Roger Carr (no relation to Jimmy I presume?) the Head of the CBI has attacked David Cameron for moralising about tax. A little indication as to just how much things are going the ruling class's way. David Cameron has done more for the British bourgeoisie than any recent Prime Minister, drastically redistributing wealth upward and reducing all practical opposition to austerity to nought… but that’s not enough for Roger Carr.
He wants the debate about corporations and taxation to be framed thus.
1) No morality, it must be all about the rules, or in other words what can’t be got away with. Corporations are allowed to draw on the benefits of universal education and healthcare, refuse collection, roads, subsidised utilities and so on, but you cannot insist they pay for said benefits.
2) Rules on tax should be fixed internationally. This is impossible but, if it were to come to pass it would put tax regimes beyond any democratic scrutiny. It’s also a derivative of the red herring raised so often about tax and investment. Investment is made more often on the basis of the existence educated and healthy workforce, access to growing markets, easily available utilities, communications and freight, but almost never on rates of taxation.
3) All changes in tax should be submitted to consultation with corporations. Doesn’t this always happen? Isn’t Carr’s intervention precisely part of a consultation process, where the haute bourgeoisie spells out the terms of co-operation with a democratically elected government (OK, we’l let exactly how this government was formed slide for a second). More importantly though, do you get to negotiate how much tax you’re willing to pay? Of course not.