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Modest proposal

18 June 2013 / Samuel Johnson
Issue: 4407 / Categories: Comment & Analysis , Avoidance , Companies , Employees , Income Tax , VAT

A radical new approach to address high-profile tax avoidance

KEY POINTS

  • Google says it pays taxes legally due.
  • Radical alternatives to test this commitment.
  • Abolish corporation tax for some or all companies.
  • Recover the lost tax by increasing VAT or NIC possibly selectively.

This article has been written with very serious intent to appease those who have had enough of the media circus that arguably threatens the sanctity and reputation of our noble profession; but also to honour the spirit of that great satirist Jonathan Swift in his A Modest Proposal.

Even better unlike the great Dean’s suggestion to deal with Irish famine it is not yet necessary to put cannibalism on the agenda as a potential remedy for the costs of benign or even aggressive tax avoidance.

Helpfully the CEO of Google...

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