There's a chap called Tim Worstall who writes a blog and who seems pretty fixated on what I write.
The difficulty for Tim Worstall (who, I believe considers himself a libertarian right winger and so carries with him all the baggage that goes with those labels) is that he seem to have little understanding of the issues about which he comments, at least where I am involved.
In his latest diatribe to seeks to dismiss my work on the Tax Gap. His logic is three fold:
1. I start my analysis using company accounts;
2. I recognise that there are flaws in company reporting which limit their usefulness for this purpose, and
3. I recognise that there are differences between accounting and taxable profits in the work that I do, but only a limited number of those differences can be identified and so adjusted for in the analysis I undertake.
As a result he declares that my work cannot form the basis for any credible policy recommendations.
So let me compare my approach with that Mike Devereux uses in his paper on tax incidence, which arguments Tim Worstall believes absolutely correct. Mike Devereux:
1. Starts his analysis using company accounts;
2. Does not explicitly recognise that there are flaws in company reporting which limit their usefulness for this purpose, and
3. Does not seek to adjust reported company data to allow for those necessary adjustments, such as excluding non tax allowable goodwill charges and adding back unpaid deferred taxation that will undoubtedly produce an estimate of the effective tax rate closer to that actually suffered than that declared on the face of the profit and loss account, which is he figure he uses.
Despite these flaws in the approach to the data he uses Mike Devereux does draw conclusions which others are using as the basis of policy recommendations, even if Mike is not. In fact, most academic tax papers on tax rates use the approach Mike Devereux uses.
Now, ask yourself. If you were going to suggest who was seeking greater objectivity who would you choose? The person who explicitly accepts the limitations in his data, and seeks to adjust for it, or the person who just ignores the issue? And which set of data is likely to produce the more objective result? I'm biased, of course, but I know my answer.
What's yours Tim Worstall, and why?
And what would you do better?
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[…] we’re back with Richard Murphy again. Here is (part of) his response to my laterst […]
‘who, I believe considers himself a libertarian right winger and so carries with him all the baggage that goes with those labels’
You just don’t understand classical liberalism, do you?
Harry
Oh yes I do
Where shall we start with what’s wrong with it?
Richard
We’re not discussing what is wrong with libertarianism, we are challenging your lazy asscertaion that it is ‘right wing’
Let us start with you outlining how the belief that ones sexual life is ones own business is a ‘right wing’ concept, then you can follow on with explaining the belief that freedom from authoritarian governments is also a ‘right wing’ idea.
You can then go on to explain how opposition to corporatism is a ‘right wing’ idea. You can finish up with an explanation of how opposition to the idea that the state has domain over your mind and body is a ‘right wing’ idea.
Harry
Please pull the other one
I have better things to do than argue with common knowledge
Try Wikipedia if you really think that libertarianism is not associated with right wing thinking
Richard
Er, so in other words ~ you cannot actually justify your statement that it is a ‘right wing ideology’ at all, other than mumbling something about wikipedia (which points out that it isn’t).
Interestingly, wikipedia also has articles on how the moon landings were faked, and that 9/11 was an inside job. Go figure.
Very politely Harry, you would no doubt ask me to justify a claim that the Pope was a Catholic.
I have time for real issues: none for time wasters.
It’s not can’t: it’s won’t be bothered with libertarian time wasters
Harry,
I have never seen any value-added in the squabbling about the essentials of labels; deploying them as red herring is much ore common.
Be it ‘right wing’ or not, the facts remain the same: redistribution usually is not carried out via the market, but – if at all – by the state [which is against libertarian creed]; at the same time, redistribution is seldom the outcome of rightist political groups and/or their policies [right-wing]. Hence, there is at least no flagrant contradiction between the labels ‘libertarian’ and ‘right-wing’ on this issue. And this issue is at stake when it comes to appropriate corporate taxation practices.
Markus