidance, but illegal tax evasion.
Do I recall correctly suggestions of a prominent Labour supporting retired football manager being one of the scheme users involved in a current legal case looking at an aggresive tax avoidance scheme?
You would not have thought champagne socialists would tell their accountants not to worry too much about paying in a little extra in than might be strictly due as it would go to state spending in schools and hospitals and on benefits.
Found a link
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/disney-tax-scheme-alex-ferguson-5182094
As it is not from the Daily Mail, but a Labour supporting paper that has made the NOTW hacking look like the efforts of rank amateurs, I have no doubt about its truth!
Oh it’s different when it’s their money!
You’re right, often they are subjective, giving rise to ‘form or substance’ disputes. The more aggressive schemes might involve, for instance, setting up one or more new companies solely for tax purposes but not all businesses want to go that far. The large plc that I worked for would have no truck with very artificial schemes – partly because they didn’t want to sour an otherwise civilised relationship with the tax authorities. This can be important, depending to some extent on the type of business. However, VAT schemes to obtain a temporary cashflow advantage were commonplace and Customs & Excise, as it then was, never objected provided the rules were followed. I’d go so far as to say they expected it.
The duplicitous activities of the largest accountancy firms, and one in particular (which I also used to work for), would be well worth looking into however.
Will they be fining for example a person who goes on world wide lecturing tours earning hundreds of thousands of pounds but does not pay much tax because he set up a charity into which the proceeds are supposed to be deposited. The funds deposited are almost totally depleted, however as that person and his wife have deducted their expenses for first class air travel and five star hotels? A first class world tour at the expense of the Taxpayer.
Now who could possibly fit this bill?
Over at the Spectator, Fraser Nelson has his say, calling out Ed Balls’ massaging of the truth and criticising the ‘broadcast media’ for failing to scrutinise or challenge him.
http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/2015/04/when-will-broadcasters-challenge-ed-balls-on-his-porkies-about-his-deficit-plans/
This has been a feature of this election without scrutiny. The BBC (and Channel 4) have allowed Labour to get away with their soundbites and bandwagon politics with no challenge whatsoever – Miliband’s non-dom announcement being a perfect example. Worse, in many cases, the usual BBC suspects have repeatedly fed Labour politicians their lines, like straight men in a comedy routine.
It’s not funny though. People have a right to be given the facts…and for them to be dragged out of politicians of all flavours, not just those who the BBC doesn’t approve of.
‘but when it comes to hoodwinking broadcasters and deceiving voters, Ed Balls is the master.’
‘Hoodwink’ seems a bit generous.
Are these broadcasters incapable to sussing things out themselves? Or simply reluctant?
They are either incompetent and/or in the tank.
Maybe Mr. Balls has a colourful past history in the boudoir with others, and the Polaroids to prove it?
Or maybe they simply got the ‘when we are ushered into power on the back of your propaganda and censorship as needed, you are golden’ message recently?
Labour is putting fiscal responsibility on the very first page of its manifesto.’
Its like a cat that promises that it will never never attack mice – promise.
Labour has learnt well from Goebbels – The Big Lie.
Milliband informs us that everything in the labour manifesto is funded. How do we know this? Because he tells us it is, and that apparently is enough. How about some real figures? Pledges don’t mean anything. I haven’t heard any BBC journalists really challenging Labour on this.
It would seem that after proposing to “weaponise” the NHS, the Tories have taken the wind out of Labour’s sails with their equally unconvincing offer over NHS funding, and Labour have switched to the economy. The one thing I know for sure is that Labour is the last party I would trust with the economy. Well, that is after the Greens and the SNP and…
I have this unreal fantasy in which the BBC, as a servant to their license payers robustly grills all of the parties equally. Imagine, they would actually be proving a service to the public.
Welcome to South Yorkshire, child rape capital of Britain
But far worse in my view is the response of the NSPCC man.
The reason for the epidemic of recent child rape crimes in Britain is not because a bunch of dirty old perves who used to present It’s A Knockout or who used to be big in hospital radio are still actively engaged in kiddy fiddling. It’s because of a massive, entrenched cultural problem whereby, for three decades, gangs of Mirpuri Pakistanis in Muslim ghettos around Britain have been permitted with virtual impunity to groom, drug and rape vulnerable, mostly underage white girls.
And the reason they’ve been getting away with it is because almost all the authorities which should have prevented it happening – from the local police to the council children’s services to the various children’s charities – preferred, for reasons of political correctness, to bury their heads in the sand.
http://www.breitbart.com/london/2015/04/09/welcome-to-south-yorkshire-child-rape-capital-of-britain/
No country in the annals of history has allowed such a thing to happen. For Britain, this is a national scandal and shame. This topic should have been at the centre of the election. But far from it, the perpetrators and their facillitators are going to be re-elected.
PS
This national disaster was visited on us by the previous Labour government. Had the Conservatives lost the last election, this “war crime”, would never have come to light.
The tragedy is that the same people, particularly the Home Secretaries in the previous Labour government, instead of serving long prison sentences, are going to be re-elected.
What a bloody catastrophe.
There was a common policy over several constabularies, and of social services departments, to ignore the plight of these young girls. But votes for political survival were more important then the agony of tens of thousands of working class girls, and their families.
The last Labour givernment has brought shame to England greater then the French collaborators did to France. Atleast the French collaborators had the excuse that France was occupied by a ruthless Nazi invader. What excuse does the last Labour government have?
I really cant think of a suitable punishment for these people – the Home secretaries, the chief constables, and the rest of the quangocracies, that allowed a national crime that has no precedent in history anywhere.
What the voters south of the Border need to bear in mind is that Ed Balls, the so-called shadow Chancellor, intends to mitigate any cuts in Scotland through taxes raised in England. Much of the proposed Mansion Tax will be raised in the south-east and the money then used to alleviate the cuts being imposed in Scotland, rather than in England and Wales. The Labour Party is only concerned with trying to save its crumbling fiefdom in Scotland and is utterly contemptuous of the electorate south of the Border. Anyone thinking of voting Labour south of the Border has a complete disregard for the security and well-being of their fellow citizens.
You try being a successful business owner and Conservative voter in Scotland !
Some German baby factory is being ‘celebrated’ by the BBC as she’s now pregnant yet again with quadruplets. In a hurried remark they said she was a ‘single mother’. I take it from that remark that the Germans have found their own benefits scrounger who they have been forced to finance, and she sounded just about as entitled as every muppet we have here who think they have a right to pop out as many sprogs as they possibly can so long as someone else is being made to pay for it all !