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Celebrity tax avoidance, set to become a hot topic this summer?

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Comments

  • I apologise for my typing error - teach me to post as I just going out the door.
  • Ormiston and his analogy argues a commendable set of morales. My challenge is where you draw the line. For example do we not all face the morale challenge of supporting and in our small way contributing to a football club whose parent holding company is registered in the Cayman Isles.

    Why do you suppose it is registered in the Cayman Isles? Simply to suit the anonamity of the directorship or are there other benefits? Is it really necessary? Do we really care?

    Grapevine49
    Well, whether we care or not, there is no requirement to file audited accounts, and no corporation tax.
  • edited June 2012
    About morals, I know only that what is moral is what you feel good after and what is immoral is what you feel bad after-Hemingway
  • About morals, I know only that what is moral is what you feel good after and what is immoral is what you feel bad after-Hemingway
    If that was true, then cooked tomatoes are immoral, cos I feel really bad after those.
  • Where the hell is Leroy Ambrose?
    I have been intrigued by this thread.

    This has been my favourite thread for ages.
    God bless you all. X
  • Where the hell is Leroy Ambrose?
    His disappearance coincided with Barcas demise , I think , so I was hoping spains progression might see him reappear and add to the insanity on here
  • Who's this Leroy bloke ? Is he opinionated then ? ;0)
  • Top post grapevine, thread closed now?
    Your joking , its only just started! :-0
  • edited June 2012
    I see my post berating Cameron above has attracted a few comments so a bit of clarification is required.

    The subject of my post is Cameron, a politician. When I refer to "the left" hating this country and what it stands for I'm referring to politicans.

    I certainly am not intending to insult the people who vote for the politicians since I think, although through no fault of their own they may be misguided, they generally vote in good faith. The reason might be my dad voted Labour / Conservative all his life so I do which, statistics show, is still the way a lot of people choose who to vote for or they may have formulated an opinion based on one or more issues.

    Whichever I do not dispute that they are voting in good faith.

    However for me politicians are worthy of criticism particularly when they pretend to be something they are not. Labour and the Lib Dems have never hidden that they are pro EU and want greater integration with the EU culminating in a superstate.

    http://www.eureferendum.com/blogview.aspx?blogno=82826

    That's Tony Blair. Nick Clegg is also on record as having said similar.

    It's beyond dispute that greater EU integration will destroy the UK and all that it stands for. Politicians of left wing parties want that as I've seeked to demonstrate hence my original assertion.

    The Conservatives on the other hand, and Cast - Iron Dave in particular, pretend one thing and do the opposite which is why I have a greater contempt for them than Labour politicians even though, as Floyd points out, many of them are "Champagne Socialists" and send their children to the type of schools that they don't think our children should be allowed to attend. Harriett Harman being a good example.

    http://www.independent.co.uk/news/why-my-son-will-go-to-grammar-school-by-harriet-harman-1324835.html

    I hope this clarifies things a bit.
  • Top post grapevine, thread closed now?
    Your joking , its only just started! :-0
    You're joking!

    :-) The grammar police are all we've lacked here so far!
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  • ...It's beyond dispute that greater EU integration will destroy the UK and all that it stands for...
    Is it?
  • Thank you very much everyone for your answers. Its not in my contract but I shall have a look through the firm's "Green Book" which states all the do's and donts.
    If you are paying yourself out of any profit your venture is making then you would be better off taking the money as a dividend, not through your PAYE.

    You will pay a lot less tax this way however the profit has to be seen to be taken, if you take a dividend and are not making any profit then you are breaking the law.



  • edited June 2012

    ...It's beyond dispute that greater EU integration will destroy the UK and all that it stands for...
    Is it?

    Yes.

    The nub is whether the UK is to remain a sovereign country in its own right or a province of a much larger country called EU.

    You only have to look at the European Commission parachuting unelected foreign politicians into Italy recently, not to mention the Greek shenanigans, to see the distinction between being a sovereign country and a province of a superstate.

    Some people probably want the UK to become a province of a superstate. Many more do not. And that's the point. The people have not been asked but the politicians are doing it by stealth anyway.


    EDIT:

    I am not seeking to hi - jack this thread and make it a discussion on the EU.

    However I was queried re comments made higher up and seeked to answer those queries with references to the EU (and other matters).

    If anyone does want to discuss the EU then start another thread.

    I fully appreciate that this thread is about the taxation of celebrities such as Curb_It amongst others :-)
  • Has anyone paid a tradesman "in cash" at a lower job or day rate to avoid VAT or the tradesman paying Tax etc ? As a tradesman have you ever proposed or accepted this ?

    Does anyone who operates as a contractor under IR35 pay themselves minimum wage amd take a dividend for the balance ? How are you on the Substitution and Supervision clauses as well.

    I recently negotiated a redundancy payment for myself and got as much loaded into the tax free allowance as possible - would people here not do the same ?

    It is just that people know celebrities and they earn more than us. Jealousy more than anything I would suggest.

  • Thank you very much everyone for your answers. Its not in my contract but I shall have a look through the firm's "Green Book" which states all the do's and donts.
    If you are paying yourself out of any profit your venture is making then you would be better off taking the money as a dividend, not through your PAYE.

    You will pay a lot less tax this way however the profit has to be seen to be taken, if you take a dividend and are not making any profit then you are breaking the law.




    I'm sure I'm teaching Granny to suck eggs here but the dividend option only applies if you have a limited company.

    I have no idea whether Curb_It does (or will).
  • Not envy. People who pay less tax than they should leave the rest of us to make up the shortfall, so we have to pay more. That's not fair, is it?
  • edited June 2012
    .
  • Define 'should' though. My view is he's done nothing wrong, cant see why he's being hounded so much when the real tax dodges lie with big business
  • Thank you very much everyone for your answers. Its not in my contract but I shall have a look through the firm's "Green Book" which states all the do's and donts.
    If you are paying yourself out of any profit your venture is making then you would be better off taking the money as a dividend, not through your PAYE.

