And we have an early contender for the Most Spurious Argument of the Year! Well done!

The only spurious here is the inability of various posters to justify the claim big businesses are being propped up by the government.

As I've already pointed out to you, you are asking an impossible question for the data is not available, nor I doubt do the actual government departments involved measure or have knowledge of the numbers either.

What is not in doubt is that anyone earning the NMW for any number of hours is very definitely a qualifier for tax credits which are not as suggested a credit against your personal tax bill as the sums involved can be more than such an individuals combined NIS and Income Tax - what tax credits have become is a way for businesses to keep wage bills low whilst relying on the government to top up an employees pay packet to something like the living wage.

ie - subsidy.

To argue that a company then has to pay taxation back to the government so it all balances out in the long run is a spurious argument for they'd have to pay tax anyway, indeed without tax credits many would have to pay higher wages to attract the labour and would end up paying MORE in employer contributions so again they are saving, these principles are indisputable whether or not you can place a finger on the sums involved.


PS - one of your other points, the biggest tax contributor to the Revenue, private or public organisations ? You may have forgotten to factor in the public organisations are huge contributors to VAT as many of them are classed as an "end user", ie they are not selling on the product that they purchase and so are unable to claim back the VAT on the purchase - I have experienced at least a couple of government departments try and convince me that I should discount the VAT equivalent from their invoices as they couldn't claim it back !

If you feel tax credits subsidise business that' s down to Brown. Either deliberate of incompetent - make your mind (are you starting to see a pattern here with Labour)?

As to public bodies contributing to VAT - they are funded out of tax to start with so it,a just paper shuffling.

If it wasn't for tax credits (even though I had to pay them back) five years ago then I would be personally bankrupt now.

At the time it was the only thing keeping a lot of heads JUST above water.

They still generate the add-on value down the line, its just that they are ultimately the last add-on.

I'm the one arguing they are primarily for the benefit of individuals and no a subsidy to business!

We know you are and you're making a real bollox of it too

One of the most extraordinary things about this discussion is the apparent determination of some (and the 'argument' goes way beyond this forum) to, in effect, remove (some) individuals from society.

The 'social contract' becomes, instead of one between all elements of society, a re-arranged relationship between a (big) business and government, whereby it's not a social contract any more but a mere transaction in which any benefits that low-paid staff need to live because they're paid too little by said business are to be considered as a return on corporate taxes paid (if they are).

It's little different from those who like to claim that individual employees don't pay NI and income tax, but their employer does: again, it removes the individual from the social contract and reconfigures it as an arrangement between (big) business and government.

All of this presents big business as on some higher level of society than the individual as though society and the state should be beholden to them and do their bidding.

It's a reconstruction of society - and of democracy - and some people, who would also be calling for a small state and individuals - seem utterly taken in by it.