Feb 12 2007
The Today programme wants to help the left wing bankrupt British business
The Today programme fell to a new low today, when it gave airtime to people who want to stop businesses offsetting interest charges against profits tax!
In the name of attacking private equity and venture capital, we heard a?? "debate" about removing the "tax breaks" private equity enjoys.
The presenter did not point out that in all advanced countries interest charges on business?? borrowings are an allowable cost before striking a profit.??Interest costs ??are like wages - you have to pay them, and most businesses need capital as well as labour to be able to do the job.
Jon Moulton did get on the show, and was allowed time to point out that if such a tax change were made here the private equity industry would simply decamp to more sensible countries.
No-one was allowed on to speak for the rest of UK business. Many companies would have to stop trading if they were required to pay profits tax on the interest they paid to banks! How many bankrupt businesses do these people want?
is their ideal world one in which everyone with a job left is employed by the state? Who then pays the wages?
John Redwood has been the Member of Parliament for Wokingham since 1987. First attending Kent College, Canterbury, he graduated from Magdalen College...
Utterly absurd, yet it is all part of the BBC anti-business culture. The Beeb is run by people who have NO experience of business and yet are always ready to have a pop at “profit”. When they are not doing that, they readily have a go at the Conservative party: the BBC slants the whole business and political debate in this country and it is long past its sell-by date. It’s just a pity that Hugo Swire is so pro this once-great but now-decaying institution.
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Why is it perfectly acceptable to display such levels of ignorance on matters of so great importance? The same people making these howlers, would pour disdain on those ignorant of matters close to their hearts, such as the arts.
Amusingly in the case of this debate, we have the specter of left wingers lining up to defend publicly traded companies, previously thought to be the devil incarnate. Instead, they have found a new hate figure, in private equity, which according to the Economist, benefits from the lack of quarterly earnings reports, and is therefore able to think a little longer term.
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