Thursday 22 March 2012

Hoodwinked by the Chuff Weasel?

Hold on a minute! While I was running this morning I caught the sticky flatulence of George Osborne on the pinnacle of journalism that is Daybreak. He was talking about how the Old Age tax allowance freeze and abandonment would raise a massive - I repeat MASSIVE - £1billion. That's a shit load right? Well, if I remember correctly, yesterday when he was talking about the billion quid the 50p tax rate had garnered, it was dismissed as negligible. And I guess the decrease in Corporation tax is neglible also - as it's only going to lose £550 million (you know, half a BILLION quid) Because it's going to encourage business to stay in the UK and help growth, right George? Well, from what I can gather (and I will admit up front that my knowledge of the mechanics of these matters is indeed negligible) it seems that there's little to no evidence that cutting Corporation tax helps growth at all. And as to decreasing the tax to keep us competitive in the international market, well one has to frown because apparently (my thanks to @joncstone on Twitter) it's now a full 18% less than the US, 16% less than Japan, and 8% below Germany. It puts us on a level with Ireland, Iceland and Hungary - financial safe havens indeed.

Smoke and Mirrors, baby. With a side of ballbag.

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