    You will pay a lot less tax this way however the profit has to be seen to be taken, if you take a dividend and are not making any profit then you are breaking the law.




    I'm sure I'm teaching Granny to suck eggs here but the dividend option only applies if you have a limited company.

    I have no idea whether Curb_It does (or will).
    I have a consultant that comes in to me once a month and he has joined the divi scheme, he is not limited just him and a partner trading as a partnership.
  • edited June 2012
    Not envy. People who pay less tax than they should leave the rest of us to make up the shortfall, so we have to pay more. That's not fair, is it?
    You've said it all in a sentence.

    Avoidance is legal so someone like Carr, as obnoxious an individual as he is, has done nothing wrong as he has paid what he should.

    How much scope there should be for avoidance, both personal and corporate, is another debate.

    Statistics do show that there is a law of diminishing returns in squeezing higher rate taxpayers too much distasteful as it is to us poor sods who have no option as to what is taken from us via the PAYE system.
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  • edited June 2012
    Thank you very much everyone for your answers. Its not in my contract but I shall have a look through the firm's "Green Book" which states all the do's and donts.
    If you are paying yourself out of any profit your venture is making then you would be better off taking the money as a dividend, not through your PAYE.

    You will pay a lot less tax this way however the profit has to be seen to be taken, if you take a dividend and are not making any profit then you are breaking the law.




    I'm sure I'm teaching Granny to suck eggs here but the dividend option only applies if you have a limited company.

    I have no idea whether Curb_It does (or will).
    I have a consultant that comes in to me once a month and he has joined the divi scheme, he is not limited just him and a partner trading as a partnership.
    It could be that he also has a management (limited) company in which he and his partner or possibly their wives are shareholders and directors. No reason for you to know that as it has no impact on what he does for you given that the Partnership will invoice you.

    The partnership then pays a "management charge" to the management company which pays the expenses of the business. The "management charge" can then pitched at a level to enable a dividend to be paid. Corporation tax at 20%-21% on the profit in a small company can be less than the cost of PAYE on a salary together with employers and employees national insurance. The only tax payable on the dividend is higher rate tax (if applicable) and no NI.

    Getting back to Curb_It. My impression was that she was looking at a small partnership in which case PAYE would not be applicable as she would be self employed within that particular venture.
  • Yep I make you right Len
  • Yes thats right Len, although I will know more on Thursday after a meeting and will then have some more questions no doubt.

  • Yes thats right Len, although I will know more on Thursday after a meeting and will then have some more questions no doubt.

    Mmmmm I think we are onto something here, Peter Varney resigns, Curb_it taking up a part time roll with a bit of profit at the end of the year (season)

    I will have to keep an eye on the OS ;-)
  • But he hasn't paid what he should Len. He's misrepresented most of his income as a loan from this company, so as to avoid paying tax on what he actually earned. There's a difference between making full use of the allowances/write-offs that the Govt puts in place to encourage certain behaviours, and deliberately under-declaring your income to minimise your tax. Just because it's legal (or hasn't been proved illegal yet) doesn't mean it's right.
  • But he hasn't paid what he should Len. He's misrepresented most of his income as a loan from this company, so as to avoid paying tax on what he actually earned. There's a difference between making full use of the allowances/write-offs that the Govt puts in place to encourage certain behaviours, and deliberately under-declaring your income to minimise your tax. Just because it's legal (or hasn't been proved illegal yet) doesn't mean it's right.

    Oh I completely agree with you morally but we are talking legality here.

    Cameron, the School bully, has picked on someone who has done nothing wrong legally.

    As I said above how much scope (or not) there is or should be for "avoidance" is another debate.
  • Alwibble, (and Len) if the tax arrangements do what they say then yes, he has paid what he should. It is a slippery slope if you can decide how much tax anyone (including a celeb) "should" pay, rather than it being based on the law.

    It is possible that the arrangements "don't work". There is a great deal of complex anti-avoidance legislation. But I would rather that imperfect tax law was made by Parliament than made up on the hoof by the media or the baying mob. Just my opinion.
  • Er, I know I said I would stop commenting, but interesting, relevant new reaches me.

    Turns out Jimmy Carr's great mate at Cambridge Uni was Damian Mc Bride, one of Gordon Brown's many spin doctors.
    As if this tax avoidance scandal isnt embarassing enough for Gordon - who after all created and encouraged such schemes whilst claiming to be focused on the poor - McBride invited Carr to Chequers for a weekend with supportive political press editors when Gordy was PM.

    Explains why Carr was the target rather than tory supporting Gary Barlow?
  • FM hit the nail on the head in the last page and on this one has returned to nail it well and truly in. I can only say I'm glad some people on this forum aren't running the country, it's scary.

    9/10 of us would pay less tax if we could. That doesn't mean we would pay NO tax, just less. Why not keep a little bit more of your hard earned cash?
    Hard earned cash? You're a student aren't you? You want to get into the film business if I remember rightly.
    What does being a student have anything to do with anything? My views on the subject are just as valid. I didn't go straight from school to university, I worked in a series of shit retail jobs and paid tax, not my fault new labour destroyed my generation by making us all believe we had to go to university and get into debt to be classed as decent human beings. So get out with your grumpy old man attitude and stereotypes about students.

    I'm just saying if some one came to you and said you could pay less tax legally, you would definitely take it.
  • Well, good job you are at uni now.
    So you might as well appreciate your chance.

    You probably couldn't have afforded to start university this September.



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