howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
Courtesy of the Times.
Technology companies have warned the chancellor that they will pull post-Brexit investment from the UK if he goes ahead with a tax on digital sales in next week’s budget. Multinationals including Facebook, Amazon and Uber have written to Philip Hammond warning that they will reduce spending if he makes a “smash and grab raid” on their earnings. They have also warned that any attempt to impose a specific tax on mainly American digital multinationals would result in retaliation from President Trump. “Such discriminatory treatment against the US could be viewed as grounds for retaliation through the use of tariffs,” they said. “Given the range of retaliatory measures available, the impact on UK businesses operating overseas could be highly damaging.”
Mr Hammond raised the prospect of a digital only sales tax in his speech to the Conservative party conference. There has been growing anger at the small rates of corporation tax paid by companies such as Facebook and Amazon in the UK. Last year, Facebook paid £5.1 million in corporation tax on reported sales of £842.4 million. Amazon’s corporation tax bill was £4.6 million on reported profits of £80 million.
Britain has been at the forefront of international negotiations to find a new tax framework to cope with digital firms that can shift sales and profits between jurisdictions. But Mr Hammond said talks had stalled and that the UK was prepared to “go it alone”. In a submission to Mr Hammond, seen by The Times, TechUK, which represents many large multinational firms with a presence in Britain, claimed such a unilateral move would result in firms pulling out of research and development investment in the UK, damaging post-Brexit “global Britain” ambitions.
“Investment by multinational tech companies into the UK is already at risk due to the huge uncertainties over Brexit,” said Julian David, the group’s chief executive. “For the UK to go it alone on creating a new tax targeted at digital companies in the budget would be the worst possible message at the worst possible time. Far from showing the UK is open for business it would create huge new barriers to investment and risk destabilising international efforts to reform the global tax system.” Describing the plan as a “smash and grab raid on revenue that will set alarms ringing from Washington to Tokyo,” Mr David said it could result in retaliation from the Trump administration. “There is a real risk that the government could start its post-Brexit ‘global Britain’ agenda with a raft of retaliatory tariffs from Donald Trump,” he said.
Writing in The Times today, Bruno Le Maire, the French economy minister, says that more than 20 EU states support a 3 per cent tax on the turnover of digital giants. He says tech companies have “taken advantage” of an inability to update tax rules that are “still stuck in the 20th century” and calculated “mainly on the basis of the physical location of production facilities”.
Pablo- Registered: 21 Mar 2018
- Posts: 614
They should recalculate the business rates on warehouses operated by companies selling direct to the public to make them the same per sqm as other retail premises. Of course if we have a hard Brexit everything sent from abroad will have to have a customs declaration and both duty and VAT paid on it.
Bob Whysman, Brian Dixon, Jan Higgins and
1 more like this
Bob Whysman, Brian Dixon, Jan Higgins and Judith Roberts like this
Captain Haddock
- Location: Marlinspike Hall
- Registered: 8 Oct 2012
- Posts: 8,070
Pablo wrote:They should recalculate the business rates on warehouses operated by companies selling direct to the public to make them the same per sqm as other retail premises.
And why not? Someone comes up with an innovative way of providing a much wider choice of much cheaper stuff delivered much more efficiently to many more people and the first thing we do is tax it.
Pathetic.
"We are living in very strange times, and they are likely to get a lot stranger before we bottom out"
Dr. Hunter S Thompson
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
Captain Haddock wrote:And why not? Someone comes up with an innovative way of providing a much wider choice of much cheaper stuff delivered much more efficiently to many more people and the first thing we do is tax it.
Pathetic.
Classic example of short term mindless thinking. Because of the unlevel playing field retailers are driven to extinction meaning no business rates to fund our public services. The end game is quite simple because there will only be two or three internet giants left and they will put their heads together to agree on prices much higher than if the high street was still around.
Weird Granny Slater
- Location: Dover
- Registered: 7 Jun 2017
- Posts: 3,064
Concentrate. Concentrate. Who needs the annoyance and confusion of variety when you can have one enormous GUM? Corporate domination. Communist domination. Reassuringly similar. Never knowingly undersized.
Bob Whysman and Judith Roberts like this
'Pass the cow dung, my dropsy's killing me' - Heraclitus
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
When interviewed earlier the Chancellor said that austerity would be over after a smooth exit from the EU!! When asked whether many people would be worse off under universal credit he said that he hoped not, no inspirational stuff from him.
Captain Haddock- Location: Marlinspike Hall
- Registered: 8 Oct 2012
- Posts: 8,070
Sorted!
DOVER DISTRICT COUNCIL – 31 OCTOBER 2018
Motions on Notice by Members
(1) In accordance with Council Procedure Rule 13, Councillor M R Eddy will
move:
“This council notes the Prime Minister’s announcement that austerity is over,
congratulates her on the adoption of Labour party policy and looks forward to the
additional funding needed to fund existing services and additional pressures.”
"We are living in very strange times, and they are likely to get a lot stranger before we bottom out"
Dr. Hunter S Thompson
Brian Dixon
- Location: Dover
- Registered: 23 Sep 2008
- Posts: 23,940
another fudged budget, more dosh for the rich less for every body else. end of austerity my arse.
