Didn't we as a club set up the ownership structure through Baton in BVI in part for tax avoidance purposes?
Tax on what? Our profit?
It was merely to hide the identity of the actual owners wasn't it?
Baton was the company that RM used to "purchase" the Club from CA PLC. It preceded the Slater et al purchase. Nonetheless, while only RM knows his specific reason for using an offshore company to acquire 100% ownership of CAFC, if it were LAWFULLY to minimise his tax liabilities (presumably in the best case scenario of a return to the Prem), why would that be a problem? It certainly is neither illegal nor "immoral" and it might have made the difference between him wanting to commit the financial resources to buy time for CAFC or sending it there and then into the hands of administrators.
This really is my last post on this thread. I'm behaving far too much like a Type 5
Well if you can't stomach reading the Guardian's coverage of the latest exposure of tax dodging, there is always tonight's Panorama.
As Richard Murphy says:
Last year more than 200,000 people were prosecuted for not having a TV licence.
More than fifty – many of them women – went to prison for it.
But HMRC say it is not in the public interest to prosecute tax criminals and the bankers and accountants who set arrangements for them.
How can that be?
Which minister wants to explain how we go to this absurd position?
HMRC. NFFP….
1) Why was it necessary for the writer to highlight that some of those that had been imprisoned for licence fee evasion were women?
2) Bit rich for either the Guardian or Hodge the Dodge to be banging on about tax avoidance given they have both been exposed as being party to tax fiddles themselves.
In answer to point 1) I suspect the highlighting of women is because they're more likely to be single parents who may not be able to work and afford childcare. I have no idea on the figures or demographics so can't prove it's the case - just seems a logical deduction to me.
As for Hodge... Well by all accounts it seems she hasn't broken the law over tax. It looks like she and her family's firm may have avoided it by playing the rules for all they're worth. It doesn't make it morally right - but it is legal. There is the opportunity to change the law to tighten up the loopholes - perhaps the chairman of the Public Accounts Select Committee could direct an investigation into that? Oh hang on a minute - that would be Margaret Hodge......!
Never said it was a problem was just implying that if people object to amazon and Vodafone minimising their tax liabilities legally then surely it is slightly hypocritical to not object as vocally to such examples closer to home.
Didn't we as a club set up the ownership structure through Baton in BVI in part for tax avoidance purposes?
Tax on what? Our profit?
It was merely to hide the identity of the actual owners wasn't it?
Baton was the company that RM used to "purchase" the Club from CA PLC. It preceded the Slater et al purchase. Nonetheless, while only RM knows his specific reason for using an offshore company to acquire 100% ownership of CAFC, if it were LAWFULLY to minimise his tax liabilities (presumably in the best case scenario of a return to the Prem), why would that be a problem? It certainly is neither illegal nor "immoral" and it might have made the difference between him wanting to commit the financial resources to buy time for CAFC or sending it there and then into the hands of administrators.
This really is my last post on this thread. I'm behaving far too much like a Type 5
Mr Peanuts. Why do you keep telling yourself you should not post on this thread?. Obviously you feel strongly that I and others are talking a lot of bollocks, and have misguided views on the matter. Well, I'm listening. Is it really so hard to convince me to take a different view, when i have worked all my life in the private sector, dedicated to achieving goals which are directly related to either my employer's profit, or for the last 22 years, the profit of a company of which I am the owner? I admit to being a Guardian reader but so are a lot of other people I know who are also professionally guided by the profit motive.
For a start, for example, I would love to see more of a "UK plc" attitude to HMRC. What do we learn from the earliest days in private businesses? Identify the big revenue targets, don't waste your time fannying around on little stuff. Recruit the very best people and reward them damn well for hitting clear quantified targets. The way HMRC is set up and run is the polar opposite of that approach. Surely you would agree that if it was run as I have described, the revenue from existing tax laws would be increased, and therefore there would not be the need to burden people with further tax rises in order to pay for the improving social services we all expect.
Tax avoidance is regarded by HMRC as avoiding tax on something Parliament intended to be taxed, so on moral grounds should be paid.
