people get all worked up about benefit cheats i.e. poor people trying to get an extra fifty quid here and there (not defending it), but personally I consider the rich avoiding tax a worse crime. And nobody really has a go at builders, plumbers etc. doing work for cash in hand.
Cheques are not legal currency so if you don't want to accept them you don't have to. Quite often, as a tradesman/woman, you'll need cash to settle bills. Neither of those arguments excuse not charging VAT if it's due, but then the person paying could always insist on a VAT receipt, couldn't they?
if any of you lot were millionaires you'd do same and try and avoid tax where possible and dont lie and say you wouldnt so get off your high horses
If you think investing in a film company that will make no films is a valid way of avoiding tax, good for you. Please don't judge the rest of us by your moral standing.
Most people try to pay as little tax as possible. As obscene as this seems, being £2.5m and all, the truth is that he earned a lot of money so he is trying to save more than you or I would do. Every time we go to France to stock up on booze and/or cigarettes we are doing so to pay less tax, the same applies to ISAs that are exempt of tax. He earned so much (which is a different discussion, completely) he just needed different schemes to keep his tax bill down.
He hasn't broken the law, he just found out that the scheme he was using is not eligible.
I, personally, consider benefit cheats and those that won't work but keep claiming money as far worse, even if the sums, on an individual bases, are less.
If you live in a system that requires unemployment to keep wages down, you could argue that by not working you're just playing them at their own game. If anyone here is on benefits, perhaps they could tell us about the life of luxury they lead.
I would have thought he could claim against his advisers.
no Len
well at least not for anything more possibly than what he paid them in fees and ,maybe ,interest on tax that he would have paid but for their advice .The fact that their advice might have been wrong that there was a scheme that he could employ to possibly avoid tax doesn't affect his primary obligation to pay tax. He cannot look to them for an indemnity for the liability to HMRC that he always had in the first place.Well that is what I would advize them in defence to a claim for negligence or breach of contract .
If there was however an alternative arrangement that would have worked and that they ought to have advised him on but falied to do so then he might get somewhere .Well that is what I would advise him in respect of the pursuit of a professional negligence or breach of contract claim .
To tell you the truth I wouldn't care whom I advised as long as I got paid .
So much bollox on this thread from people with no idea it's untrue.
But it goes to show one thing, there are wildly differing views as to what is a "fair share" of tax so, as much as HMRC might want to try and make it otherwise, it's a matter for the law to determine, and not public opinion, the tabloid press or a bunch of blokes on a football forum. That's the way it should be.
If they don't like the law they can change it, or maybe just get better at enforcing the existing law properly.
In the meantime people can choose to arrange their affairs however they want to minimise their tax bill as long as it's within the law. If that means putting your money in an ISA or a film scheme, or buying a bag of Doritos over walkers cheese and onion then that's up to you. But you then have to face the consequences if whatever you decide goes wrong. That's life.
if any of you lot were millionaires you'd do same and try and avoid tax where possible and dont lie and say you wouldnt so get off your high horses
YOU would do it, please don't presume that you speak for everyone.
Your morals are different to mine, that's not a criticism, I am not judging you; so please don't call me a liar, it's very rude.
1) So if you were advised that putting your money in a film scheme would be a way of potentially reducing your tax bill you wouldn't do it (which is clearly what has happened in Murphys case)
2)Or if you set up as a limited company and rather than pay yourself PAYE you could draw money out at a lower tax rate in the form of a dividend you'd take the more expensive route of PAYE for yourself ....madness
3) I think avoid sounds worse than pay the minimal amount of tax due which arises because of all the different ways to draw income
4) and after a huge and successful life earning squillions and paying squillions in tax you'll be more than happy once you've passed away paying another 40% tax on all that you have earnt before it gets passed on your next of kin
I have read the basics on AOL and on the FT site Oohahh. All the following answers are based on being a millionaire, as stated by Ledge.
1) No I wouldn't. If I was earning that much money I would be eternally grateful for the income I had and would be happy to pay my way. I might invest legitimately if one of my friends in the media came to me with the outline of a film they wanted to make and hope it was a box office smash so I could re-furbish my Lear Jet.
2) See answer one. You call it madness, I call it honesty and integrity.
3) I agree, but it's a legitimate term as that's what you are doing at the end of the day, a turd is still a turd, no matter what you might choose to call it.