Pablo- Registered: 21 Mar 2018
- Posts: 614
And more waste of councillors’ time with a childish bit of party-political point-scoring.
Brian Dixon, Jan Higgins and Captain Haddock like this
Captain Haddock- Location: Marlinspike Hall
- Registered: 8 Oct 2012
- Posts: 8,070
Pablo wrote:And more waste of councillors’ time with a childish bit of party-political point-scoring.
Couldn't have put it better myself!
"We are living in very strange times, and they are likely to get a lot stranger before we bottom out"
Dr. Hunter S Thompson
Jan Higgins
- Location: Dover
- Registered: 5 Jul 2010
- Posts: 13,875
Captain Haddock wrote:Sorted!
DOVER DISTRICT COUNCIL – 31 OCTOBER 2018
Motions on Notice by Members
(1) In accordance with Council Procedure Rule 13, Councillor M R Eddy will
move:
“This council notes the Prime Minister’s announcement that austerity is over,
congratulates her on the adoption of Labour party policy and looks forward to the
additional funding needed to fund existing services and additional pressures.”
This is a shining example of why many of us have little interest in becoming a councillor, party politics at the top of the agenda rather than sorting out local problems.
Keith Sansum1 likes this
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I try to be neutral and polite but it is hard and getting even more difficult at times.
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howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
Yesterday the Chancellor said that all his budget giveaways were based on us getting a free trade deal with the EU but if it was a cliff edge leave then things would change, which sounds sensible to me but today no. 10 says nothing will be altered whatever the results of negotiations.
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
Not read through the detail thoroughly yet but I suspect there is some sleight of hand, there usually is.
Extra money to councils for social care but it is widely expected that there will be usual cut in Government grants next April which would cancel that out with interest.
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
Brian Dixon likes this
Paul Watkins- Location: Dover
- Registered: 9 Nov 2011
- Posts: 2,226
That’s the view from the perspective one in our household Howard.
Brian Dixon and howard mcsweeney1 like this
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
Courtesy of the Times
John McDonnell is facing a revolt over tax cuts after Labour figures demanded to know why he was endorsing a Tory tax cut which will benefit higher earners. Writing for The Times Red Box, the Labour mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham, takes the unusual step of calling the position unsustainable, shifting attention from government and onto internal tensions in the opposition.
He writes: “I can’t see how tax cuts for the wealthiest can be the top priority when our police are so stretched and there are people dying on British streets for want of a roof over their head.”
It comes after Labour’s shadow chancellor was challenged on whether he would keep the changes to the personal allowance, the amount workers can keep before they pay income tax, announced in the budget yesterday. The chancellor Philip Hammond brought forward increases in the allowance, in what he branded a tax cut for 32 million people. The promise to increase income tax thresholds to £12,500 in the case of the personal allowance and £50,000 in the case of the higher-rate threshold by 2020-21 a year early, will cost of £2.8 billion in 2019-20, falling to £1.8 billion in 2023-24, due to a cash freeze in 2020-21. Mr McDonnell told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “We will support the tax cuts at the moment on the basis that it will inject some demand into the economy. “But we put forward in the general election a fairer taxation system so that does mean that we will be asking the top 5 per cent to pay a bit more in income tax and we will be rolling back many of the corporation tax cuts that have taken place, and we will be cracking down on tax evasion and tax avoidance. “What we’ve said is we will leave those personal allowances at whatever we inherit but our focus will be on a fair taxation system.”
In his Red Box article, Mr Burnham denounced the move, saying that the choice for all MPs is whether they “support a £400 windfall for the top 10 per cent when thousands are sleeping on the streets?”
He added: “I am hoping that I misheard John (McDonnell’s) position or that he made a quick decision before he had time to go through all of the Budget analysis. Either way, I would advise him to avoid the mistake we made in 2015. Don’t let this run for days and then come up with a compromise to save face that pleases no-one. Hammond’s package couldn’t even be justified in the good times and certainly not now. Labour should oppose it — starting today.”
Guest 2599- Registered: 6 May 2018
- Posts: 10
In no way the end of austerity and certainly not delivering for the people of this area. This budget was a disappointment:
https://www.charlottecornell.org/short-articles-and-comment/2018/10/30/hammonds-budget-failing-the-people-of-dover-deal/howard mcsweeney1 likes this
Brian Dixon- Location: Dover
- Registered: 23 Sep 2008
- Posts: 23,940
a fudged budget is allways a disappointing, no matter what party sets it.
Reginald Barrington
- Location: Dover
- Registered: 17 Dec 2014
- Posts: 3,257
#17
Written by someone who clearly has little knowledge and understanding of the concerns and needs of local people in Dover and Deal, and by someone who never talks about their privileged upbringing in leafy sussex.
Arte et Marte
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
Charlotte has done her homework(normally she sets it), very little of the money going into the NHS will be spent on patient care, even I saw through the social care scam and as for schools just a one off bribe that will do nothing long term to help over worked teachers and support staff. Morale is low in the profession and it will be difficult to recruit staff in the future.