screwed yet agin by the coalition

But this is only for big and medium business - one would argue they hardly need a leg up if they are big!! I am amazed that they will be let off tax AND can claim back from our tax for overseas offices.....

"Shaxson shows how the world's tax havens have not, as the OECD claims, been eliminated, but legitimised"

Ever since reading Daniel Dorling's Injustice, I don't believe anything that comes out of the mouth of the OECD. (YOu should read the bullshit behind the OECD education tests: about how the tests are designed to yield a bell-curve in results, no matter how well or poorly a group of children happend to do. The OECD adjusts the children's results to make sure it reveals a bell-curve)

There was a big list of recommendations submitted by the CBI yesterday on how to achieve growth in industry and commerce mostly leading to howls of protest from union leaders. The serious point here is that cutting public spending alone won't get the country back on its feet. It has to be matched with generating growth, and giving businesses a leg-up with tax breaks usually encourages expansion. Whether these are the right measures, I'm not qualified to say, but if any government offers incentives to industry I think it's unfair to instantly dismiss it with phrases like 'old boys club' and 'cronies'. Good business means more jobs, more jobs means more tax revenue, more tax revenue means more options with public spending.

The author of this report has disagreed with the coalition from the word go.

Where are all the MN politicos? A few months ago a thread like this would have generated loads of informative discussion.

I've only read about half of the article, I must admit - but yes, at a time when we are supposedly all in this together - there is surely no excuse for letting businesses which have expanded overseas, get off the hook of paying the tax which has always up to now been due from them.

We keep being told 'the country can't afford this - the country can't afford that - the can't afford to pay to educate its students, must cut help for disabled people, etc etc.

What hypocrisy!

It would be great if some tax-savvy women could come onto the thread and comment on this. It is really depressing. And equally depressing is the 'regulatory capture' that Monbiot speaks of -- the handing over of govt regulatory agencies to the businesses that they are supposed to regulate. This is happening in other areas of government too, eg in the regulation of food retail.

This incredibly ideological govt is taking away so much from us with no mandate.