National governments have thrown on their heads two tons of regulations; the E.U. has added another three. The regulations change every two or three months, so those brave men have to employ hordes of no-value-adding accountants and lawyers whose only job is to (try to) work out what various chaotic parliaments and dysfunctional departments come up with - as if out of spite or mere boredom, it often seems. For each employee, those hard-working men have to fill in whole books, calculate and pay all sorts of contributions, fees and taxes.
So what do Google, Amazon, Starbucks and a host of other intrepid crews do? Do they throw in the towel and apply for pen-pushing, Guardian-advertised, no-brainer jobs at the local council or other overblown, overpaid and underperforming public body? No.
They persevere and keep providing jobs to some citizens and services to others. And surprise, surprise - they're making a big buck in the process. But this is what they do: they're business people, entrepreneurs, capitalists, in case Ms Hodge hasn't noticed. They provide many good things to many good people (plus a few perverts, in the case of Google) at acceptable prices.
If Ms Hodge manages to make them pay more tax, they'll manage to make us pay higher prices*. Simples. And crucially - this all is taking place in an economy that is being taxed, charged and regulated to within inches of strangulation: big companies barely move, small businesses barely breathe, families barely pay the bills.
So what do Google, Amazon, Starbucks and a host of other intrepid crews do? Do they throw in the towel and apply for pen-pushing, Guardian-advertised, no-brainer jobs at the local council or other overblown, overpaid and underperforming public body? No.
They persevere and keep providing jobs to some citizens and services to others. And surprise, surprise - they're making a big buck in the process. But this is what they do: they're business people, entrepreneurs, capitalists, in case Ms Hodge hasn't noticed. They provide many good things to many good people (plus a few perverts, in the case of Google) at acceptable prices.
If Ms Hodge manages to make them pay more tax, they'll manage to make us pay higher prices*. Simples. And crucially - this all is taking place in an economy that is being taxed, charged and regulated to within inches of strangulation: big companies barely move, small businesses barely breathe, families barely pay the bills.
Taking all this into account, you can deduce that Ms Hodge is either devious, calculated, unethical, evil - or simply an idiot.
Whatever the conclusion regarding her person, there is something else - for Pete’s sake, leave those poor guys alone!!
*this is what happens, much, much more often than not. I won't go into how it happens.. or actually why not: if Google have a dominant position in the market, they'll put up the prices because they can. If they don't have a dominant position in the market, the prices are already as low as they can be, because of competition. (And if all the players take advantage of the tax arrangements used by Google, they'll either all have to put up prices - and lose some customers, which in turn means redundancies and less income in taxes for the state; or they'll all keep the prices down and lose some of their income, which will end up in some players dropping out, which in turn means redundancies and less income for the state. What could be the plus side of all this tiresome and unproductive hassle? More work for Ms Hodge & co, which is probably exactly what motivates all this angry, mindless hyper-activity...)
PS What a simple, effective put down on the part of Lin Homer, HMRC chief executive and permanent secretary. (A little settling of scores after one of the previous sessions, on which I also commented here, by the way)
