Current Affairs The Labour Party

[Bruce Wayne]

This kind of thing is perhaps illustrative of Labour under Corbyn. It's misleading dog whistling. She must know full well that company's don't pay tax on their revenue but on their profits, which at Amazon UK was around £75 million last year. Granted an effective 7% tax rate is still awful, but it's much less bad than the frankly absurd figure she's trying to pass off as fact. Assuming she knows that businesses pay tax on profits rather than revenues (which as shadow business secretary you'd hope she does), why is she lying to such dramatic effect?

 

[abelard]

which at Amazon UK was around £75 million last year

lol lol lol

 

[Bruce Wayne]

lol lol lol

So you laugh at that, but not at your business secretary trying to claim that companies pay tax on their revenue rather than profits? No wonder we're in such a mess when people overlook blatant lies based upon tribal loyalty. She's supposed to have trained in commercial law ffs. It's no more valid a claim than Johnson's absurd EU claim on the side of the bus. But it's 'your' liar so it's fine and dandy.

 

[abelard]

So you laugh at that, but not at your business secretary trying to claim that companies pay tax on their revenue rather than profits? No wonder we're in such a mess when people overlook blatant lies based upon tribal loyalty. She's supposed to have trained in commercial law ffs.

I haven't said anything about Long Bailey.

You credulously parroting Amazon's absurd tax avoidance gimmicks at face value, on the other hand, is the definition of 'overlooking blatant lies based on tribal loyalty'

 

[Bruce Wayne]

I haven't said anything about Long Bailey.

You credulously parroting Amazon's absurd tax avoidance gimmicks at face value, on the other hand, is the definition of 'overlooking blatant lies based on tribal loyalty'

I clearly said that Amazon's effective tax payments of 7% were ridiculously low. I just find it shameful that Long-Bailey had to lie to pretend that their effective tax rate was a tiny fraction of 1% instead. Politicians should know better and her point would be no worse off had she told the truth rather than deliberately mislead people. But hey, she's one of yours so carry on ignoring her until later today when the Tories or LibDems do something horrible and you can howl indignation.

 

[NilSatisOptimum]

Amazon et al can jog along to just south of Turkey, I understand there is nice free market safe zone emerging, no state services to collect taxes, so a free for all profit making machine, it's a bit lawless, slightly worse than our knife crime market towns. And if Amazon et al want assets protecting plenty of disfranchised armed militia wanting a paypacket in this safe zone...

 

[abelard]

But hey, she's one of yours so carry on ignoring her until later today when the Tories or LibDems do something horrible and you can howl indignation.

Sure, oh exalted impartial one, it's not like you're on here still contorting yourself trying to absolve your Liberals from austerity, when at the height of the worst recession in 80 years, they deliberately opted to contract the economy!!! in defiance of every macroeconomic expert and to disastrous...OH HEY WHAT'S THAT OVER THERE IN MY TWITTER FEED! LABOUR DID ANOTHER OOPSIE!!!

Who exactly do you think you're fooling? ; ) Come off it mate.

Anyways, it would be impossible to cite the actual tax rate Amazon pays on their UK profits because by design, nobody what their actual profit is - which, to anybody not trying to score cheap partisan twitter points, is the real scandal.

 

[Bruce Wayne]

Sure, oh exalted impartial one, it's not like you're on here still contorting yourself trying to absolve your Liberals from austerity, when at the height of the worst recession in 80 years, they deliberately opted to contract the economy!!! in defiance of every macroeconomic expert and to disastrous...OH HEY WHAT'S THAT OVER THERE IN MY TWITTER FEED! LABOUR DID ANOTHER OOPSIE!!!

Who exactly do you think you're fooling? ; ) Come off it mate.

Anyways, it would be impossible to cite the actual tax rate Amazon pays on their UK profits because by design, nobody what their actual profit is - which, to anybody not trying to score cheap partisan twitter points, is the real scandal.

The Guardian cited a figure of £72 million profit on their UK operations last year, hence why I used that figure as it's in the public domain for 2018. If you want to talk about the LibDems then there's a LibDem thread. This is a thread about Labour, and Long-Bailey has deliberately mislead people to make the tax Amazon pay seem frankly absurd (even more so than it already is). It's no different at all to the Leave.EU bus message. You can say she's got it wrong without it damaging your Labour credentials. I'm fairly sure your membership won't be revoked.

 

[abelard]

The Guardian cited a figure of £72 million profit on their UK operations last year, hence why I used that figure as it's in the public domain for 2018.

Yes, hence my initial lol lol lol

£72 million profit on £8.6 billion in sales?

Now I just feel embarrassed for you.

Working in finance and having some sense of how the corporate world actually works, it is always instructive to encounter people who don't, but who absorb everything they read in the corporate cheerleader press because it makes them feel rational and level-headed.

It is a bit like when American communists used to go to the USSR in the 1930s and chastise their Russian comrades for being cynical.

I actually voted for the Lib Dems in 2010, when I was young and impressionable.

When the facts change, some people change their opinions... and others don't.

 

[orchard]

This kind of thing is perhaps illustrative of Labour under Corbyn. It's misleading dog whistling. She must know full well that company's don't pay tax on their revenue but on their profits, which at Amazon UK was around £75 million last year. Granted an effective 7% tax rate is still awful, but it's much less bad than the frankly absurd figure she's trying to pass off as fact. Assuming she knows that businesses pay tax on profits rather than revenues (which as shadow business secretary you'd hope she does), why is she lying to such dramatic effect?