On that logic should we be refusing to pay a tax on something, on moral grounds, arguing that Parliament didn't intended to tax it?
It's hard enough applying laws that exist today, let alone rules that we make up as we go along that are not actually law because no one knows how to design the rules.
HSBC is about turning a blind eye, for profit, to systems that are a loophole for money laundering and tax evasion, whilst possibly honouring the letter of law on banking regulations. It is convenient to try and link tax avoidance and tax evasion into the same category and they are often spoken of in the same breath, but they should have entirely different attitudes applied.
Didn't we as a club set up the ownership structure through Baton in BVI in part for tax avoidance purposes?
Tax on what? Our profit?
It was merely to hide the identity of the actual owners wasn't it?
Baton was the company that RM used to "purchase" the Club from CA PLC. It preceded the Slater et al purchase. Nonetheless, while only RM knows his specific reason for using an offshore company to acquire 100% ownership of CAFC, if it were LAWFULLY to minimise his tax liabilities (presumably in the best case scenario of a return to the Prem), why would that be a problem? It certainly is neither illegal nor "immoral" and it might have made the difference between him wanting to commit the financial resources to buy time for CAFC or sending it there and then into the hands of administrators.
This really is my last post on this thread. I'm behaving far too much like a Type 5
Mr Peanuts. Why do you keep telling yourself you should not post on this thread?. Obviously you feel strongly that I and others are talking a lot of bollocks, and have misguided views on the matter. Well, I'm listening. Is it really so hard to convince me to take a different view, when i have worked all my life in the private sector, dedicated to achieving goals which are directly related to either my employer's profit, or for the last 22 years, the profit of a company of which I am the owner? I admit to being a Guardian reader but so are a lot of other people I know who are also professionally guided by the profit motive.
For a start, for example, I would love to see more of a "UK plc" attitude to HMRC. What do we learn from the earliest days in private businesses? Identify the big revenue targets, don't waste your time fannying around on little stuff. Recruit the very best people and reward them damn well for hitting clear quantified targets. The way HMRC is set up and run is the polar opposite of that approach. Surely you would agree that if it was run as I have described, the revenue from existing tax laws would be increased, and therefore there would not be the need to burden people with further tax rises in order to pay for the improving social services we all expect.
Am I really wrong to have that ambition?
It's not my aim to convince you of anything PA. My posts are designed merely to present facts. I keep telling myself not to post on political threads because, frankly, it is the most phenomenal waste of time.
There is an interesting moral issue for HMRC and tax avoidance.
Should its primary aim be to raise revenue for the Government by cutting deals with tax evaders so that they pay large fines and interest in exchange for not facing criminal prosecution. Or should it be to punish tax evaders and deter others through criminal prosecution even if that means not recovering as much money as the otherwise would.
Really don't know which side of the argument I prefer.
I can't stand the HMRC. I put in a tax return every year. I put one in for the 2012/13 year and they came back to me telling me I owed a lot more tax than I really did. They claimed that I did not declare all of my income, which was a lie, I always declare everything, I worry if things like this are not correct. I received threatening phone calls, threatening letters etc. Despite my replies and showing all my tax calculations proving that I had in fact paid the correct tax, they continued to pursue it. In the end I just paid up as I was worried about it having a negative affect on my business.
Two weeks later I received a notice saying that I had overpaid tax by the amount they had been pursuing me for. Not only was I livid that I had gone through all the stress, there was no apology, no recognition that there had been an error, just a letter stating I had over-paid. I rang them and gave them a piece of my mind, which just fell on deaf ears. I've sent them an invoice citing all my time wasted. I don't expect payment, but I am going to get my finance team to chase them aggressively for a while, just to piss them off.
Bottom line, the amount they were pursuing me for was just over £1000. I wish they would be as tough when dealing with the big boys as they are when it's a little man that owes very little money.
There is an interesting moral issue for HMRC and tax avoidance.
