Windfall taxes are unfair - but easy
Of course business objects to the threat of a windfall tax, but if politicians have to collect revenue from someone, companies making windfall profits are an easy place to start.
BLOGS
The Edge
Richard Northedge takes on corporate finance
Archive for July, 2008
Supermarket rescues bank
Strange things can happen during a credit crunch but Tesco bailing out Royal Bank of Scotland probably says everything about the state of the UK economy. The supermarkets are strong; banks are weak.
Doing the Countdown sums
Channel 4 has decided to stop paying Carol Vorderman as though she was the chief executive. It is a lesson in market economics for the BBC.
74 per cent of statistics are dangerous
Some 74 per cent of the British people think we are set for a serious and prolonged economic downturn according to a poll. Some 61 per cent think it likely someone they know will lose their job within the next year.
A stamp duty cut would boost the economy – but wait
With public finances collapsing, the chancellor may think this the last time to give away money. But it is because tax revenues are falling that he can afford to waive the taxes he is not receiving anyway.
Business and politics shouldn’t mix
Once companies gave money to the Conservative party as freely as trade unions funded Labour. But whereas workers could opt out of their political donation, investors’ only choice was to vote out the motion at the annual meeting or to sell out of the shares.
So many U-turns does Darling know if he is coming or going
Alistair Darling has been forced to scrap his proposals of taxing foreign profits but the problem has not gone away. The probability now is that the chancellor is so dizzy from performing U-turns he chooses to sit back and do nothing.
Squeezing the supplier is easy credit
One of the symptoms of a credit squeeze is that credit is squeezed. This statement of the obvious is suddenly becoming evident to several parties who thought the crunch did not apply to them.
Pay up on Equitable but don’t establish a precedent
We should not expect the government to stand guarantor to every company in Britain – whether manufacturer or investment vehicle. Yet that is effectively what the financial ombudsman is expecting in demanding compensation for the policyholders of Equitable Life.
Insolvency: We are bust but don’t mend it.
If Britain had wanted to adopt America’s Chapter 11 insolvency regime it would have incorporated it in the Enterprise Act of 2002. Instead, when the bankruptcy process was changed we took the best parts of the US system and rejected the rest.