Isn't she just making a comparison to an individual citizen who doesn't get to pay tax after their essential operations are covered? Obviously, it's not as simple as that, but corporations do use the fact that they have a lawful right to have the status of a citizen when they so choose.

Not sure why you're all apoplectic about it like.

 

[Bruce Wayne]

Isn't she just making a comparison to an individual citizen who doesn't get to pay tax after their essential operations are covered? Obviously, it's not as simple as that, but corporations do use the fact that they have a lawful right to have the status of a citizen when they so choose.

Not sure why you're all apoplectic about it like.

Because it's incorrect. No company pay taxes on their revenue so the comparison with individual tax payers is completely wrong. As our bloviated friend above says, it's quite probable that the £72 million profit figure they announced last year was the result of accounting chicanery, and paying 7% on what is already probably a lower figure than is right is pretty shocking in itself. My question is why did she not focus on what is factually accurate rather than make a false and frankly absurd comparison to try and make the situation even more ridiculous? Given her background it's hard to believe she doesn't know how companies are taxed, so it just makes her look dishonest.

Number 25 and I had a debate the other day around austerity and he quoted the 120,000 extra people that have died since the financial crisis. It's a figure that has also been used by Corbyn to make a point about the horrors of austerity. The problem is that the authors themselves make absolutely no link between government policy and the figures they calculated. It's quite possible that government policies have played a part, but given that the authors themselves pin most of the blame on excesses of alcohol, tobacco and food (and a paucity of exercise), it's a factually incorrect link to say that the Tories have killed 120,000 people.

It creates the impression that Labour are quite happy to lie about stuff to make things sound absolutely terrible, and I wonder why that is? It's no different to the playbook used by the right to chastise immigrants or Muslims. It's wrong.

 

[tsubaki]

Because it's incorrect. No company pay taxes on their revenue so the comparison with individual tax payers is completely wrong. As our bloviated friend above says, it's quite probable that the £72 million profit figure they announced last year was the result of accounting chicanery, and paying 7% on what is already probably a lower figure than is right is pretty shocking in itself. My question is why did she not focus on what is factually accurate rather than make a false and frankly absurd comparison to try and make the situation even more ridiculous? Given her background it's hard to believe she doesn't know how companies are taxed, so it just makes her look dishonest.

Number 25 and I had a debate the other day around austerity and he quoted the 120,000 extra people that have died since the financial crisis. It's a figure that has also been used by Corbyn to make a point about the horrors of austerity. The problem is that the authors themselves make absolutely no link between government policy and the figures they calculated. It's quite possible that government policies have played a part, but given that the authors themselves pin most of the blame on excesses of alcohol, tobacco and food (and a paucity of exercise), it's a factually incorrect link to say that the Tories have killed 120,000 people.

It creates the impression that Labour are quite happy to lie about stuff to make things sound absolutely terrible, and I wonder why that is? It's no different to the playbook used by the right to chastise immigrants or Muslims. It's wrong.

TBF the most reliable figure to base criticism of a company on is always going to be total revenue, given that there will always be pressures to manipulate everything else (profit, sales and whatnot) to either reduce tax liabilities or qualify for bonuses and that one (revenue) is the most difficult one to manipulate (except directly, via asset sales, though if a firm was doing that then people would be able to see it). It would be misleading to compare it directly to tax paid (and even more misleading to compare sales to tax), but it would allow a much more important argument to be made about how firms and their auditors are incentivized to manipulate their financials.

After all, the routine nature of such manipulation puts investors at massive risk, and removes a lot of the justification for having independent auditors (given that they are meant to give confidence to investors by giving an accurate account of the state of a business). As we have seen with nearly all the big business collapses of the past twenty years, this is one of the most common themes and it is something that no government has apparently ever even contemplated fixing.

 

[Bruce Wayne]

TBF the most reliable figure to base criticism of a company on is always going to be total revenue, given that there will always be pressures to manipulate everything else (profit, sales and whatnot) to either reduce tax liabilities or qualify for bonuses and that one (revenue) is the most difficult one to manipulate (except directly, via asset sales, though if a firm was doing that then people would be able to see it). It would be misleading to compare it directly to tax paid (and even more misleading to compare sales to tax), but it would allow a much more important argument to be made about how firms and their auditors are incentivized to manipulate their financials.

After all, the routine nature of such manipulation puts investors at massive risk, and removes a lot of the justification for having independent auditors (given that they are meant to give confidence to investors by giving an accurate account of the state of a business). As we have seen with nearly all the big business collapses of the past twenty years, this is one of the most common themes and it is something that no government has apparently ever even contemplated fixing.

For sure, it's well known that companies use various tactics to move profits to low-tax jurisdictions, and I don't think it would be wrong to argue against that at all. All I'm saying is that the argument she made, and the way she made it was not only deliberately misleading, but misleading in a largely unnecessary way. I mean I can't imagine anyone would suggest a 7% tax on profits would be fair, yet she felt the need to make stuff up to paint the situation as even more absurd.

 

[dandydan]

Voter ID is racis...

 

[neil999]

Voter ID is racis...

thats not the same voting in a general/council election you doughnut...you should spend some more time on reading/education