Should its primary aim be to raise revenue for the Government by cutting deals with tax evaders so that they pay large fines and interest in exchange for not facing criminal prosecution. Or should it be to punish tax evaders and deter others through criminal prosecution even if that means not recovering as much money as the otherwise would.
Really don't know which side of the argument I prefer.
HMRC don't have a dilemma. They are paid by results and have targets and bonuses on undeclared tax collected. That's why HMRC will go for the easy pickings and WCA had the experience he did.
Getting a conviction requires proof of criminal intent to avoid the tax, and if you look at any cases, you will see how many cases collapse purely on the quality of evidence, "beyond all reasonable doubt".
Instead HMRC estimate tax evaded, add a penalty and then give the person the opportunity to sign an admission of tax owed, not guilt of a crime. HMRC will overestimate so that the person coughs up with the real figures and reduces the size of the penalty. It makes no sense for HMRC to pursue anyone unless they refuse to sign an admission or want a high profile conviction, like Ken Dodd or Harry Redknapp that are mainly spectacular failures relying on a jury that probably doesn't like HMRC.
HMRC are basically monkeys with calculators. They're doing an impossible job with insufficient resources since anyone actually smart enough to work for them would simply work somewhere else and get much better paid. The head honchos are all ex-City boys anyway so even if they decide to go for a big fish, a few winks and nods and a couple of phonecalls from the right people and it all gets let off, hence why the monkeys go for the low-hanging fruit such as in WestCountryAddick's case.
Fair enough we want a terrible homeland revenue but at least don't make the tax system so needlessly complicated so that the people in charge of adminstering it don't have a scooby what they're doing and the only people smart enough to work out the loopholes are working for those trying to cheat the system.
There is an interesting moral issue for HMRC and tax avoidance.
Should its primary aim be to raise revenue for the Government by cutting deals with tax evaders so that they pay large fines and interest in exchange for not facing criminal prosecution. Or should it be to punish tax evaders and deter others through criminal prosecution even if that means not recovering as much money as the otherwise would.
Really don't know which side of the argument I prefer.
HMRC don't have a dilemma. They are paid by results and have targets and bonuses on undeclared tax collected. That's why HMRC will go for the easy pickings and WCA had the experience he did.
Getting a conviction requires proof of criminal intent to avoid the tax, and if you look at any cases, you will see how many cases collapse purely on the quality of evidence, "beyond all reasonable doubt".
Instead HMRC estimate tax evaded, add a penalty and then give the person the opportunity to sign an admission of tax owed, not guilt of a crime. HMRC will overestimate so that the person coughs up with the real figures and reduces the size of the penalty. It makes no sense for HMRC to pursue anyone unless they refuse to sign an admission or want a high profile conviction, like Ken Dodd or Harry Redknapp that are mainly spectacular failures relying on a jury that probably doesn't like HMRC.
I appreciate the point you are making but one of the Panorama points is that The US, France and Belgium among others are to pursue criminal proceedings based on the HSBC revelations whereas th UK is not. That suggests to me that maybe our laws are inadequate - and there is a political desire -among the electorate anyway- to make them adequate, and have them enforced.
Furthermore a tax barrister on PM made an interesting point about the HMRC "pragmatic" approach as I suppose we might call it. You will recall the deal cut between the UK and Switzerland over UK taxpayers bank accounts in 2011? It was widely criticised at the time for being too soft, but Osbourne scoffed and assured us it would bring in £5bn. The tax barrister said yesterday it was now estimated to only yield £1.7bn, and of that only £1.1bn has actually been collected. As the softly spoken barrister said, a pragmatic approach is only superior if it can be demonstrated to have worked (he put it better than that).
I'll put it more bluntly. Osbourne's typical appeasement of tax evasion means we have lost up to £3.9bn, which will doubtless be made up by "getting tough" with people like @westCountryAddick above. Osbourne and HMRC should be held to account for their deceit (or terrible judgement if I am to be charitable) and their incompetence.
There is an interesting moral issue for HMRC and tax avoidance.
Should its primary aim be to raise revenue for the Government by cutting deals with tax evaders so that they pay large fines and interest in exchange for not facing criminal prosecution. Or should it be to punish tax evaders and deter others through criminal prosecution even if that means not recovering as much money as the otherwise would.
