Monday 28 May 2012

The 2020 Tax Commission by the UK Taxpayer's Alliance

Some interesting points contained in this report from the Taxpayers Alliance.  The Taxpayers Alliance has interested me for quite some time with their excellent common sense viewpoints on matters such as the EU.  Now they have released some common sense proposals for reducing the size of the state and simplifying the tax system.  All great libertarian ideas that are bound to annoy socialists.  Please check them and their report out.  Personally I consider it very easy to understand why it is obvious that if you reduce taxation you actually get growth.  However that does not mean that the powers that be will see it that way.  Needless to say the left will be against this but then they never have anything sensible or un-dogmatic to contribute in any case.  A sort of 'ooh prosperity is wrong' type of knee-jerk reaction to things.  I will bring more from the Taxpayer's Alliance I like them.     I blogged about the failure of the big state here.  Next I will write about the flawed notion of the Irish nation State as Ireland teeters towards fiscal Union with the EU.  It is more than a bit interesting that on this matter I find myself agreeing with this chap!  More to come folks.   

3 comments:

Rob Harris said...

Hi Paul, I'm afraid I advocated a "yes" to the referendum for no other reason than that Ireland is in a particularly bad situation, and needs all the stability, be it real or just preceived, it can get. I used to be of the Eddie Izzard opinion that the EU was a force for good but no more. Yet Ireland facing a default, which it would likely do if leaving the EU, would be catastrophic. The problem is that the EU isn't so much based in Brussels as Berlin, and the one-size fits all approach to the Euro didn't work - such as over interest rates which were kept too low. I remember only too well the madness with all the "cheap" money.

I might be wrong but Shinner Adams' posturing on Europe seems to be empty rhetoric. At the end of the day Sein Fein still seem to be about grasping political power however they can, and come across as pretty ingenious at political maneuvering, having jumped to 25% in opinion polls in a short time, which is worrying as I believe they've no place in the republic.

Paul said...

Of course the Shinners are full of empty rhetoric. Yet I cannot bring myself to disagree with the idea of a sovereign Ireland, when I want the same thing for the UK. As it stands there is no such thing at all in the Republic, democracy is not present and you do not and cannot elect decision makers. Irish nationalism is dead, as it has been shown to be rejected by most Irish, who like yourself take the sensible but hard edged view they cannot afford it. At least you got a vote though.

Rob Harris said...

Decision making has been curtailed as a result of the bail out conditions, and I object to the notion of an integrated EU. Yet I wouldn't go as far as to say there is no such thing as a sovereign or a democratic Ireland today.

I think the EU has become a very poor excuse of a "community".In fact I would characterise many of them as shitheads but for Ireland at the moment its the only game in town, and it hasn't all gone the EU's way. Ireland has refused the French demand for harmonisation of corporate tax rates for example.