As the leaders of the world’s largest economies descend on beautiful, blustery Lough Erne, their briefings will doubtless be packed with different ideas for international tax reform. Today’s rules are fiendishly complicated and everyone would benefit from a simpler, more transparent system. That is why we have been encouraging a broader debate at the level of the Group of Eight leading economies and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.
For decades, governments globally – on both the right and the left – have aggressively courted foreign investment because of the enormous benefits in terms of future job creation and economic growth. The UK led the way in Europe in the 1980s, with generous manufacturing incentives for carmakers. Nissan, for example, was given land at heavily subsidised rates to build its assembly plant in Sunderland. Thirty years on, this Japanese company is a mainstay of the UK’s manufacturing base, as well as a beacon of “British” productivity and innovation.
Just as manufacturing investment was seen as an essential ingredient for economic success 40 years ago, countries today place great weight on investment in technology. Recent research by the economist Enrico Moretti has found that, for each new high-technology job created in a city, five additional jobs subsequently develop outside of technology. Look at the innovation and creativity generated around the Tech City community in London’s Shoreditch district – Google is in the process of building a new London office nearby – and the long-term benefits of this approach are clear.