I prefer the flexibility as it will allow to focus and stimulate on what is required. Times have changed, the concept of a country and immobility is phasing out. Can't come quick enough for me.
Hold on. I was asking why the trade agreement isn't good and especially regarding this clause. I was merely responding to the responses. I never even brought the point up. However if someone seriously changes the terms that affects a multi year investment than an appropriate dispute process needs to be in place. Much better to do that up front that do it afterwards. Successive governments have not a good track record in getting out of large deals.
There's no flexibility in tying future generations' hands by setting tax laws and rates in perpetuity.
Doesn't have to be perpetuity, could be at least until the investment matures. That all depends on an agreement.
Which was in that context.
Which was in that context.
When does a UK branch or subsidiary of a foreign company mature?
It all depends on what you saw during the 80's and how you came out of it.
I can't as that depends on the deal. Which deal are you talking about?
There's nothing wrong with being a commie if commies can come up with policies that work and which people will vote for. Sadly commie policies don't work and even if people vote commie when the country starts to flush down the toilet people will start getting uppity.
????? But isn't that exactly the point, why be against a dispute resolution clause?
So, your suggestion is that anyone wanting to invest in the UK has to go into a meeting room with HMRC and thrash out a deal in advance? You think Johnny Start-Up will get the same deal as MegaBucks Corp?
Why does it immediately have the extreme of dodgy back room deals? Why such negative assumptions.
??!? I have no clue what you are on about. From the moment go you've taken my comment out of context. I didn't do that, you did. How am I supposed to know if define the terms and conditions for a deal that has not been agreed yet? Surely that is between the parties who will come to such agreement. Not a difficult concept to understand I would have thought. Not sure what you want me to say.
Yes exactly, what does it matter what the terms and agreements are that the parties involved agree. Why do you expect me to know those now? And if in the future one party wants to change those then there is the dispute resolution element. What is so hard to understand about that? And why is it so bad to have such arrangements made upfront?
Because that's what you're suggesting, unless you are also proposing 40 TV channels of wall-to-wall live coverage of boring tax negotiations.
Advance agreements and advance pricing arrangements (which I assume you are referring to) are very limited in scope. They are a very great deal apart from your apparent proposal of 20,000+ pages of tax code being up for grabs.
Yes, because that's normally (APAs aside) exactly how it works. Unless you can produce any evidence of a company agreeing an exclusive tax rate deal in advance? Did HSBC get a special tax rate when buying Midland Bank? Nope. How about Deutsche Bank buying Morgan Grenfell? Nope. Did Mondelez (nee Kraft) get a beneficial tax agreement when buying Cadbury? No, they buggered the HQ off to Switzerland, which one assumes would not have been on the HMRC negotiating table, if such a thing had existed.
Because the tax code should be primarily a matter of statute, not civil contract. Anything other undermines the basic principle that the law should be blind - this cannot be the case if each man can barter for his own law, as you propose. In fact, it would appear prima facie to be contrary to Article 7 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights;
He would give people an alternative, something they lack at the moment. If they don't want him then thats fine but at least give the voters the choice. Give them some alternative to the neo-liberal [PLEASE DON'T TRY TO BYPASS THE SWEAR FILTER] that has brought this country to its knees.
