Today's Guest Post was emailed in by a Home-Owner-Ist.

Displaying the complete lack of self-awareness that is typical of Home-Owner-Ists, Mick McK emailed me as follows:

Well Mark, remember how you reveled in the tax attacks on landlords? We warned what would happen and you still loved the attacks. You were overflowing with glee. Hope you're proud!

More than 120,000 British children will be homeless this Christmas, says charity

Homelessness In The UK Needs To Be Tackled Now

Rough sleeper numbers in England rise for seventh year running

Number of homeless people sleeping on streets in England hits highest level on record

Weird.

In the real world, Home-Owner-Ism leads to homelessness, by definition, that's the whole point. They like having plenty of visibly homeless pour encourager les autres; it keeps tenants in abject fear of being evicted, so they make sure that the rent gets paid first. It's a bit like the assumption that Tories like(d) a bit of unemployment because it keeps wages down.

If you can be bothered to read the articles he linked to, not a single one says that a modest reining in of the favourable tax treatment for BTL landlords has led to an increase in homelessness.

Even if we accept that there has been an increase in homelessness over the past two years, Mick McK offers no explanation as to why there was already so much homelessness before then, when BTL and rental income was given very favourable tax treatment.

'Nuff said.

Faux Lib shill gloriously missing the point.

From City AM:

DEBATE: Should tech firms be taxed on revenues, rather than profit?

Sir Vince Cable:

These large, mainly technology focused firms have been cheerfully manipulating where their profit is booked to pay minimal tax in the UK for many, many years now.

The Treasury is looking at a new tax that would be levied on these firms’ revenue, rather than profit, which is an extremely robust step – but probably one that is necessary in the current environment. A revenue-based system of taxing these firms could be used, in the short term, as a rough proxy for their economic activity and act as a strong disincentive to tax dodging in our country.

However, this is something of a stop-gap measure. In the long run, we need a proper international agreement to create a more suitable taxation arrangement that properly captures the amount of tax firms should be paying and where they should be paying it.

Note how he is being quite nuanced about it, and I have to agree.

In their published worldwide group accounts this small handful of multinationals are reasonably honest about how much profit they make in total (to keep the stock markets happy). What they can fudge to the n-th degree (and there is no scientifically right or wrong answer) is where those profits are earned. Assuming that corporation tax is a less bad tax, the only rough and ready way to work out in which country they earn their profits is to assume that profit is a certain fraction of turnover. All you need to do is multiply turnover (advertising revenues) from any country by that fraction, then multiply that by your corporation tax rate.

Countries with national and local/state profit taxes (USA, Germany) apply this method in real life and it 'works'. It is not, strictly speaking, a tax on turnover like VAT, it is a way of apportioning net profits between different geographic areas.

So if one group has a worldwide profit margin of 10%, turnover in your country of £1 billion and your country's corporation tax rate is 20%, the assumed profits are £100 million and the corporation tax thereon is £20 million (effective rate 2% of turnover). Perhaps another group has a worldwide profit margin of 30%... then the effective rate is 6% of turnover, and so on. Amazon is still in the loss-leading phase, so the effective rate of tax on turnover would be something like 0.1%.

Here comes the shill who addresses the wrong question and makes two fundamental mistakes:

Russ Shaw, founder of Tech London Advocates and Global Tech Advocates, says NO.

There is no doubt that the biggest multinational tech firms have a responsibility to contribute a fair and adequate level of tax to support the UK’s public sector. Britain’s infrastructure is a pillar of the tech ecosystem which has helped these businesses to flourish.

But officials have to recognise the positive contribution tech giants make to the thriving technology sector and critically in supporting the UK’s startups and scaleups. Just last week, Microsoft announced that it will be investing £14m and opening a new startup accelerator in the heart of east London.

In recent years, investments in tech have reached record levels, and employment in the industry has expanded rapidly. It is therefore an imperative that we ensure the UK remains an attractive destination for large investment. We must protect the digital economy by signposting the UK as being open for business and ensure that our tax policies encourage growth at a time where other European cities are gaining in appeal.