4) No, and that is not anything to do with the case in point whatsoever, inheritance tax was not mentioned . But I will tell you my opinion. The threshold is too low, it should be much higher. As should be the amount of tax paid on it where the deceased is a non-dom and/or one of the couple of thousand richest people in the country who avoid/evade tax as a way of life. A residence in which the inheritor(s) actually lives, or intends to live, should not be taken into account as taxable until such time as it is sold.
Ohh ahhh you also forgot Ltd companies pay Corporation tax
Yeah I understand that and to draw money out through a dividend makes more sense than PAYE for most some It's not avoiding tax it is paying tax in a different way and perfectly appropriate to some WhyAlgarve would chose to pay more i can't understand and to insulate that drawing a dividend has no integrity or is dishonest is bizarre I'm sure all governments would except donations and over payment if people,want to take that route !
Ohh ahhh you also forgot Ltd companies pay Corporation tax
Yeah I understand that and to draw money out through a dividend makes more sense than PAYE for most some It's not avoiding tax it is paying tax in a different way and perfectly appropriate to some WhyAlgarve would chose to pay more i can't understand and to insulate that drawing a dividend has no integrity or is dishonest is bizarre I'm sure all governments would except donations and over payment if people,want to take that route !
I thought I explained? If I had as much money as they do, I would be happy to pay my way, simple as that. I consider turning myself into a limited company (which I am not) in order to avoid paying tax (when you are a millionaire) as underhand, I wasn't insinuating anything, I was saying it outright.
Why is it that some people have to pretend that everyone else is the same as them? That's bizarre.
To be fair he probably didn't think he was "bending" the law and at the time had good reason to think he wasn't. The government often brings in schemes to encourage people to do certain thinks and they do this by giving tax breaks. The most obvious are pensions and ISAS but there are others. The government did want people to invest in film industry and gave certain reliefs. However as is always with a lot of type of things, there is always a grey area as to what is and what isn't covered. Certain institutions set up schemes in this grey area. They are quite often supported by views from legal counsel. However because it's grey there is room for challenge by HMRC and their legal counsel has supported their view. Over the years I have seen many tax avoidance schemes, in my work rather than personal, many just don't feel right, look to challenge and wouldn't be worth the risk. A professional footballer is probably not in a position to make that judgement if he has a "close to wire" adviser. Having said all that it is right that HMRC should be seeking every penny for failed schemes even id it means bankrupting people. If only to send out the message for others to be diligent in future
What happened to if its too good to be true then it probably is - or doesn't that apply to professional footballers earning millions and who think that it is ok to pay lower effective tax rates than most people watching them?
The man is a bad example to others and should not be allowed anywhere near the BBC together with all the other tax dodgers who in effect put up the tax bills of their audience. I would begrudge any of my licence fee whatsoever going to Murphy or his ilk.
Yep I worded that wrongly .... Surely you'd care about your loved ones left behind, who you'd be trying to give a leg up to I think it should be tax free to the people it's passed down to as a gift The inheritance threshold is 40% on anything above £325k
Say you're passing it down to 4 kids, that's rough £80k tax free each, which is 3 times the national average salary. That's a bloody good leg up, and if it was being treated as ordinary income, you'd be being taxed at 40% on roughly half that amount. To be getting even more than that, and then whinging that it's so unfair that you're having to be paying tax on a huge chunk of unearned income just strikes me as weird.
I'd be entirely happy for the inheritance of the family home to be included within the threshhold for any dependent children living there (so under the age of 21 to allow for the probability that they're still in full time education, or above that age if they have severe disability that means they're unable to support themselves) as it is for your spouse, so that they don't lose their home. But as an adult I don't see why people think they have a divine right to inherit their parents' house, when most of the time they aren't going to be living in it anyway, just selling it and trousering the cash.
But as an adult I don't see why people think they have a divine right to inherit their parents' house, when most of the time they aren't going to be living in it anyway, just selling it and trousering the cash.
How unreasonable for parents to want to provide for their children. What a bunch of arseholes! STRING E'M UP!!!
Yep I worded that wrongly .... Surely you'd care about your loved ones left behind, who you'd be trying to give a leg up to I think it should be tax free to the people it's passed down to as a gift The inheritance threshold is 40% on anything above £325k
it's so unfair that you're having to be paying tax on a huge chunk of unearned income just strikes me as weird.
It is also a little weird to describe the money as "unearned". In the hand of the beneficiary, maybe. But it'll be taxed afterwards if they buy a car or whatever won't it? So the Govt. will get its pound of flesh in the end.
