I’ve had a number of comments on my Paying your fair share article earlier today. None of them were particularly critical of the companies who had minimised their UK Corporate taxes.
Instead, the point was made that the UK should bring down its own taxes to compete. The other main point – and it is not unrelated – is that employment taxes bring in very considerably more than corporate taxes. Ie much better to have employees paying income tax and NI (and other taxes like VAT and stamp duty) by working and living in the UK, than corporation taxes. Microsoft’s 6000 employees in Ireland probably contribute far more to its economy than any corporation tax raised.
The same, of course, applies to the UK where Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Oracle and HP do employ very large numbers of people. Maybe employee taxes should be allowable against corporation tax in some new and imaginative way so as to encourage overseas firms to take on and/or relocate their people to the UK?