Really don't know which side of the argument I prefer.
HMRC don't have a dilemma. They are paid by results and have targets and bonuses on undeclared tax collected. That's why HMRC will go for the easy pickings and WCA had the experience he did.
Getting a conviction requires proof of criminal intent to avoid the tax, and if you look at any cases, you will see how many cases collapse purely on the quality of evidence, "beyond all reasonable doubt".
Instead HMRC estimate tax evaded, add a penalty and then give the person the opportunity to sign an admission of tax owed, not guilt of a crime. HMRC will overestimate so that the person coughs up with the real figures and reduces the size of the penalty. It makes no sense for HMRC to pursue anyone unless they refuse to sign an admission or want a high profile conviction, like Ken Dodd or Harry Redknapp that are mainly spectacular failures relying on a jury that probably doesn't like HMRC.
I appreciate the point you are making but one of the Panorama points is that The US, France and Belgium among others are to pursue criminal proceedings based on the HSBC revelations whereas th UK is not. That suggests to me that maybe our laws are inadequate - and there is a political desire -among the electorate anyway- to make them adequate, and have them enforced.
Furthermore a tax barrister on PM made an interesting point about the HMRC "pragmatic" approach as I suppose we might call it. You will recall the deal cut between the UK and Switzerland over UK taxpayers bank accounts in 2011? It was widely criticised at the time for being too soft, but Osbourne scoffed and assured us it would bring in £5bn. The tax barrister said yesterday it was now estimated to only yield £1.7bn, and of that only £1.1bn has actually been collected. As the softly spoken barrister said, a pragmatic approach is only superior if it can be demonstrated to have worked (he put it better than that).
I'll put it more bluntly. Osbourne's typical appeasement of tax evasion means we have lost up to £3.9bn, which will doubtless be made up by "getting tough" with people like @westCountryAddick above. Osbourne and HMRC should be held to account for their deceit (or terrible judgement if I am to be charitable) and their incompetence.
Given that HSBC's misdeeds occurred prior to 2010 and that tax evasion both as a percentage of tax receipts and as an absolute figure was higher in 2009 than it was last year, surely we also go for those in power in 2009 who both oversaw such blatant abuse of the system as well as a record level of tax evasion to occur under their watch?
I can't stand the HMRC. I put in a tax return every year. I put one in for the 2012/13 year and they came back to me telling me I owed a lot more tax than I really did. They claimed that I did not declare all of my income, which was a lie, I always declare everything, I worry if things like this are not correct. I received threatening phone calls, threatening letters etc. Despite my replies and showing all my tax calculations proving that I had in fact paid the correct tax, they continued to pursue it. In the end I just paid up as I was worried about it having a negative affect on my business.
Two weeks later I received a notice saying that I had overpaid tax by the amount they had been pursuing me for. Not only was I livid that I had gone through all the stress, there was no apology, no recognition that there had been an error, just a letter stating I had over-paid. I rang them and gave them a piece of my mind, which just fell on deaf ears. I've sent them an invoice citing all my time wasted. I don't expect payment, but I am going to get my finance team to chase them aggressively for a while, just to piss them off.
Bottom line, the amount they were pursuing me for was just over £1000. I wish they would be as tough when dealing with the big boys as they are when it's a little man that owes very little money.
I had a similar run-in with HMRC. It seemed to me that there were 2 people looking into my company who didn't speak to one-another. One week I was receiving threatening letters about my under-payment and the next I was receiving letters about rebates I was entitled to. And the worst letters always arrived Saturday morning, meaning I had to wait until Monday to speak to my accountant.
There is an interesting moral issue for HMRC and tax avoidance.
Should its primary aim be to raise revenue for the Government by cutting deals with tax evaders so that they pay large fines and interest in exchange for not facing criminal prosecution. Or should it be to punish tax evaders and deter others through criminal prosecution even if that means not recovering as much money as the otherwise would.
Really don't know which side of the argument I prefer.
