I was struggling to think of an example (I'm not against retaining a deterrent). Its more the contradiction between not being able to employ police officers against a present and real threat to life, but we can to a future possible threat.

It wasn't specifically about Trident

"One Nation Under God, has turned into One Nation Under the Influence of One Drug"
[Link]

I'd rather see rises across the board, on income tax, and dividends, rather than a tax aimed at just the top 1%. Its not because I love the top 1%, but that all of society should contribute, not just 'the people who don't vote for you'.

The cost of society should be born by its citizens as a whole, and its businesses. Companies that attempt to escape tax revenue, should be refused access to UK Markets. And no should UK arms of companies by offsetting losses made outside the UK by against UK Tax.

The system has to be fair(ish) if its to work, and that means everyone has to be contributing equally - All citizens, as one.

If necessary, I'd rather see higher levies on things like inheritance (widows and spouse excepted), capital gains and duties rather than targeting that specifically targets peoples income bracket.

It might really suck to pay 40% inheritance taxes for your parents house, or savings - but it isn't you who worked for it after all. Its still kind of 'free money'.

"One Nation Under God, has turned into One Nation Under the Influence of One Drug"
[Link]

Correlation and causation are two different things. If you look at the reasons for increased tax take it's very hard to argue that decreasing the rate lead to increased tax revenues. There are other reasons for increased profitability. If anything you could argue that, if returns are measured after tax, then decreasing the rate allows lower effort and productivity to achieve the same targets. In reality most businesses look at metrics such as operating cash flows and EBITDA as measures of performance and benchmarking. The incentives to maximise profits don't fall away at the kind of relatively low rates we're debating. True if you get back up to 40-50% CT then the incentives would wear thin but not at 26%.

The best way to improve profitability is to look at improving productivity (reducing inequality helps a lot with this), providing a healthy, motivated and well educated workforce and improving national infrastructure (investment) such as transport, roads and 5G/broadband. Paying a few extra % in CT for companies is well worth it for such a return.

No it means that you keep more of what you earn and spend it accordingly on White goods,holidays, food & drink etc where you pay a higher VAT rate.

Pro USA & Israel

None of that happens H, we are only talking about them making a fair contribution to society.

Paying 3% more on an income of 80,000 is hardly going to bother you.

But that's not how taxation works. How tax works is that the rich people who have it, avoid paying as much as they can, and vote for political parties who keep reducing the amount of tax and providing tax shelter options for those who have it, whilst those who don't get f**ked.

This occurs so frequently, that people exist who entirely make their careers out of ensuring people with money pay as little tax as possible. Whilst oddly, at the other end of the scale, we have an entire infrastructure in place to ensure that those with a little of the wealth, have as little control over their taxation as possible.

"One Nation Under God, has turned into One Nation Under the Influence of One Drug"
[Link]

Indirect taxes are regressive and should not be used as a replacement for income tax. VAT is bloody complicated as well. It would also be a nightmare for stuff which has no VAT on it as it would go up in price as well, which includes stuff like rent, banking and insurance as these are exempt activities and the companies involved in their provision cannot reclaim VAT so their costs would go up and therefore their prices go up.

So what the article ACTUALLY says is that the Treasury estimated that the COST of the cut in rates would be offset by 40-60% in the long run due to increase in take on OTHER taxes as a result of increased spending due to additional retained earnings for companies.

It then says, as I said, that banks are now making money again post GFC and that their utilisation of carried forward losses has been restricted (widened tax base as I said).

It also says that business investment is subdued (bad for the economy) despite the cut in tax rates, which meant that there was lower levels of tax relief for investment (again this is in SPITE of a cut not because of it).

They then mention BEPS, action on anti-avoidance and diverted profits tax which I also mentioned. This has nothing to do with the rate.

The only part of the article that claims increases in tax take are in any part due to the cuts in the rate are by making Britain more attractive as an HQ for multinationals. However companies will make suce decisions on a number of factors, including infrastructure, available talent, Brexit, other taxes and rates payable. It's notable that an effect of incoming BEPS legislation will force companies that locate in the UK have to be doing so in reality for genuine commercial reasons and have trade here to take advantage of the lower tax rates. In order to do this companies will require there to be well trained, healthy and motivated staff and the infrastructure to run a business. How do you provide this? From taxation. Companies cannot have their cake and eat it too.

Perhaps staffing levels at HMRC should be increased so that there's manpower to chase down evaders / avoiders.
How much would it cost to train and pay a tax person per year. 30-40k? How much tax are they likely to track down, alot more than that I'd chance.

I think incentivising corporate tax cuts makes sense. Start at 26% but if your lowest paid worker earns 30k a year pro-rata then you get 25%. But if half your workforce earns more than 30k a year, you pay 15% etc.

If your a Landlord or property business, then your corporation tax is adjusted from 26% additionally based on how you pay your staff, and how your rents compare to the market value.

I'd have no problem with companies paying 0% corporation tax if in doing so they saved themselves some money, their staff got better wages and social function was better served (Health care for all permanent staff -10% corporation tax - benefits the staff and the NHS).

"One Nation Under God, has turned into One Nation Under the Influence of One Drug"
[Link]