We cannot threaten prosperity by deterring world-leading tech firms.

1. These big companies are like machines that hoover up money from around the world. Clearly, they would prefer to pay the lowest amount of tax possible (same as any sane person), but as long as the overall rate is less than 100% of (unearned) profits, they are happy to hoover. They couldn't care less how the tax is calculated, they couldn't care less whether it is a "fair and adequate level of tax to support the UK's public sector" or not. Who's to say whether Vince's proposed way of working out the corporation tax bill is "fair and adequate"? The government just wants to pluck feathers with the minimum of hissing.

2. Having hoovered up the money and paid some tax, these groups have to decide what to do with it. Pay massive salaries? Pay dividends? Invest in start-up businesses? That's their decision. Having special rules that apply to a handful of multi-nationals has no bearing on whether it's a good idea for them to invest in start-ups in the UK (to whom those rules would clearly not apply) or not.

OK, Norway/EFTA option it is then.

Faced with an unexpected narrow majority for Leave in the Referendum, The Powers That Be adopted a simple strategy, make such an unholy mess of it that all but the most hardcore Leavers throw in the towel and say, sod it, let's just stay in. This strategy appears to be working, but only marginally.

My preferred option would be unilateral free trade, that's nice and simple, but it's unlikely that a UK government would ever do something that simple and obvious. As a democrat, I've got to accept that there was only a narrow majority for Leave - we have to respect the 48% as well as the 52% - and a lot of those will have voted Leave out of sheer bloody mindedness in response to the endless Project Fear crapola, which was obviously without substance.

I suppose to some extent, a lot of people who are sticking with Leave are doing it because
a) the EU has revealed its true nature, playground bully from Hell and
b) because they enjoy watching the UK government squirm.

Staying in clearly isn't an option either, that just puts us back to square one, and who knows what vicious treatment the EU will mete out if we go back begging to stay in after all.

Therefore, I personally have decided to bow to those greater minds who really have been looking at this in a fair and dispassionate way for a longer time than I have and think we should try to rejoin EFTA (if they'll still have us), also known as the Norway Option/flexcit, stay in the EEA, and fudge everything else. Given how useless our government is at negotiating, at least we are going for a known known.

Will it be perfect? Depends on what you view as perfect. Will it keep Leavers and Remainers equally un/happy? I would guess so.

Or put it another way, had Cameron come back from his last gasp failed attempt at renegotiation in early 2016 and said "Fuck it, that's it, we are triggering Article 50 right now and applying to rejoin EFTA" I personally would have been over the Moon. I don't see why the context changes that.

Or, even more hypothetically, let's imagine the UK had just stayed in EFTA back in 1973, I guess most people would be happy with the status quo, a few Federalist nutters would be clamouring for full EU membership; a few rabid outsiders would be calling for us to leave EFTA and go it alone, but I doubt that I or the vast majority would be that bothered either way.

Killer Arguments Against LVT, Not (436)

What is particularly irritating about all these KLNs is that they are not based on facts or reason, even though the Homeys pretend they are. Even if you could sit Homeys down and carefully rebut their objections, they wouldn't say, ah well, good point, I suppose my KLN is baseless. They will just invent another one and would have no qualms about completely contradicting themselves (as the commenters do below).

Emailed in by MBK from The Times, from the comments to an article headed John McDonnell says Labour backs levy on land to replace council tax:

GK: They really are flying the Marxist flags high this week. Will WC 19th February 2018 go down as the week the Socialist Party finally unveiled their true intentions?

John McD clearly said that it would be a replacement tax. One in, one out. Maybe Labour intend to collect more from LVT than they would have done from Council Tax, so what? How is that more "Marxist" than the Tories regularly nudging up the main rate of VAT, something which a Labour government (to its credit) has never done?

Another cyclist: The fairest form of local taxation was the Community Charge - every person who used council services paid for them. Why should two people living in a large house pay more than two people in a small house? Both use the same council services.

