Richard Murphy (tax campaigner)

Murphy is a promoter of financial reform, with specific emphasis given to tax avoidance and evasion. He estimates that "£25 billion is lost annually from tax avoidance".[19] That is substantially larger than HM Revenue and Customs' estimate of £2.7 billion,[20] and his estimate has been dismissed by HMRC.[21] Murphy claims that HMRC insiders have suggested to him that £300 million additional investment in the department could recoup £8 billion in unpaid tax.[22]

His methodology has been criticised by other groups, including the Oxford University Centre for Business Taxation in their December 2012 publication The Tax Gap for Corporation Tax,[23] and the Institute for Fiscal Studies, which cited his estimate of the corporate tax gap for the TUC as one which was "likely overstated (possibly by a wide margin)".[24]

Murphy advocates "country by country reporting", as a means to increase financial transparency to reduce tax avoidance and evasion.[25][26] In 2013, the OECD and G8 endorsed a form of country-by-country reporting.[6]

Murphy is in favour of a land value tax, which would tax land based only on its value, and not on the buildings on it, in order to discourage land hoarding and promote building in areas in need of more housing. It is also very difficult to evade.[27][28]

He has written in favour of removing high-denomination notes such as the £50 note as they are used widely for tax evasion, saying "there is not a shadow of a doubt that vast amounts of cash" are used for illegal purposes.[29][30]

In August 2015, many of Murphy's ideas were taken up as proposed policies by Jeremy Corbyn in the Labour Party leadership election. Corbyn was elected and became Leader of the Labour Party and Leader of the Opposition, his economics policies were dubbed "Corbynomics". This included a policy called People's Quantitative Easing.[31][32] - a broader development of a policy Murphy launched in 2010, called Green Quantitative Easing.[32][33] Corbyn also cited Murphy's estimate of there being £120 billion of missing tax revenue as part of the economic plan issued during his election campaign stating that this was enough to "double the NHS budget".[34] In addition, Corbyn adopted several of the remedies that Murphy has advocated (including country-by-country reporting) to address this revenue gap. Murphy later clarified that in his view not all of the missing revenue was "recoverable", and that "at best" £20 billion of it could be collected.[35]

Murphy was notably not part of Labour's Economic Advisory Committee, which was set up after the leadership election in September 2015.[36]

Murphy was an informal adviser to Corbyn,[36] though it is reported that he had hoped to have a position on the Labour Party Treasury Team.[37] Murphy said in June 2016 that those demanding a change in the Labour leadership were correct, "even if I will not agree with much of their reasoning". Corbyn had "not provided a vision of what his leadership will deliver", and concerning Labour's economic policies: "we have so far heard almost nothing that really progresses the ideas outlined last summer".[38] A few weeks later, Murphy criticised Corbyn's track record further writing "there was no policy direction, no messaging, no direction, no co-ordination, no nothing".[39][40] In a response to a question raised in the House of Commons, Labour's Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell stated with regard to Murphy "He is not the economic adviser and never has been, because we doubted his judgment, unfortunately. He is a tax accountant, not an adviser. He is actually excellent on tax evasion and tax avoidance, but he leaves a lot to be desired on macroeconomic policy".[41]

Murphy is a vocal critic of Government Expenditure and Revenue Scotland as a report on the state of the Scottish economy. Murphy stated, "Revenue Scotland is still struggling to work out which people are tax resident in Scotland and it has no clue at all on what corporation tax, VAT or other taxes are due, precisely because no-one has to declare those taxes separately for Scotland. It’s the same with imports and exports: no-one knows what these are because there are no border posts at Carlisle, Berwick-on-Tweed or Stranraer. On investment and savings, we’re equally clueless." He added, "25 of the 26 income figures in a set of accounts are estimates extrapolated from data for the UK as a whole and some consumer surveys."[42] At a subsequent appearance before the Holyrood, Finance and Constitution Committee, Murphy was however criticised for being unable to justify some of these claims.[43][44]

• Murphy, Richard (2015). The Joy of Tax. Bantam Press. ISBN 978-0593075173.
• Murphy, Richard (2013). Over Here and Undertaxed: Multinationals, Tax Avoidance and You. Vintage Digital.
• Murphy, Richard (2011). The Courageous State. Searching Finance. ISBN 978-1-907720-28-4.
• Palan, Ronen; Murphy, Richard; Chavagneux, Christian (2009). Tax Havens: How Globalization Really Works. Cornell University Press. ISBN 978-0-8014-7612-9.

• Murphy, Richard (2008). A Green New Deal (PDF) (Report). New Economics Foundation.
• Murphy, Richard (2007). Why is Country-by-Country financial reporting by Multinational Companies so important? (PDF) (Report). Tax Research LLP.
• Murphy, Richard (2004). Location, location – Campaigner Richard Murphy proposes a radical new International Accounting Standard that would require reporting turnover and tax by location (PDF) (Report). accountancymagazine.com.