HMRC don't have a dilemma. They are paid by results and have targets and bonuses on undeclared tax collected. That's why HMRC will go for the easy pickings and WCA had the experience he did.
Getting a conviction requires proof of criminal intent to avoid the tax, and if you look at any cases, you will see how many cases collapse purely on the quality of evidence, "beyond all reasonable doubt".
Instead HMRC estimate tax evaded, add a penalty and then give the person the opportunity to sign an admission of tax owed, not guilt of a crime. HMRC will overestimate so that the person coughs up with the real figures and reduces the size of the penalty. It makes no sense for HMRC to pursue anyone unless they refuse to sign an admission or want a high profile conviction, like Ken Dodd or Harry Redknapp that are mainly spectacular failures relying on a jury that probably doesn't like HMRC.
I appreciate the point you are making but one of the Panorama points is that The US, France and Belgium among others are to pursue criminal proceedings based on the HSBC revelations whereas th UK is not. That suggests to me that maybe our laws are inadequate - and there is a political desire -among the electorate anyway- to make them adequate, and have them enforced.
Furthermore a tax barrister on PM made an interesting point about the HMRC "pragmatic" approach as I suppose we might call it. You will recall the deal cut between the UK and Switzerland over UK taxpayers bank accounts in 2011? It was widely criticised at the time for being too soft, but Osbourne scoffed and assured us it would bring in £5bn. The tax barrister said yesterday it was now estimated to only yield £1.7bn, and of that only £1.1bn has actually been collected. As the softly spoken barrister said, a pragmatic approach is only superior if it can be demonstrated to have worked (he put it better than that).
I'll put it more bluntly. Osbourne's typical appeasement of tax evasion means we have lost up to £3.9bn, which will doubtless be made up by "getting tough" with people like @westCountryAddick above. Osbourne and HMRC should be held to account for their deceit (or terrible judgement if I am to be charitable) and their incompetence.
Given that HSBC's misdeeds occurred prior to 2010 and that tax evasion both as a percentage of tax receipts and as an absolute figure was higher in 2009 than it was last year, surely we also go for those in power in 2009 who both oversaw such blatant abuse of the system as well as a record level of tax evasion to occur under their watch?
Which misdeeds are you referring to? My post refers to action announced by Osbourne in 2011. There have been multiple misdeeds by HMRC who have not been fit for purpose for many years. I fully agree with you if you wish to imply that the previous Labour government are just as culpable as this lot for that state of affairs. As Mandelson said, they were "intensely relaxed" about it all.
The problem with the second part of your post is that I understand you to believe the gigantic 80% tax forgiveness given to Vodafone over dinner is perfectly OK (and not showing up in tax 'evasion' figures) whereas I think it stinks to high heaven.
I'm in no way an apologist for HMRC or tax evaders, rather a pragmatist. I imagine a lot of the evaders are outside our legal jurisdiction, many will be non-residents and much of the money will disappear as quickly as it is identified. No way of knowing, but I suspect, an awful lot is the product of criminal activity, so that must make the task even more difficult. Think how much identity fraud is committed, criminals are not going to give you their address and NI number are they.
It's easy to say go after them, rather more difficult to achieve and HMRC probably only have a limited number of people who have the wherewithal to manage the process, and at enormous cost in legal fees and expenses. They will naturally go for the easy targets and I guess there are fewer than they would like.
Beaker has landed himself in hot water by using parliamentary privilege to accuse (libel) a Tory lord and donor of aggressively avoiding tax. I doubt he'll have the stones or integrity to repeat the words outside the Commons, he's stupid but not stupid enough to tempt a libel battle in election season.
The ironic thing is that Beaker has himself avoided tax and that there are plenty of Labour lords and donors who are also implicated in this, and he picks his fight against a cancer survivor who gives a third of his income to charity and isn't actually purposefully avoiding tax in the UK?
Beaker has landed himself in hot water by using parliamentary privilege to accuse (libel) a Tory lord and donor of aggressively avoiding tax. I doubt he'll have the stones or integrity to repeat the words outside the Commons, he's stupid but not stupid enough to tempt a libel battle in election season.
