Farce
Osborne has been instrumental in the non-enforcement of the laws which would have taxed the fake charges these companies use to evade tax; his pretence of bringing in something to replace it is just for show and he has no intention of enforcing these rules any more than he has of enforcing the existing ones.
The announcement will be based on some pre-prepared material from PwC or KPMG (you don't think the chancellor bothers with any of this stuff, do you?) and they will have made sure that the details allow them to advise their customers (for a big fee) of exactly where the loopholes are, because they put them there.
As ever, the real solution is to tax turnover at a low rate and forget about taxing profit completely. But no Tory is ever going to vote that through as the whole point of a Tory government (including Blair's) is to move cash from taxpayers to shareholders. Which is why privatization of the railroads has increased the burden they impose on the taxpayer and PFI is so vastly expensive and inefficient compared to completely publicly financed work. It's not that the Torys are stupid (well, not just), it is that they fully intend for these things to be expensive and low quality for the majority as that means more money for the tiny minority that they represent.
If you want to understand Tory economic policy, simply imagine you are a farmer looking at a herd of sheep; once a landlord gentry elite, always a landlord gentry elite. Once you do that everything, including the stamp duty changes - or the new landlord subsidy rules, as they should be called - falls into place rather neatly.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
