Is Starmer right to oppose tax rises on businesses and wealth?
Labour leader Keir Starmer seems to have provoked another attack on his tattered left-wing credentials, after he opposed plans to levy taxes on corporations and wealthy individuals who have made a fortune from the Covid-19 pandemic, when Tory Chancellor Rishi Sunak announces his spring Budget.
But is he right?
On corporation taxes, it seems he isn’t. Here’s Tax Research UK’s Richard Murphy, speaking last year but applying his words to this year too:
Okay, but how about wealth taxes?
The argument on taxing businesses is clear – it would discourage them from taking on (or retaining) staff at a time when we need people to keep their jobs, and it would take money out of the economy.
But wealth is kept in (very large) bank accounts and is not attached to employment.
So why not tax the people who have made (or increased) fortunes from the suffering of the rest of us?
At the very least, it might blunt the (fake) Tory argument that we all need to pay back the cost of the Covid crisis (that they’ve already paid anyway, by creating money).
This Writer would therefore tend to support it – but I’m ready to be corrected if you have a better argument.
Starmer’s alternative to taxing the rich is – as perhaps we should have expected – a neoliberal nightmare: he wants ordinary people to give any money we’ve managed to save during the Covid crisis to a new national investment bank. Why should we? If we back businesses, who would get the profit? And what if those businesses failed?
No Holding Back, a campaign group of socialist MPs, has said that Starmer seems to have his priorities wrong and Labour “needs a partnership with society, paid for by taxation,” not a “partnership with business, paid for by society”.
So it’s looking bad for Starmer.
But the outlook for the nation is looking worse. With no direction from either main political party, it seems the UK is drifting into economic shipwreck.
Have YOU donated to my crowdfunding appeal, raising funds to fight false libel claims by TV celebrities who should know better? These court cases cost a lot of money so every penny will help ensure that wealth doesn’t beat justice.
Vox Political needs your help!
If you want to support this site
(but don’t want to give your money to advertisers)
you can make a one-off donation here:
Here are four ways to be sure you’re among the first to know what’s going on.
1) Register with us by clicking on ‘Subscribe’ (in the left margin). You can then receive notifications of every new article that is posted here.
2) Follow VP on Twitter @VoxPolitical
3) Like the Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/VoxPolitical/
Join the Vox Political Facebook page.
4) You could even make Vox Political your homepage at http://voxpoliticalonline.com
And do share with your family and friends – so they don’t miss out!
If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!
Buy Vox Political books so we can continue
fighting for the facts.
The Livingstone Presumption is now available
in either print or eBook format here:
Health Warning: Government! is now available
in either print or eBook format here:
The first collection, Strong Words and Hard Times,
is still available in either print or eBook format here:
Here’s Prof. Rickard Murphy’s current and robust opinion
https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2021/02/25/there-are-none-so-good-as-labour-mps-when-it-comes-to-making-their-chance-of-forming-a-government-nigh-on-impossible/
There are none so good as Labour MPs when it comes to making their chance of forming a government nigh on impossible
Posted on February 25 2021
I noted that the Guardian has quoted Richard Burgon MP, the former shadow justice secretary, who is now secretary of the Socialist Campaign Group of MPs, as saying:
The question facing all politicians now is: who is going to pay for this crisis? And if we don’t have an answer for that, then we are in a position where Labour doesn’t have an answer to one of the biggest questions facing us.
No, Richard: it is not the biggest problem facing us. The biggest problem facing us is your incomprehension of the fact that this bill has been paid, in full, already. You are the constraint on Labour winning, in other words.
I have already tackled this once today in this video, and I will be doing so again tomorrow morning when I release the text of what I will be saying to Keele World Affairs tonight:
Video – https://youtu.be/d3GEno9qFtA
Taxation is a very complicated issue. Many companies which made profit out of the pandemic are scientific research firms and establishments which employ key workers. Every nation needs these firms and establishments.
Blame should be focused on governments which neglected scientific research and development for many decades.
There’s (reasonable) profit, which I don’t think anyone reasonable would argue against and which goes toward investment in the company concerned and a reasonable (that word again) return to those who have invested their money and/or time in the said company – and there’s ‘profit’ at a ridiculous level, sometimes but by no means always in the form of ‘windfall’, which goes to fat cat investors and insanely overpaid executives (and non-executive board members, not to mention asset strippers). Also, “scientific research firms and establishments which employ key workers” – particularly the more critical ones – are often those hived off from state funded universities and research establishments, if they are not actually part of those state (i.e. essentially publicly owned) bodies.
Little England is now a one party fascist state wherein the fascist tories will reign supreme for at least the next 20 years! Fascist tory supporter Starmer is the quisling in labour party and time he was ousted and sent to join his bros at the fascist tory headquarters!
Fascist tories have already printed money to cover the cost of their squandering our public money by giving it to their corrupt corporate companies! Time to tax the big corporate companies given they have so much money they don’t know where to put it all!
Starmer supporting the greedy and corrupt, as usual. Starmer is a liar and a fraud, and should be kicked out of the Labour Party!