A11M11 wrote: ↑Wed Jan 30, 2019 7:44 pm
I think that I am possibly stepping into your patch. But as a mere wiper blade salesman that ran a wholesale car accessory business the word Tax is quite clear and harmony suggests togetherness . Whether this starts out as corporation only I do not know . The point that I am making is that once the process starts it will progress to every other form of taxation including personal. As I pay tax on my pensions the rate will affect me .Then of course we come to VAT which Icannot see Brussels reducing and should we remain I fear we will be even more of a cash cow than we already are.
You're making a lot of assumptions here. If you ran your own business you will understand the difference between Corporation Tax and Income Tax. The first time Corporation tax harmonisation came up within the EU was 2001, they are talking about implementing it this year. I am not convinced that will happen, but we shall see.
With regards to Income Tax and VAT, even if there are ongoing discussions (which there aren't) I would hazard a guess that it would take so long for the 27 countries to agree a uniform tax structure that it wouldn't happen in your lifetime or myne. It's one thing harmonising company tax but another thing merging different income tax structures into one simple easy to comprehend system. Does anyone get how UK income tax is calculated!
I wouldn't start putting your pension under your mattress yet, in anycase you don't pay any NI as a pensioner and you get the first £11,850 tax free. Any private pensions would also have benefited from tax relief on the way in.
Corporation Tax harmonisation will only affect companies that have a global turnover of in excess of $750m or $50m in the EU, so we are hardly talking about high street shops here or small businesses.
One of the main reasons for these proposals is the tech companies who are setting up regional HQs in Ireland (Apple, Google, Facebook) and paying next to no tax within the EU. I mentioned two countries that didn't like these proposals in my last post, not surprisingly one was Ireland the other was Hungary.
Who would be the beneficiaries of a harmonised corporate taxation system? It would be the largest economies, ie Germany, France and yes the UK. By leaving the EU, we can effectively remove ourselves from the list. That's not a reason to object to Brexit though, but nor is saying such things on a forum then admitting that you don't necessarily have the knowledge required to make an informed decision. And there you have brexit in a nutshell.
