Saturday 20 September 2008

Barber: Billionaires in UK pay only 0.1% in tax

TUC General Secretary General Secretary Brendan Barber told the Fabian fringe debate on 'can we give the white working-class what they want?' that any attempt to fragment working communities along racial lines needed to be resisted.


The real issue is the inequalities that still disfigure our society where too many people at the bottom of our labour market are struggling to get a fair deal.


And Barber said that the conference theme of fairness required action on tax avoidance by the super rich:


There are 54 billionaries in the UK. Research shows that they pay tax at an effective rate of one-tenth of one per cent. The loopholes that can be exploited by the super rich require greater attention so there is greater fairness in our tax system. We have seen in the financial system how worshipping at the altar of deregulation has brought us to the edge of a crisis. In the labour market, worshipping at the altar of deregulation will take us the same way.

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