A Poll Tax is inherently regressive and difficult to collect, so 'honest' souls would end up overpaying to compensate for those who wriggle out of it. For a given total revenue, the average household would be paying as much in Poll Tax as they would be paying in LVT. The big differences being that LVT is inherently progressive, easy to collect and encourages more efficient use of land and buildings.

Christopher Sheldrake: I have a large garden, it's actually large enough to build a second house on. This was obviously what was originally intended because there is a missing number between us and one of our neighbours.

However, there is zero chance of the council agreeing to give us planning permission to build another house (They even refused a detached garage because they thought the intention was to turn it into a house - it wasn't). So, can McDonnell please tell me how we are supposed to make our garden more "productive" to avoid Labour's squalid Land tax ? The answer is we can't, the council won't let us...

That's a valuation issue, clearly, the valuation system has to be consistent with the basic concept of 'optimum permitted use'. If there's no planning for a second home, then the extra large garden would only incur minimal tax. Observation tells us that people value the first 100 sq yards of back garden or the first one or two off-street parking spaces very highly. The additional price/rent that most people are prepared to pay for anything more than that is minimal (diminishing returns to scale), so the extra tax on the would also be minimal.

... This is nothing more than a tax grab which will, quite by coincidence, of course, not hit Labour Lovies [sic] in Islington with their small gardens, nor their supporters living in council or Housing Association flats.

Bollocks. The LVT on homes in Islington will be very high. how high the LVT-inclusive rents for social housing would be is - and always was - a political decision.

colinus: That's the London vote gone. Carry on McD.

Wahey! That's the equal and opposite argument! He recognises that LVT on homes in London will be a lot higher than Council Tax. Caveat One - it's set at a national rate, which is not clear from the article. Caveat 2 - over half of people in London are tenants and won't be affected.

Toby Jones: What is the difference between taxing land and taxing property? Does it mean that a tumbled down property on a valuable piece of land is presented with a large bill...

Yes, obviously.

... but a central London luxury Penthouse has low tax on the basis that it sits on land along with 35 other flats and they all share the land bill..?

Nope, 80% or 90% of the value of a London luxury Penthouse worth £1 million is land/location value, so it would pay very high LVT. The value of inner-London land is so stupendously high, you can divide it by 36 and still have a very high land value per unit. That's why a pokey flat in outer London costs the same as a normal family home in the suburbs of most other British towns - and would have a similar LVT bill.

Why would you take land values as the basis when the value of the property is 1) more able to be estimated and 2) A more accurate sign of ability to pay.

Because land value is the best measure of benefits received from society in general and/or burden placed by the occupant on society in general; the land/location value of housing is far easier to calculate; and taxing land/location value encourages improvements rather than discouraging them. Pure land value has nothing to do with "ability to pay" of any particular individual household but a) neither does total building/land value and b) they are both good indicators of "willingness to pay" of all households in the area.

drunk and disorderly Brexiter: I tried to have this explained to me by advocates but their answers ranged from outrageous to stupid.

I asked what an elderly person living in a large house should do if they can't afford the LVT based on the value of their property. Considering they probably bought the house when it was worth far less and its current value was completely out of their control...

Roll up and defer, that's what most LVTers say. If the value is completely out of their control, then that's a bit of a clue bat that the gain is entirely unearned. See the equal and opposite KLN: "I have worked hard to improve my home and shouldn't be taxed on my own efforts". Er, income tax?

Apparently that person should sell and buy something smaller...

If they don't want to roll up and defer, can either buy something smaller in the same area, or something the same size in a cheaper area, or indeed something much larger in a much cheaper area.

So - ignore the nastiness of uprooting someone against their will for the moment - I then asked what it would do to property prices for first time buyers if elderly people kept buying up small homes. The response to that was silence.

The price of the sort of homes that young couples would like to buy - family homes - will clearly fall, as there will be more of them on the market. That also saves them the hassle of moving again in a few years if/when they have kids, win-win.

