Why we need an honest taxation policy

Our tax system has become complicated and bloated. Trimming it would make it easier to understand, and boost the economy.

Gordon Brown © David Rose/The Independent/Shutterstock

Gordon Brown: the stealth-tax artist
(Image credit: Gordon Brown © David Rose/The Independent/Shutterstock)

It's been a hectic week for markets, driven by the fallout from the latest Federal Reserve decision and Donald Trump's reaction to it. At times like these it's easy to look at "big picture" distortions caused by central banks, or at divisive policy issues such as Brexit, and shrug our shoulders in despair. But rather than get distracted by negative bond yields or political mudslinging, it would be more productive to pay attention to addressing the many damaging distortions and bad incentives lurking within our tax system. These are well within the ability of politicians and technocrats to resolve mainly because they created them in the first place.

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John Stepek

John Stepek is a senior reporter at Bloomberg News and a former editor of MoneyWeek magazine. He graduated from Strathclyde University with a degree in psychology in 1996 and has always been fascinated by the gap between the way the market works in theory and the way it works in practice, and by how our deep-rooted instincts work against our best interests as investors.

He started out in journalism by writing articles about the specific business challenges facing family firms. In 2003, he took a job on the finance desk of Teletext, where he spent two years covering the markets and breaking financial news.

His work has been published in Families in Business, Shares magazine, Spear's Magazine, The Sunday Times, and The Spectator among others. He has also appeared as an expert commentator on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, BBC Radio Scotland, Newsnight, Daily Politics and Bloomberg. His first book, on contrarian investing, The Sceptical Investor, was released in March 2019. You can follow John on Twitter at @john_stepek.