Is Starmer right to oppose tax rises on businesses and wealth?

Last Updated: February 26, 2021By Tags: , , , , , , , ,

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.

https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/mike-sivier-libel-fight/


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5 Comments

  1. SteveH February 27, 2021 at 12:10 am - Reply

    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

  2. Giritharan Arulampalam February 27, 2021 at 12:54 am - Reply

    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.

    • James Fussell February 27, 2021 at 3:28 pm - Reply

      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.

  3. Hecuba February 27, 2021 at 10:49 am - Reply

    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!

  4. Martyn Meacham February 27, 2021 at 11:14 am - Reply

    Starmer supporting the greedy and corrupt, as usual. Starmer is a liar and a fraud, and should be kicked out of the Labour Party!

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