Economic Myths: Immigration and economic growth

City AM is a cheer leader for landlords and banks (it's the newspaper equivalent of the Taxpayers' Alliance). It has consistently been in favour of liberal immigration policies for foreign workers, which gives us a bit of a clue a to who benefits most from immigration of foreign workers. NB, I am heartily agnostic on the issue and have no strong view one way or another.

But, like the right wingers who insist that reductions in tax rates always lead to higher tax revenues overall, they have jumped the shark with this:

Economists have repeatedly warned that a government can either have economic growth or it can have net migration reduced to the tens of thousands.

It cannot have both.

Woah, woah, woah! If that were true, then overall global GDP growth would always be zero. It would increase in immigration countries and fall in emigration countries in equal and opposite measure. That is clearly not the case, and I doubt that any serious economist has ever said anything quite as stupid as that.

Satire copies satire

VIZ, September 2014, spoof advert for an 'off-road' vehicle with the slogan "Primary school halfway up a fucking mountain? No problem."

Newsthump, February 2018, spoof article titled "Range Rover launch new 4×4 for people whose local Waitrose is halfway up a mountain".

I find this paragraph strangely hypnotic

From The Sun:

The other fatalities, five men and two women, were Panneerselvam Annamalai, Rishi Ranjeev Kumar, Vivek Baskaran, Lavanyalakshmi Seetharaman, Karthikeyan Pugalur Ramasubramanian, Subramaniyan Arachelvan and Tamilmani Arachelvan.

The world would be a better place if we'd never had to read it, obviously.

That was the Cow of the Week that was.

From The Daily Mail:

A runaway cow that avoided captivity for weeks died Thursday after it was caught and put on a truck to be taken to a farm, a local official said.

The red Limousin beef cow fled Jan. 23 as it was to be transported to a slaughterhouse. It gained celebrity status as it defended its life and freedom, tricking searchers, swimming from island to island and roaming a lake-filled region near Nysa, in southwestern Poland.

Bartosz Bukala, a spokesman for Nysa authorities, told The Associated Press that the cow had been captured but died while being transported to a local governor's farm where it was to be kept.

Local internet portal nto.pl said a team of five, including a veterinarian, moved early Thursday to capture the animal, valued at some 5,000 zlotys ($1,500,) near the village of Siestrzechowice. It took a few hours and three shots of sedatives before it was put on a truck, but the animal died there, apparently from stress, the report said.

Might as well have left her there, in other words.

"Queen of the South keeper crisis after goalie hurt by cow"

Spotted by Paul F at the BBC:

A Scottish Championship club is facing a selection headache after its reserve goalkeeper* was hit by a runaway cow. First choice goalkeeper Alan Martin is out with a thigh injury with Jack Leighfield standing in.

Queen of the South's Sam Henderson, 19, hurt his shoulder in the incident on his father's farm. Henderson was on the bench for last weekend's draw with Morton and was expected to do the same against Dunfermline on Saturday. However, the accident has meant he is facing a race to be fit.

* I think that young Sam was the reserve reserve goalkeeper. The actual reserve goalkeeper is Jack Leighfield (who happily has not been injured, by a cow or otherwise), but hey. So what the club now needs is a reserve reserve reserve goalkeeper to tide them over.

"Migration figures: Highest number of EU nationals leaving UK in a decade"

... screams the BBC:

The number of EU citizens leaving the UK is at its highest level for a decade, figures from the Office for National Statistics show. It estimates that 130,000 EU nationals emigrated in the year to September, the highest number since 2008.

Oh dear, so our European brothers and sisters are voting with their feet like the Remainers threatened they would and the Leavers hoped/promised they would? I suppose some of the wilder forecasts made by either side prior to the Referendum will actually happen, if only by coincidence.

I wonder who'll do our nursing and harvest our vegetables instead...

Meanwhile, 220,000 EU nationals came to live in the UK - 47,000 fewer than the previous year. Net EU migration - the difference between arrivals and departures - was 90,000, the lowest for five years.

OK, nothing to worry about then. This is all as fatuous as Nixon's comment that "The rate of increase of inflation is going down."