The irony of the Topshop protests

I hear that yesterday, some "campaigners" managed to cause a high street clothes store to close (Topshop) and all because they think the store, or more rightly the guy that runs the store is not paying enough income tax because his wife lives in Monaco (no doubt in a tiny house which cost a fortune*) and quite legally gets a dividend.

It's an odd one to me, because legally speaking it isn't true at all, and more specifically, the targeting of the store completely negates the amount of taxation revenue such stores generate for the Government through things like, corporation tax, income tax for staff, employers NI contributions; employees NI contribution; Council Tax; energy levies; VAT on sales; VAT on energy; VAT on fuel; Fuel duty in distribution etc etc.

The irony of protesting about "missing tax revenue", which results in a major high street store having to close its door and thus not generate tax revenue is delicious though, don't you think?

In a sense, the protests are not really some evidence of a mass radicalisation of people looking for tax fairness, but rather evidence that the young people who demand free education lack the self-awareness to spot the rank hypocrisy of their own actions.

There is a small part of me that wants them to carry on and be even more successful, just so at the end of it all it can be shown that by causing these stores to close they reduced the tax receipts to Government by more than they claim is owed. Now wouldn't that be really fucking funny?

Oh yes, one last though. Have none of them noticed that the Arcadia group stores all trade online as well? You might be able to cause the doors to close by blockading them, but unless you're going to break the law by a Denial of Service Attack on their sites, you're probably not going to stop them trading.

* It is a myth that people who live in Monaco all live in huge mansions. Many of the super-rich pay millions for property that would be worth only £100K in the UK. David Coulthard for example owns (or at least did) a pokey flat where his balcony view is a brick wall, and it cost stupid amounts of money.