John Redwood:
Does my right hon. Friend agree that the problem is that the OBR’s forecasting never gives any credit for cutting a tax rate in order to get more revenue? This could be a good example of where that would work.
Mr Ellwood:
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. The Centre for Economics and Business Research suggests that there is £10 billion to be made in lost GDP at the moment, as we are not attracting overseas visitors because our taxes are higher than those of our continental counterparts.
November 30, 2023
The tax disadvantages to the overseas visitor are the least of our tax problems. OVs come to see and bathe in our shows of antiquity not to buy tat or handbags. It is Industry, the Self Employed, and the Individual Taxpayer that needs the monsterous burdon of excessive tax removing by the simple act of government spending much less and receiving professional value for money advise on what they have to spend.
In the last 24 hours we have seen blatant examples of the scribes being totally unaware of basic things they are supposed to be doing in the Home Office. They proffess not to know how many illegals they have deported. I do not buy this. I would accuse them of having their own, independant of government, immigration policy and have been caught out. To which the only answer is to sack the lot with no “Ks” in sight. They are without doubt a fifth column. It is not inconceivable that the truth is that they are carrying out, under the counter, government policy. All of them edging ever closer to a return to the EU, rendering them unelectable. Prove me wrong SJR.
November 30, 2023
A kind reply by Mr Ellwood. A more accurate reply would have been that that, outside a few crank right-wing think thanks, no one thinks tax cuts increase revenue and, moreover, that all available empirical economic evidence proves that they do not.
November 30, 2023
On rhat basis we should hand all our personal gains to government as in your view they are better at spending it than are the people, or what a load of codswallop.
December 2, 2023
I wonder who the larger provider of codswallop is?
Who said that ‘we should hand all our personal gains to government’. A given tax take can be sustainable without any need to increase or decrease it. Only people who have not much evolved since the 1980s still go on and on thinking that tax cuts (and they usually do not say where those would be applied) guarantee a larger tax take. It has been repeatedly shown that announcements of tax cuts defer the collection of tax and skew the perception of what the impact actually is: the difference between Short Run vs Long Run Aggregate Supply.
November 30, 2023
The response side-steps the point, visitors do not study comparisons on tax levels between countries.
Investors do of course.
November 30, 2023
Once again , many words resulting in absolutely NO ACTION.