Susan Maguire

Paying for the Crisis

From International Socialism (1st series), No.99, June 1977, p.29.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.

Paying for the Crisis
CIS Report No.18 60p
available from CIS, 9 Poland St, London W1

Paying for the Crisis, the latest Report from Counter Information Service, examines the Social Contract. CIS reveals:

Nearly every large company that reported in the first three months of 1977 broke the pay code. Some or all of their senior executives received considerable salary increases, and in many cases the Chairmen awarded themselves substantial rises. CIS names Tate & Lyle, Imperial Metal Industries, Carrington Viyella, Fisons, Grand Metropolitan Ltd, Gestetner, and many more.
Companies are making record profits, yet investment is lower than in any years since 1964.
Companies are deceiving the public in their profits announcements. In the financial year 1975/6 the total amount of tax paid by companies was, according to the Treasury, negligible. This is hidden from the public by the Annual Report and Accounts. For example, BP says on p. 14 of its Annual Report that its UK tax bill is £ 196.7m. In fact the company only paid £20.2m. Many other companies are hiding how little tax they pay in the same way.
In the last two years the government has given away well over £4,000m in tax relief to private business. This negligible tax contribution by companies is the single most important factor dictating cuts in public spending.
Britain is a low wage area. Wages are lower here than in any other western industrialised country. While employers and government accused wage demands of causing inflation, workers’ wages in Britain were falling far below wages in other countries.
CIS estimates that spending power for ordinary workers has fallen by as much as a fifth. This is the worst fall since the end of the General Strike in 1926. Unemployment is the highest since 1938. Inflation is higher than at any time since the seventeenth century. The welfare state is being dismantled.
There has been a massive shift of wealth into company profits and shareholders’ pockets, and the burden of taxation has been transferred onto the wages of working people.

This report outlines just how much of the national burden has been shifted onto the backs of workers and why. Buy it, Read it, and Sell it.

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Last updated on 23.3.2008