Tax ranting #7 - Richard Murphy
Dec. 4th, 2012 01:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
king_pellinorRichard Murphy is a name that crops up time and again in news items about tax, along with the Tax Justice Network and Tax Research UK, campaigning groups he's involved in which seem to punch well above their weight in terms of media exposure.
To me, quoting Murphy in support of your position is shorthand for saying "I want to jump on the bandwagon, and here's someone who's always ready to provide an apparent Authority which absolves me from doing any actual research" - there's no point reading the article, because if Murphy is quoted then the useful fact content will be nil. I've never found him say anything I agree with yet.
I can't tell whether he's keen but out of his depth, or whether he knows that what he's saying is bollocks but it serves his purpose. I suspect that actually he doesn't care whether what he says is true or not.
For example, on his blog today he quotes something saying that someone or other has as much wealth as the bottom 48 million Americans combined. Someone commented that as the bottom 25% of American households are apparently in debt, and 25% of the population is more than 48 million, the net wealth of these 48 million is presumably nil; so on that basis her 4-year-old daughter is also richer than 48 million Americans combined and so it's not a useful thing to say. Murphy responds that this is pedantry, you can always argue about stats, and it's the message that's important. And so, I assume, the facts aren't: if you're sure the conclusion is correct, you can make up any evidence you like to support it. I don't like that sort of approach.
But this is typical of the way the media at the moment is taking big numbers and waving them about as if they're important. I've already ranted about comparing tax paid to turnover, simply because turnover is a bigger number so it looks more impressive. Can't they use sensible figures but just put them in a bigger font? At least that's just fiddling with presentation, not distorting the position.
He's also gotten a load of basic tax calculations wrong - he corrected someone else's article a month or two ago, but got his corrections wrong because he was proceeding along completely the wrong lines. He then spent quite a while arguing that it didn't matter because you'd end up with the same result anyway, but, er, no you wouldn't. But I note that he doesn't take correction: he's right, or the conversation stops.
So in short, I think he knows just enough about tax, accountancy and economics to be dangerous: he thinks he's an expert and infallible, when he's actually fairly incompetent. However: he has an agenda he wants to push, he knows enough to dress it up in plausible-sounding language, and he's happy to give a soundbite to any reporter keen to push the same message. At the moment his views are fashionable, so he's getting a lot more exposure than the real experts who try to explain that it's more complicated than they think and perhaps the companies aren't necessarily being Evil.
Even shorter: don't believe a word he says. If he said the sky was blue I'd look out of the window.
To me, quoting Murphy in support of your position is shorthand for saying "I want to jump on the bandwagon, and here's someone who's always ready to provide an apparent Authority which absolves me from doing any actual research" - there's no point reading the article, because if Murphy is quoted then the useful fact content will be nil. I've never found him say anything I agree with yet.
I can't tell whether he's keen but out of his depth, or whether he knows that what he's saying is bollocks but it serves his purpose. I suspect that actually he doesn't care whether what he says is true or not.
For example, on his blog today he quotes something saying that someone or other has as much wealth as the bottom 48 million Americans combined. Someone commented that as the bottom 25% of American households are apparently in debt, and 25% of the population is more than 48 million, the net wealth of these 48 million is presumably nil; so on that basis her 4-year-old daughter is also richer than 48 million Americans combined and so it's not a useful thing to say. Murphy responds that this is pedantry, you can always argue about stats, and it's the message that's important. And so, I assume, the facts aren't: if you're sure the conclusion is correct, you can make up any evidence you like to support it. I don't like that sort of approach.
But this is typical of the way the media at the moment is taking big numbers and waving them about as if they're important. I've already ranted about comparing tax paid to turnover, simply because turnover is a bigger number so it looks more impressive. Can't they use sensible figures but just put them in a bigger font? At least that's just fiddling with presentation, not distorting the position.
He's also gotten a load of basic tax calculations wrong - he corrected someone else's article a month or two ago, but got his corrections wrong because he was proceeding along completely the wrong lines. He then spent quite a while arguing that it didn't matter because you'd end up with the same result anyway, but, er, no you wouldn't. But I note that he doesn't take correction: he's right, or the conversation stops.
So in short, I think he knows just enough about tax, accountancy and economics to be dangerous: he thinks he's an expert and infallible, when he's actually fairly incompetent. However: he has an agenda he wants to push, he knows enough to dress it up in plausible-sounding language, and he's happy to give a soundbite to any reporter keen to push the same message. At the moment his views are fashionable, so he's getting a lot more exposure than the real experts who try to explain that it's more complicated than they think and perhaps the companies aren't necessarily being Evil.
Even shorter: don't believe a word he says. If he said the sky was blue I'd look out of the window.
