Thanks for the info. It is interesting to see that the actual figures are open to manipulation. As you seem to know a lot more about finance than myself, do you think the proposed drop in Corporation Tax to 16% would cost the tax payer money in lost revenue, create more money for the government or make little difference?

Lost revenue. It begs the question with the economy being in trouble, if we can afford to loose this revenue?

Hard to say. What the government has done is reduced the tax rate and increased the tax base. It depends on how successful measures being brought in this year are in stopping companies move profits to offshore tax havens is.

In my opinion, given new anti-avoidance measures and the greater difficulty in accessing tax-havens, plus the relatively low level in place currently, it's not necessary to decrease rates any further and a modest increase would probably result in higher tax take than a decrease. In terms of value for money I think 26% corporation tax would be good value for money if public services and education benefit from proper investment as a result.

This is a good article by a good economist on the matter: [Link]

I should also add that I believe that there should be a higher general tax rate, a lower small business rate and more generous tax breaks for R&D and green tech.

Edited by CambridgeEagle (02 Jun 2017 2.34pm)

Let's have a reminder what labour has done to our country feel free to share
Please find below your success of a Labour government, measured in pain - 😩

1) Up to 50 thousand 'excess' deaths were recorded at hospitals during the last Labour Goverment. (Research by Sir Brian Jarman of Imperial College).
2) Hundreds of stealth taxes, paid by all.
3) Between 1997 to 2010 gas prices rose 133% and electricity prices rose 69%. Why would the public ever trust Labour on energy prices again?.
4) The devastating impact of Labour's raid on pensions: The tax grab has cost workers £118bn no since 1997. (Office for Budget Responsibility).
5) Labour spent £148.7 million on a National Measurements Office which forces traders to measure their goods in kilograms rather than pounds.
6) The Royal Mail is now sold because of EU Postal Directive 2008/6/EC, brought in by the last Labour government.
7) Council Tax doubled under Labour - 105% increase in England, 146% Wales. (The Chartered Institute of Public Finance & Accountancy: 26/03/09).
In 2012/13 Labour councils employed nearly 23,000 people on zero-hour contracts.
9) £660 million has been cut from Labour run NHS Wales over the last three years according to the Welsh TUC.
10) When Labour came to power in 1997, spending on NHS managers was less than £190m. By 2010 this had increased by 450% to over £1bn per year.
11) Labour wasted £11bn of taxpayers money on a failed IT project which was eventually scrapped by the NHS in 2013.
12) Labour lumbered the NHS with vast PFI repayments - £50 billion worth of loans which are costing £300 billion in repayments.
13) It was the Labour Party who awarded the DWP Medical Services Contract to ATOS on the 15th March 2005.
14) Labour started the privatisation of the NHS. They brought in the 2006 NHS Act that introduced competition into the NHS.
15) Labour introduced competition into the NHS: Competition Act 1998, Enterprise Act 2002 & Public Sector Procurement Regulations 2006.
16) In 2006 Gordon Brown cut the flood defence budget by £14 million.
17) Youth unemployment rose by more than 40% during Labour's 13 years in office.
1 Total stock of social housing fell under Labour - 421,000 homes were lost from the social housing stock between 1997 and 2010.
19) British manufacturing grew by 28% between 1980 and 1997. Then, under Labour, it shrank by 6%: falling from 20% of GDP to just 11%.
20) Labour left a deficit of £156 billion, PFI liability of £301 billion, EU Rebate loss £9.3 billion, Sold the Gold loss £6 billion.
21) The last Labour government spent so much money on Labour cronies that it had a 5% structural deficit at the height of the boom.
22)
The use of food banks went up tenfold under Labour. From 3,000 users in 2005/06 to over 40,000 by 2009/10. (The Trussell Trust/C4 FactCheck).
23) When Labour's Gordon Brown became Prime Minister in 2007, UK public debt was 44.1% of GDP. When he left in 2010, it was 148.1%.
24) Only 6,330 council houses were completed from 1998 to 2010 under Labour, compared with 17,710 in 1990 alone - Thatcher's final year as PM.
25) Tony Blair gave away a chunk of the UK's EU rebate estimated now to have cost the UK £9.3 billion between 2007-2013.
26) In 2010 Gordon Brown branded Rochdale voter Gillian Duffy "a bigoted woman" for daring to voice her concern about uncontrolled immigration.
27) Labour are now complaining about gambling. But they were the ones who wanted to build Super Casinos in some of the poorest areas in Britain.
2 Labour closed more mines in 5 years than Thatcher did in 11 years.. 211 mines closed under Wilson 1965-70.. 154 under Thatcher 1979-90.
29) Under Labour zero hour contracts increased by 74% between 2004 - 2009.
30) Since Labour liberalised the law in 2000 to allow postal voting on demand, the number of postal voting fraud in Labour areas has soared.
31) Labour wants to charge patients. Lord Warner said people should pay a £10-a-month fee to use NHS/£20 for every night they stay in hospital.
32) Sexed up dossiers.
33) Labour were responsible for the rise in payday lenders. Now they are campaigning against them.
34) Labour presided over the slowest growth in 50 years and produced the fastest decline in British manufacturing since manufacturing began.
35) Labour destroyed our border controls then with the help of the BBC denounced anybody who voiced concerns about mass immigration as racists.
36) Labour councils are the biggest users of zero hour contracts.
37) Under Labour between 1997 to 2010 the gap between rich and poor got wider.
3 The last Labour government doubled the rate of income tax on the lowest paid.
39) Thousands of dead Iraqi women and children.
40) Labour MPs to remember: Denis MacShane (jailed), David Chaytor (jailed), Eric Illsley (jailed), Elliot Morley (jailed), Jim Devine (jailed).
41) Blair invaded Iraq and Brown invaded the Treasury, both actions crippled us.
42) Labour opposes democracy in Britain by denying the British people a referendum on EU membership.

Mark Lewis Tibbetts

always a Norwood boy, where ever I live.

I agree, Sanders would have taken a lot of that anti-establishment vote. The rust belt wouldn't have fallen anywhere as easily to Trump.

Considering Clinton won the popular vote anyway but was incredibly unpopular I think Sanders would and should have beaten Trump.

Sanders and Trump are both incredibly old though.....In Europe potential leaders get younger and younger and in the US the opposite..... I wouldn't be surprised if the next contenders have to be taken out of cryogenic storage.

'Who are you and how did you get in here? I'm a locksmith. And, I'm a locksmith.' (Leslie Nielsen)

Just the sort of rhetoric that could see Labour in office again........