Conor Boyle: Anti-wealth policies fuel a cycle of doom
This looks less like justice and more like strategy.
Conor Boyle is a young conservative and unionist from Northern Ireland, an Oxford graduate, and now works in the financial services sector.
How many items in Britain’s current economic policy, tax system, regulatory framework, and so-on, exist almost entirely for domestic short-term political consumption?
Of that, how many items are actually harming our economic performance?
You would have to conclude that the answer to both is: a lot.
What’s worse is that the short-term popularity of certain measures is derived from a belief that we are going to make the rich and successful pay more and atone for their greed and general ‘evilness.’
Of course, this view of the world runs contrary to basic economic literacy.
Money is mobile, and it goes where it’s best treated.
The ‘tax the rich’ mentality that this failing Labour government – and I’m afraid to say the previous Conservative governments also had in large part – is based on the fallacy that we’re going to phase out excessive wealth.
A realistic government should accept that wealth – including levels of which we may find excessive or distasteful – are always going to exist, and we should play our cards better to be a welcoming destination for it.
Creating economic conditions which are hostile to investment, business, finance and the likes is just a gift to the exchequers of our competitors. Countless examples, from Ireland’s low corporation tax regime to cutting the higher rates of Income Tax here in Britain, show beyond doubt, that creating a pro-wealth environment attracts more tax revenues.
To some, it’s counter-intuitive; you increase taxes to increase your revenue. But the most basic understandings of anything to do with economics or tax shows that’s very rarely the case, especially when dealing with the most mobile demographics of people. Thus, the basic political driver inherent in so much of our political discourse; love of the NHS; is improperly framed. Public services, the National Health Service, benefit most from making Britain a place to come and part with your money. It’s not a choice between the nurses and the rich, if we punish rich, they sod off to Dubai and the nurse becomes relatively “richer” in the eyes of the taxman, expected to contribute more as a result.
It struck me a few years ago that policies like the cap on bankers’ bonuses, the high rates of Income Tax, tax on second homes and landlords, the energy windfall tax, the surcharge paid by banks on top of their Corporation Tax, Corporation Tax itself being hiked to 25 per-cent, and other measures, not only don’t serve their stated purpose of financing our beloved public services, but they could be a barrier to a well-financed exchequer.
Take that bankers’ bonuses cap.
A typically populist move enacted after the 2008 …
This looks less like justice and more like strategy.
Conor Boyle is a young conservative and unionist from Northern Ireland, an Oxford graduate, and now works in the financial services sector.
How many items in Britain’s current economic policy, tax system, regulatory framework, and so-on, exist almost entirely for domestic short-term political consumption?
Of that, how many items are actually harming our economic performance?
You would have to conclude that the answer to both is: a lot.
What’s worse is that the short-term popularity of certain measures is derived from a belief that we are going to make the rich and successful pay more and atone for their greed and general ‘evilness.’
Of course, this view of the world runs contrary to basic economic literacy.
Money is mobile, and it goes where it’s best treated.
The ‘tax the rich’ mentality that this failing Labour government – and I’m afraid to say the previous Conservative governments also had in large part – is based on the fallacy that we’re going to phase out excessive wealth.
A realistic government should accept that wealth – including levels of which we may find excessive or distasteful – are always going to exist, and we should play our cards better to be a welcoming destination for it.
Creating economic conditions which are hostile to investment, business, finance and the likes is just a gift to the exchequers of our competitors. Countless examples, from Ireland’s low corporation tax regime to cutting the higher rates of Income Tax here in Britain, show beyond doubt, that creating a pro-wealth environment attracts more tax revenues.
To some, it’s counter-intuitive; you increase taxes to increase your revenue. But the most basic understandings of anything to do with economics or tax shows that’s very rarely the case, especially when dealing with the most mobile demographics of people. Thus, the basic political driver inherent in so much of our political discourse; love of the NHS; is improperly framed. Public services, the National Health Service, benefit most from making Britain a place to come and part with your money. It’s not a choice between the nurses and the rich, if we punish rich, they sod off to Dubai and the nurse becomes relatively “richer” in the eyes of the taxman, expected to contribute more as a result.
It struck me a few years ago that policies like the cap on bankers’ bonuses, the high rates of Income Tax, tax on second homes and landlords, the energy windfall tax, the surcharge paid by banks on top of their Corporation Tax, Corporation Tax itself being hiked to 25 per-cent, and other measures, not only don’t serve their stated purpose of financing our beloved public services, but they could be a barrier to a well-financed exchequer.
Take that bankers’ bonuses cap.
A typically populist move enacted after the 2008 …
Conor Boyle: Anti-wealth policies fuel a cycle of doom
This looks less like justice and more like strategy.
Conor Boyle is a young conservative and unionist from Northern Ireland, an Oxford graduate, and now works in the financial services sector.
How many items in Britain’s current economic policy, tax system, regulatory framework, and so-on, exist almost entirely for domestic short-term political consumption?
Of that, how many items are actually harming our economic performance?
You would have to conclude that the answer to both is: a lot.
What’s worse is that the short-term popularity of certain measures is derived from a belief that we are going to make the rich and successful pay more and atone for their greed and general ‘evilness.’
Of course, this view of the world runs contrary to basic economic literacy.
Money is mobile, and it goes where it’s best treated.
The ‘tax the rich’ mentality that this failing Labour government – and I’m afraid to say the previous Conservative governments also had in large part – is based on the fallacy that we’re going to phase out excessive wealth.
A realistic government should accept that wealth – including levels of which we may find excessive or distasteful – are always going to exist, and we should play our cards better to be a welcoming destination for it.
Creating economic conditions which are hostile to investment, business, finance and the likes is just a gift to the exchequers of our competitors. Countless examples, from Ireland’s low corporation tax regime to cutting the higher rates of Income Tax here in Britain, show beyond doubt, that creating a pro-wealth environment attracts more tax revenues.
To some, it’s counter-intuitive; you increase taxes to increase your revenue. But the most basic understandings of anything to do with economics or tax shows that’s very rarely the case, especially when dealing with the most mobile demographics of people. Thus, the basic political driver inherent in so much of our political discourse; love of the NHS; is improperly framed. Public services, the National Health Service, benefit most from making Britain a place to come and part with your money. It’s not a choice between the nurses and the rich, if we punish rich, they sod off to Dubai and the nurse becomes relatively “richer” in the eyes of the taxman, expected to contribute more as a result.
It struck me a few years ago that policies like the cap on bankers’ bonuses, the high rates of Income Tax, tax on second homes and landlords, the energy windfall tax, the surcharge paid by banks on top of their Corporation Tax, Corporation Tax itself being hiked to 25 per-cent, and other measures, not only don’t serve their stated purpose of financing our beloved public services, but they could be a barrier to a well-financed exchequer.
Take that bankers’ bonuses cap.
A typically populist move enacted after the 2008 …
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