In any event, over the lifetime of the deceased, the chances are that the inheritance is just the rump of the money earned which has already been, taxed, taxed and taxed again. (Income tax, NICS, stamp duty, property taxes, VAT, CGT, dividend tax or whatever.) Anyone that has managed to get to the end of their life and still managed to have some money left over after a lifetime of watching successive Governments flush most of it down the toilet on pet projects and then having to pay for their care in their last moments deserves to have that money passed on free of yet another tax in my opinion.
so any self employed people on here or own their own business and have an accountant. you're in your yearly accountant meeting he says if we do this do that you can save % in tax -
no thanks mr accountant i want to pay what i owe you scoundrel how dare you even suggest
its all the same thing . just cos the blokes a millionaire its sooo wrong.
Yep I worded that wrongly .... Surely you'd care about your loved ones left behind, who you'd be trying to give a leg up to I think it should be tax free to the people it's passed down to as a gift The inheritance threshold is 40% on anything above £325k
Say you're passing it down to 4 kids, that's rough £80k tax free each, which is 3 times the national average salary. That's a bloody good leg up, and if it was being treated as ordinary income, you'd be being taxed at 40% on roughly half that amount. To be getting even more than that, and then whinging that it's so unfair that you're having to be paying tax on a huge chunk of unearned income just strikes me as weird.
I'd be entirely happy for the inheritance of the family home to be included within the threshhold for any dependent children living there (so under the age of 21 to allow for the probability that they're still in full time education, or above that age if they have severe disability that means they're unable to support themselves) as it is for your spouse, so that they don't lose their home. But as an adult I don't see why people think they have a divine right to inherit their parents' house, when most of the time they aren't going to be living in it anyway, just selling it and trousering the cash.
My ears pricked up as I read this.
My brother lives with my parents and I cant see him ever moving out because of his mental health issues, he just feel like he cant live on his own. Anyhow, so when the inevitable happens hopefully much further down the line and my parents house gets left to me and my brother, can my brother still continue to live there after they've both passed? Or would we be forced to sell up to pay the 40% inheritance tax?
Excuse my total ignorance, its just something I'd never even considered until I read that post. I'm a bit wet behind the ears at times!
Yep I worded that wrongly .... Surely you'd care about your loved ones left behind, who you'd be trying to give a leg up to I think it should be tax free to the people it's passed down to as a gift The inheritance threshold is 40% on anything above £325k
Say you're passing it down to 4 kids, that's rough £80k tax free each, which is 3 times the national average salary. That's a bloody good leg up, and if it was being treated as ordinary income, you'd be being taxed at 40% on roughly half that amount. To be getting even more than that, and then whinging that it's so unfair that you're having to be paying tax on a huge chunk of unearned income just strikes me as weird.
I'd be entirely happy for the inheritance of the family home to be included within the threshhold for any dependent children living there (so under the age of 21 to allow for the probability that they're still in full time education, or above that age if they have severe disability that means they're unable to support themselves) as it is for your spouse, so that they don't lose their home. But as an adult I don't see why people think they have a divine right to inherit their parents' house, when most of the time they aren't going to be living in it anyway, just selling it and trousering the cash.
My ears pricked up as I read this.
My brother lives with my parents and I cant see him ever moving out because of his mental health issues, he just feel like he cant live on his own. Anyhow, so when the inevitable happens hopefully much further down the line and my parents house gets left to me and my brother, can my brother still continue to live there after they've both passed? Or would we be forced to sell up to pay the 40% inheritance tax?
Excuse my total ignorance, its just something I'd never even considered until I read that post. I'm a bit wet behind the ears at times!
Depends on so many factors, mainly the value of the estate. But it seems that if you and your parents are prepared to allow your brother to stay in the property after their death (and until his death) then it makes sense to get an expert to draw up the appropriate documentation. Maybe a discretionary trust arrangement would assist but you really need an expert.