The ironic thing is that Beaker has himself avoided tax and that there are plenty of Labour lords and donors who are also implicated in this, and he picks his fight against a cancer survivor who gives a third of his income to charity and isn't actually purposefully avoiding tax in the UK?
Except he (assuming you are referring to Milliband) has repeated them and Fink has said he has no intention of suing.
Beaker has landed himself in hot water by using parliamentary privilege to accuse (libel) a Tory lord and donor of aggressively avoiding tax. I doubt he'll have the stones or integrity to repeat the words outside the Commons, he's stupid but not stupid enough to tempt a libel battle in election season.
The ironic thing is that Beaker has himself avoided tax and that there are plenty of Labour lords and donors who are also implicated in this, and he picks his fight against a cancer survivor who gives a third of his income to charity and isn't actually purposefully avoiding tax in the UK?
Except he (assuming you are referring to Milliband) has repeated them and Fink has said he has no intention of suing.
Also, Beaker refused to repeat the actual smear. He instead twisted Fink's words regarding 'everyone avoids tax in some way', which is a fair point given ISAs, pensions and trusts are all legitimate tax avoidance instruments that ordinary people use everyday, which was the point Fink was making.
Beaker has landed himself in hot water by using parliamentary privilege to accuse (libel) a Tory lord and donor of aggressively avoiding tax. I doubt he'll have the stones or integrity to repeat the words outside the Commons, he's stupid but not stupid enough to tempt a libel battle in election season.
The ironic thing is that Beaker has himself avoided tax and that there are plenty of Labour lords and donors who are also implicated in this, and he picks his fight against a cancer survivor who gives a third of his income to charity and isn't actually purposefully avoiding tax in the UK?
Except he (assuming you are referring to Milliband) has repeated them and Fink has said he has no intention of suing.
Also, Beaker refused to repeat the actual smear. He instead twisted Fink's words regarding 'everyone avoids tax in some way', which is a fair point given ISAs, pensions and trusts are all legitimate tax avoidance instruments that ordinary people use everyday, which was the point Fink was making.
Yes but we have already dealt with that point. The instruments you refer to are all created by a democratically elected parliament to encourage people to behave in a certain way, usually with the aim of reducing their dependence on the State. Further, such parliaments have recently restricted the scope of those instruments when it was agreed that they were being abused.
Beaker has landed himself in hot water by using parliamentary privilege to accuse (libel) a Tory lord and donor of aggressively avoiding tax. I doubt he'll have the stones or integrity to repeat the words outside the Commons, he's stupid but not stupid enough to tempt a libel battle in election season.
The ironic thing is that Beaker has himself avoided tax and that there are plenty of Labour lords and donors who are also implicated in this, and he picks his fight against a cancer survivor who gives a third of his income to charity and isn't actually purposefully avoiding tax in the UK?
Except he (assuming you are referring to Milliband) has repeated them and Fink has said he has no intention of suing.
Also, Beaker refused to repeat the actual smear. He instead twisted Fink's words regarding 'everyone avoids tax in some way', which is a fair point given ISAs, pensions and trusts are all legitimate tax avoidance instruments that ordinary people use everyday, which was the point Fink was making.
Yes but we have already dealt with that point. The instruments you refer to are all created by a democratically elected parliament to encourage people to behave in a certain way, usually with the aim of reducing their dependence on that point. Further, such parliaments have recently restricted the scope of those instruments when it was agreed that they were being abused.
Yes I know we have dealt with that point but the issue is that the leader of the opposition appears to struggle with this concept that not all tax avoidance is morally wrong.
Yes, governments like to collect taxes just to show that they are on 'the case'. The reality is that the more sophisticated of them are pretty relaxed about revenue shortfalls as they're able to 'quantatively ease' their way out of trouble. Get those presses rolling boys, add a few more monopoly points to the big banks' coffers
Beaker has landed himself in hot water by using parliamentary privilege to accuse (libel) a Tory lord and donor of aggressively avoiding tax. I doubt he'll have the stones or integrity to repeat the words outside the Commons, he's stupid but not stupid enough to tempt a libel battle in election season.
