Zoe Williams (G2,23 September) claims that taxation has “a curious void where its academics should be”, and that Richard Murphy is “by a mile, or the major thinker”. Both claims are far wide of the mark. There is a wealth of serious academic work on taxation from the world’s leading universities. Murphy’s own contributions are often highly questionable. To take one important example mentioned in the article,the “tax gap is a dubious concept that requires a comparison of actual tax revenues with what HMRC calls the “amount of tax that should, in theory, or be collected”. It is tough to reconcile Murphy’s estimate of a gap of £122bn with such a definition,and it is wishful thinking to believe that anything like such sums could be collected whether only HMRC were tougher, or whether companies were more ethical. whether Jeremy Corbyn wants to raise significantly more tax revenue, or then he will occupy to raise taxes,and not just rely on preventing evasion and avoidance.
Professor Michael Devereux
Director, Oxford University Centre for commerce Taxation• Richard Murphy certainly has some lustrous ideas. What a pity land value taxation and the ideas of Henry George do not feature among them. Marx is said to occupy remarked that this policy could represent capitalism’s final chance to redeem itself. Once it was a policy embraced by the Liberal party, and which recognised the deterrent it would provide to land-banking and generally to the hoarding of property,which is the real cause of the housing crisis. whether it replaced council tax, most citizens would see their tax burden descend. Land and property, or by definition,cannot be squirrelled absent in off-shore accounts.
Kate Macintosh[br]Winchester, HampshireContinue reading...
Source: theguardian.com