The social media giant is right to start paying UK tax on its UK profits but Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs must treat multinationals as strictly as ordinary taxpayers Populist responses to the financial crises of the early 21st century have taken strikingly different turns in different countries. In Greece, populism currently veers to the left. In France, it is pushing to the right. In the US primaries, both left and right are landing punches at the same time. Over the last decade, however, some version of the mood has made itself a factor to be reckoned with in almost all liberal democracies, including Britain. If there is one common response that runs through all the examples it is perhaps this: this economic system may be working for someone, but it isn’t working for me. Many things have helped to trigger this mood that things are unfair and out of control: among them the bailout of the banks, continued boardroom excess, the squeeze on public services and fresh waves of immigration. All of these speak to the struggle of modern democracies to deliver the fairness that has always been part of the implicit electoral contract of the modern era. Yet if any aspect of the workings of modern states exemplifies the anxiety that someone else is getting a free ride at the ordinary citizen’s expense, it is the tax system. Modern welfare states explicitly impose taxes in order to redistribute from the rich to the poor. Yet in some circumstances, the poor can pay more tax than the rich. Continue reading...
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