The ironic thing is that Beaker has himself avoided tax and that there are plenty of Labour lords and donors who are also implicated in this, and he picks his fight against a cancer survivor who gives a third of his income to charity and isn't actually purposefully avoiding tax in the UK?
Except he (assuming you are referring to Milliband) has repeated them and Fink has said he has no intention of suing.
Beaker has landed himself in hot water by using parliamentary privilege to accuse (libel) a Tory lord and donor of aggressively avoiding tax. I doubt he'll have the stones or integrity to repeat the words outside the Commons, he's stupid but not stupid enough to tempt a libel battle in election season.
The ironic thing is that Beaker has himself avoided tax and that there are plenty of Labour lords and donors who are also implicated in this, and he picks his fight against a cancer survivor who gives a third of his income to charity and isn't actually purposefully avoiding tax in the UK?
Except he (assuming you are referring to Milliband) has repeated them and Fink has said he has no intention of suing.
Miliband looks like the human out of Wallace and Gromit. Cameron looks like a dishface.
edit - aliwibble beat me to it
Oh don't spoil his fun. Things are getting desperate. All the shit throwing doesn't seem to be impacting much on the polls. Blue Dave still struggling.
He instead twisted Fink's words regarding 'everyone avoids tax in some way', which is a fair point given ISAs, pensions and trusts are all legitimate tax avoidance instruments that ordinary people use everyday, which was the point Fink was making.
Not sure I agree with that. Is buying food tax avoidance because it is zero rated? - children's clothing?
Never mind the mud-slinging. Lets get down to what has actually been going on, Here the Guardian explains very clearly how the HSBC scheme worked. It even has a handy walk through guide in case you have £20m or so you want to stash away off-shore.
Question for Fink's defenders. Is this HSBC scam a "vanilla" scheme or are we already up in strawberry ripple territory?
Comments
It was merely to hide the identity of the actual owners wasn't it?
Nonetheless, while only RM knows his specific reason for using an offshore company to acquire 100% ownership of CAFC, if it were LAWFULLY to minimise his tax liabilities (presumably in the best case scenario of a return to the Prem), why would that be a problem? It certainly is neither illegal nor "immoral" and it might have made the difference between him wanting to commit the financial resources to buy time for CAFC or sending it there and then into the hands of administrators.
This really is my last post on this thread. I'm behaving far too much like a Type 5
As for Hodge... Well by all accounts it seems she hasn't broken the law over tax. It looks like she and her family's firm may have avoided it by playing the rules for all they're worth. It doesn't make it morally right - but it is legal. There is the opportunity to change the law to tighten up the loopholes - perhaps the chairman of the Public Accounts Select Committee could direct an investigation into that? Oh hang on a minute - that would be Margaret Hodge......!
Never said it was a problem was just implying that if people object to amazon and Vodafone minimising their tax liabilities legally then surely it is slightly hypocritical to not object as vocally to such examples closer to home.
For a start, for example, I would love to see more of a "UK plc" attitude to HMRC. What do we learn from the earliest days in private businesses? Identify the big revenue targets, don't waste your time fannying around on little stuff. Recruit the very best people and reward them damn well for hitting clear quantified targets. The way HMRC is set up and run is the polar opposite of that approach. Surely you would agree that if it was run as I have described, the revenue from existing tax laws would be increased, and therefore there would not be the need to burden people with further tax rises in order to pay for the improving social services we all expect.
Am I really wrong to have that ambition?
On that logic should we be refusing to pay a tax on something, on moral grounds, arguing that Parliament didn't intended to tax it?
It's hard enough applying laws that exist today, let alone rules that we make up as we go along that are not actually law because no one knows how to design the rules.
HSBC is about turning a blind eye, for profit, to systems that are a loophole for money laundering and tax evasion, whilst possibly honouring the letter of law on banking regulations. It is convenient to try and link tax avoidance and tax evasion into the same category and they are often spoken of in the same breath, but they should have entirely different attitudes applied.
