UK crash ahead.

After Covid, two huge facts for Britain-

Number one:

The top 10 countries that have done the most to spread corporate tax avoidance, breaking down what there is of the 'global corporate tax systems':

1. British Virgin Islands (British territory)

2. Bermuda (British territory)

3. Cayman Islands (British territory)

4. Netherlands

5. Switzerland

6. Luxembourg

7. Jersey (British dependency)

8. Singapore

9. Bahamas

10. Hong Kong

These 10 jurisdictions alone are responsible for 52 per cent of the world’s corporate tax avoidance, as measured by the Corporate Tax Haven Index. Over two fifths of global foreign direct investment, reported by the International Monetary Fund, is booked in these 10 countries, where the lowest available corporate tax rates averaged 0.54 per cent. The top three ranked jurisdictions are part of the British-controlled network of satellite jurisdictions. (See Tax Justice Network.) 

Number two:

The 25th November 2020 the UK's Office for Budget Responsibility revealed that government expenditure, from April 2020 to April 2021, will be nearly £400bn. This amounts to 20% of the Gross Domestic Product - the total money created by the whole of the UK in a year. (Normal government costs are generally around £50bn.) 

The Institute of Fiscal Studies has published the expectation that taxes will need to rise by 40% or equivalent expenditure cuts, over 4 or 5 years. (See Financial Times.)

The UK has the lowest corporation tax rate in the whole G20. It has the lowest income tax than most developed countries. Additionally, in 2016/17, tax gaps from UK based corporations were estimated as £33bn. (See New Statesman.)   

Some obvious results from one and two. 

The terrible death toll in the UK (estimated by many highly considered medical experts as more than 120,000 rather than the 20,000 set up by government 'experts') is a dark crisis across the British society and it is far from finished yet. Nevertheless, the 'results' of Covid for Britain's future are potentially far worse. 

Already Covid in the UK exposes the lies and hidden realities of Britain's real conditions, for the two thirds that live in the country now. The carving up of what remains of the acceptable, let alone the positive, requirements of society, is inevitable and will create raw destruction. 

Some would-be Churchills and many would-be Attlees suggest that post WW2 shows how well managed society was organised after the devastation and the huge financial losses. The highest rate of income tax peaked in the Second World War at 99.25%. It was then slightly reduced and was around 90% through the 1950s and 60s. Following World War II, tax increases, top marginal individual tax rates, stayed near or above 90%, and the effective tax rate at 70% for the highest incomes, until 1964 when the top marginal tax rate was lowered to 70%. Inheritance tax was raised to 80% for years after WW2. A purchase tax of 33% was placed on all luxurious purchases from 1940 up to 1973. In other words, the UK governments from 1945 to the 1960s redistributed wealth to prevent bankruptcy from the cost of the war. 

Is there the slightest possibility that the decisions post WW2, under the immense pressure of millions who fought the war and defeated fascism, could be replicated in any sense today? 

The meaning of the UK's main wealth today is locked in tax-havens, in the assets led by housing and organised globally, going from Amazon to Boots the Chemist. It is an utter fallacy to imagine that the Tories are going to destruct and reconstruct the wealth of Britain as it stands today. Their only plan, if it amounts to anything, is 'tax free docks' in the north and employment through 'fire then re-hire' wage cuts. It is even more pathetic to imagine Sir Keir overwhelming anything at all. 

The middle and working classes in Britain today are sadly not led by the 1.5 million fighters that poured back into 1945 Britain. But anger and action are growing. The only step away from rapid deterioration  now is to take our own health and welfare services, our schools, our transport, our assets, including housing, and our energy -  away from the control and ownership of the rich. We have to support the reunification of Ireland and the separation of the Scots, and the Welsh if they want to. England could be a smaller, more gentle country, more attached to the importance of its citizens and less stuck in its Disney land history. We won't take the tax havens, but we can change the currency. We have, no less, to turn the countries in what is now the UK's bit of the world completely upside down. The alternative is unacceptable.