Some taxing thoughts .....
At Christian Aid we're about long term sustainable development in poor countries. Although any engagement with large business will bring all sorts of difficult ethical questions it seems to me it must come to some degree or other. (Caveat required here - I love this fantastic organisation I'm apart of, but can't claim to speak for it!)
As life in the profession fades a bit - its over 18 months ago now, my ramblings may well develop into something different. However, 20 years don't disappear from one's experience overnight. As I keep a little toe dipped into what's going on in the accountancy world I am amazed at just how far I now find myself in my thinking from where I was before. As I read Accountancy Age ( I now find its tabloid approach far more interesting than I used to when I was a partner) I find myself incredulous of some of the things said and done by "respected" accountants.
Examples? "tax is just cash" says one leading light I used to work - ie you can't equate tax planning with morality or even try and make a link between that and the tax revenue of a country. How did I ever accept that kind of thinking? ...because I did - though I had to to live with myself, and it got the stage where I couldn't.
When I visited Rwanda I saw loads of really small micro businesses, sustaining many people and maybe their immediate families. What i couldn't get to grips with - and I'm not a professional economist or development guru so it may just be ignorance - is how to get from that to a country with a larger sustainable market for home produced goods, and with an infrastructure to support that of better roads, transport, schools etc. Can that all come from aid? I don't know - it will always have its place until there are no more poor with us I suspect ..but I also suspect a long term solution has to include taxation from home grown wealth....which has to come from that dirty word in some development circles, business. Fascinating!
Having said all that - its nice to be able to ignore the business pages and not have to pretend they are interesting.....................
(PS if anyone's interested in the tax issue - have a look at http://www.taxjustice.net , and Richard Murphy's blog at http://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/ ...if it wasn't such a pain to do I'd put a link at the side of this blog)
As life in the profession fades a bit - its over 18 months ago now, my ramblings may well develop into something different. However, 20 years don't disappear from one's experience overnight. As I keep a little toe dipped into what's going on in the accountancy world I am amazed at just how far I now find myself in my thinking from where I was before. As I read Accountancy Age ( I now find its tabloid approach far more interesting than I used to when I was a partner) I find myself incredulous of some of the things said and done by "respected" accountants.
Examples? "tax is just cash" says one leading light I used to work - ie you can't equate tax planning with morality or even try and make a link between that and the tax revenue of a country. How did I ever accept that kind of thinking? ...because I did - though I had to to live with myself, and it got the stage where I couldn't.
When I visited Rwanda I saw loads of really small micro businesses, sustaining many people and maybe their immediate families. What i couldn't get to grips with - and I'm not a professional economist or development guru so it may just be ignorance - is how to get from that to a country with a larger sustainable market for home produced goods, and with an infrastructure to support that of better roads, transport, schools etc. Can that all come from aid? I don't know - it will always have its place until there are no more poor with us I suspect ..but I also suspect a long term solution has to include taxation from home grown wealth....which has to come from that dirty word in some development circles, business. Fascinating!
Having said all that - its nice to be able to ignore the business pages and not have to pretend they are interesting.....................
(PS if anyone's interested in the tax issue - have a look at http://www.taxjustice.net , and Richard Murphy's blog at http://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/ ...if it wasn't such a pain to do I'd put a link at the side of this blog)
posted by Mark at 8:37 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home