I keep telling myself not to post on political threads because, frankly, it is the most phenomenal waste of time.
Should its primary aim be to raise revenue for the Government by cutting deals with tax evaders so that they pay large fines and interest in exchange for not facing criminal prosecution. Or should it be to punish tax evaders and deter others through criminal prosecution even if that means not recovering as much money as the otherwise would.
Really don't know which side of the argument I prefer.
Two weeks later I received a notice saying that I had overpaid tax by the amount they had been pursuing me for. Not only was I livid that I had gone through all the stress, there was no apology, no recognition that there had been an error, just a letter stating I had over-paid. I rang them and gave them a piece of my mind, which just fell on deaf ears. I've sent them an invoice citing all my time wasted. I don't expect payment, but I am going to get my finance team to chase them aggressively for a while, just to piss them off.
Bottom line, the amount they were pursuing me for was just over £1000. I wish they would be as tough when dealing with the big boys as they are when it's a little man that owes very little money.
That's why HMRC will go for the easy pickings and WCA had the experience he did.
Getting a conviction requires proof of criminal intent to avoid the tax, and if you look at any cases, you will see how many cases collapse purely on the quality of evidence, "beyond all reasonable doubt".
Instead HMRC estimate tax evaded, add a penalty and then give the person the opportunity to sign an admission of tax owed, not guilt of a crime. HMRC will overestimate so that the person coughs up with the real figures and reduces the size of the penalty. It makes no sense for HMRC to pursue anyone unless they refuse to sign an admission or want a high profile conviction, like Ken Dodd or Harry Redknapp that are mainly spectacular failures relying on a jury that probably doesn't like HMRC.
Fair enough we want a terrible homeland revenue but at least don't make the tax system so needlessly complicated so that the people in charge of adminstering it don't have a scooby what they're doing and the only people smart enough to work out the loopholes are working for those trying to cheat the system.
Furthermore a tax barrister on PM made an interesting point about the HMRC "pragmatic" approach as I suppose we might call it. You will recall the deal cut between the UK and Switzerland over UK taxpayers bank accounts in 2011? It was widely criticised at the time for being too soft, but Osbourne scoffed and assured us it would bring in £5bn. The tax barrister said yesterday it was now estimated to only yield £1.7bn, and of that only £1.1bn has actually been collected. As the softly spoken barrister said, a pragmatic approach is only superior if it can be demonstrated to have worked (he put it better than that).
I'll put it more bluntly. Osbourne's typical appeasement of tax evasion means we have lost up to £3.9bn, which will doubtless be made up by "getting tough" with people like @westCountryAddick above. Osbourne and HMRC should be held to account for their deceit (or terrible judgement if I am to be charitable) and their incompetence.
The problem with the second part of your post is that I understand you to believe the gigantic 80% tax forgiveness given to Vodafone over dinner is perfectly OK (and not showing up in tax 'evasion' figures) whereas I think it stinks to high heaven.
It's easy to say go after them, rather more difficult to achieve and HMRC probably only have a limited number of people who have the wherewithal to manage the process, and at enormous cost in legal fees and expenses. They will naturally go for the easy targets and I guess there are fewer than they would like.
The ironic thing is that Beaker has himself avoided tax and that there are plenty of Labour lords and donors who are also implicated in this, and he picks his fight against a cancer survivor who gives a third of his income to charity and isn't actually purposefully avoiding tax in the UK?
I think in his eagerness to jump in on Miliband he's getting both slander and his Muppets mixed up.
Also, Beaker refused to repeat the actual smear. He instead twisted Fink's words regarding 'everyone avoids tax in some way', which is a fair point given ISAs, pensions and trusts are all legitimate tax avoidance instruments that ordinary people use everyday, which was the point Fink was making.
Miliband looks like the human out of Wallace and Gromit. Cameron looks like a dishface.
edit - aliwibble beat me to it
Question for Fink's defenders. Is this HSBC scam a "vanilla" scheme or are we already up in strawberry ripple territory?