Brian Keegan: Our misguided obsession with corporation taxes

The impact of recent economic decisions already taken in this country will first be felt in the coming year

An increase in unemployment would be far more corrosive to the national finances than any surge in inflation. The concern should be more about whether companies are able to employ people, rather than merely be able to pay tax. File picture: Dan Linehan

As with so many things in life, business has its own momentum and can be extraordinarily resilient. It feels inappropriate to reduce discussion about the consequences of recent human catastrophes — the covid pandemic, the Ukraine war and the war in Gaza — to purely economic or commercial terms. 

Yet in this country, the recovery from the covid lockdown measures is almost complete. Decade-high inflation, primarily driven by disruption to the energy supply from Russia following the breakout of the Ukraine war, is largely back under control.