According to Ian Wright (y'days Sun) all footballers who make it big are poor lickle naïve boys led astray by howwwibble men called agents and advisors. Wright is amongst their number. Strange how many of these know nothing backwoods hicks end up pontificating on football (and other) matters for lots and lots of money. And if a reasonable though not especially brilliant or outstanding player like Murphy has to pay back over £4 million to the revenue, how much was he actually earning for merely kicking a ball around ?. I have nothing against anyone making silly money from whatever legal source, I just want them to pay their dues and not to pay spivs and wide boys big fees to dream up convoluted ways in which they can evade their responsibilities. Yes, I do and always have used the relevant legislation at any given time to reduce my tax liabilities. However, I have always considered bending these laws to the limit both dangerous and immoral. I have thus avoided huge retrospective tax bills, and also, having old bill feel my collar. I am such a saint ((:>)
Comments
But it goes to show one thing, there are wildly differing views as to what is a "fair share" of tax so, as much as HMRC might want to try and make it otherwise, it's a matter for the law to determine, and not public opinion, the tabloid press or a bunch of blokes on a football forum. That's the way it should be.
If they don't like the law they can change it, or maybe just get better at enforcing the existing law properly.
In the meantime people can choose to arrange their affairs however they want to minimise their tax bill as long as it's within the law. If that means putting your money in an ISA or a film scheme, or buying a bag of Doritos over walkers cheese and onion then that's up to you. But you then have to face the consequences if whatever you decide goes wrong. That's life.
1) No I wouldn't. If I was earning that much money I would be eternally grateful for the income I had and would be happy to pay my way. I might invest legitimately if one of my friends in the media came to me with the outline of a film they wanted to make and hope it was a box office smash so I could re-furbish my Lear Jet.
2) See answer one. You call it madness, I call it honesty and integrity.
3) I agree, but it's a legitimate term as that's what you are doing at the end of the day, a turd is still a turd, no matter what you might choose to call it.
4) No, and that is not anything to do with the case in point whatsoever, inheritance tax was not mentioned . But I will tell you my opinion. The threshold is too low, it should be much higher. As should be the amount of tax paid on it where the deceased is a non-dom and/or one of the couple of thousand richest people in the country who avoid/evade tax as a way of life. A residence in which the inheritor(s) actually lives, or intends to live, should not be taken into account as taxable until such time as it is sold.
mostsomeIt's not avoiding tax it is paying tax in a different way and perfectly appropriate to some
WhyAlgarve would chose to pay more i can't understand and to insulate that drawing a dividend has no integrity or is dishonest is bizarre
I'm sure all governments would except donations and over payment if people,want to take that route !
Why is it that some people have to pretend that everyone else is the same as them? That's bizarre.
The man is a bad example to others and should not be allowed anywhere near the BBC together with all the other tax dodgers who in effect put up the tax bills of their audience. I would begrudge any of my licence fee whatsoever going to Murphy or his ilk.
I'd be entirely happy for the inheritance of the family home to be included within the threshhold for any dependent children living there (so under the age of 21 to allow for the probability that they're still in full time education, or above that age if they have severe disability that means they're unable to support themselves) as it is for your spouse, so that they don't lose their home. But as an adult I don't see why people think they have a divine right to inherit their parents' house, when most of the time they aren't going to be living in it anyway, just selling it and trousering the cash.
Good idea if you can ignore the 'Dad Rock' music
In any event, over the lifetime of the deceased, the chances are that the inheritance is just the rump of the money earned which has already been, taxed, taxed and taxed again. (Income tax, NICS, stamp duty, property taxes, VAT, CGT, dividend tax or whatever.) Anyone that has managed to get to the end of their life and still managed to have some money left over after a lifetime of watching successive Governments flush most of it down the toilet on pet projects and then having to pay for their care in their last moments deserves to have that money passed on free of yet another tax in my opinion.
no thanks mr accountant i want to pay what i owe you scoundrel how dare you even suggest
its all the same thing . just cos the blokes a millionaire its sooo wrong.
I pay enough in to have a clear mind
My brother lives with my parents and I cant see him ever moving out because of his mental health issues, he just feel like he cant live on his own. Anyhow, so when the inevitable happens hopefully much further down the line and my parents house gets left to me and my brother, can my brother still continue to live there after they've both passed? Or would we be forced to sell up to pay the 40% inheritance tax?
Excuse my total ignorance, its just something I'd never even considered until I read that post. I'm a bit wet behind the ears at times!
I have nothing against anyone making silly money from whatever legal source, I just want them to pay their dues and not to pay spivs and wide boys big fees to dream up convoluted ways in which they can evade their responsibilities. Yes, I do and always have used the relevant legislation at any given time to reduce my tax liabilities. However, I have always considered bending these laws to the limit both dangerous and immoral. I have thus avoided huge retrospective tax bills, and also, having old bill feel my collar. I am such a saint ((:>)