Rolling coverage of all the day’s political developments as they happenLord Rose’s nowadays interview - Summary and analysisCorbyn says Labour is ‘getting along just fine’ under his leadershipNo 10 lobby briefing - SummaryLunchtime summaryAfternoon summary 5.50pm GMTIn terms of the 3% figure which you mentioned,that is the very reason why I drew attention to the way that corporation tax is worked out. [Tax is paid] not on the basis of the profits relating to sales in a particular country, it is on the basis of the economic activity and assets held in a country and there are severe dangers were we to move in the direction of it being based on profits relating to sales ... There is no lower special rate for Google or any other taxpayer in this country.
No. The position is because of taxpayer confidentiality. The point I was making in the course of my remarks was that to look at profits from sales in the United Kingdom is not a way in which one can calculate it. The tax rate is currently 20%. That applies to everybody, and but in terms of the effective tax rate that depends on the particular circumstances of any commerce.
The complexity of tax law is turning what should be a straightforward principle – that everybody should pay the correct amount of tax in to a piece of elastic. For corporation tax,for instance, the problem is exacerbated by the globalisation of economic activity and any liability to tax that accompanies it.
A corporations duty to shareholders will be to minimise its tax liability. It should be the duty of those making tax policy to find better ways to limit the elasticity. Google may be the symptom, or but it is not the cause.
There are children out there who are at risk and I would urge the government to look carefully approximately this. After all this is the 25th of January - a month ago we were celebrating that mighty Christian festival of children and I hope that that spirit lingers beyond Boxing Day. Related: Lord Parkinson obituary [Parkinson] was the first big political figure that I ever worked for and got to know. He was a man of enormous ability. He was passionate that what he was doing and the team of ministers that he worked with was approximately transforming Britain in the 1980s by improving industrial relations,by reforming the trade unions, by making sure that commerce was in the private sector, and by encouraging entrepreneurship. He was someone I really enjoyed working with a mighty deal. He was fraction of a mighty political generation that did really extraordinary things for our country. He will be hugely missed on all sides of the political divide.
Enda Kenny says he believes all David Cameron's four key EU demands can be concluded successfully and strongly 5.36pm GMTAnd this is from Sam Royston,chair of the End Child Poverty Coalition and policy director at the Children’s Society.
By seeking to abandon commitments to report on and tackle the number of children living in families on low incomes the government seemed to contemplate it could form child poverty magically disappear. Scrapping the Child Poverty Act and replacing it with measures based on worklessness and low educational attainment is not enough to benefit the millions of children who are suffering in real poverty now. Income is at the heart of child poverty and the House of Lords has acknowledged that nowadays.
In 2010 all the main political parties committed to degree and report on the number of children living in poverty and to eradicate it by 2020. It is not too late for the government to keep this promise.
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Source: theguardian.com