No limit to human greed - never ceases to amaze me how corrupt and greedy some of the rich are. Hope the money chokes them.....
You are however looking at things in today's terms and in the light of today's tax regime. Which is relatively benign.
Back in the late 1970s. The investment income surcharge took tax rates up to 90%. Even Thatcher, at first only reduced the top rate of income tax to 60%. So, it is said that the Cameron's father's offshore trust was set up in the 1980s. Why would you not do that to protect your assets from the (entirely possible) madness that would have followed the election of a Labour Government under Michael Foot? The lunatic that was going to reintroduce exchange controls!
It is also reported, shock horror, that this trust hasn't paid any tax in the UK for 30 years. What a terrible thing! Or perhaps no income has been crystallised that would trigger a tax bill?
I might be out of date, but I think, still, there are simple offshore products where the income/capital gain is rolled-up gross. No tax except maybe some withholding becomes due until such time as a UK resident withdraws money. It's an entirely legitimate technique. So why wouldn't anyone use it to avoid the grasping hands of the taxman?
Why do so many greedy c**ts think it beneath them to pay tax and are quite happy to indulge in money laundering and fraud. If nobody paid any tax then how the f**k would we pay for public services. I'm sick of selfish greedy f**ers who lie and cheat and then try to justify their actions - there are numerous politicians who operate beyond the law but aren't investigated because of their power.
Probably because it's ingrained in our society? Apparently around £1 in every £8 is spent in the shadow economy. Estimates suggest a loss to the taxman of around £64bn a year. Perhaps someone who has never "paid cash to avoid the VAT" would like to volunteer to cast the first stone? Meanwhile, as has been pointed out before, the richest 1% still pay around 30% of all income tax. In fact the richest 3000 pay more tax than the poorest 9mn. In the USA the richest 1% pay in excess of 50% of federal taxes.
BTW would you like to name the politicians who are operating beyond the law? Because their "influence" doesn't seem to help them much. On a pro rata basis, behind, football supporters and members of the armed services, MPs are the third most likely individuals to get arrested.
Is the UK stat about the richest 3000 limited to income tax? If not, I'm struggling to believe it.
It is widely asserted (most recently by @Dippenhall above) that what Starbucks and Google, Amazon and Facebook is doing is 'legal'. They then go on to argue that this is all the fault of the tax regimes, they ask for too much tax, or tax too highly relative to other countries.
However when you examine how the companies operate (perhaps with a degree of knowledge, as I have in the case of Google and FB), you see that their tax arrangements are based on explanations of how they do business which are based on preposterous fairy tales. The only reason they remain 'legal' is because HMRC do not understand the businesses well enough, and do not feel they can get together the legal (and political) firepower that would enable them to mount a legal challenge. Briefly to summarise the main fairy tales:
1. Starbucks reduce their local profit not so much by overcharging for the coffee (Costa has to buy in coffee too, don't forget) but by charging for "the use of the brand". The amount they charge for this is truly ludicrous, but HMRC refuse to use marketing experts to build a case to challenge it.
2. Amazon until recently pretended that you and I did lots of business with them in Luxembourg, as you will see from your invoices. Recently they climbed down, but the amount of extra tax they are actually paying as a result of this climbdown is still not clear, and nobody is talking about prosecuting them for telling porkies about Luxembourg for the last ten years.
3. Google and FB have teams of highly paid sales people based in the UK who visit the big advertising agencies and pull off deals for millions of pounds with of advertising. That is their business, not providing a free search engine. But because the invoice for those millions is produced in Ireland, they maintain that 'the business was concluded' in Ireland. The French have had enough of this fairy tale, and told them to pull the other one, but HMRC? Too busy pursuing plumbers.
That is why I disagree with @Dippenhall that the tax regimes and laws are at fault. The problem is the lack of competence and political will to enforce existing laws on these smartass Americans, who are of course busy avoiding US tax too.
Where Dippenhall has got it wrong is, he thinks if these mega rich people only had to pay 20% tax, they wouldn’t bother trying to avoid it through tax havens. I think this is clearly wrong, as these people don’t generally allow morals or fairness to affect their decisions, and would still try to pay less tax if they could find the loophole whatever the tax rate is. We would just lose revenue from those who do pay their taxes properly – whether they begrudge doing so or not. I don’t know how anybody could argue otherwise. This right wing – Boris Johnsonesque - making indefensible situtations sound reasonable to what they consider are the plebs (us) really does need challenging at every opportunity.
No limit to human greed - never ceases to amaze me how corrupt and greedy some of the rich are. Hope the money chokes them.....
You are however looking at things in today's terms and in the light of today's tax regime. Which is relatively benign.
Back in the late 1970s. The investment income surcharge took tax rates up to 90%. Even Thatcher, at first only reduced the top rate of income tax to 60%. So, it is said that the Cameron's father's offshore trust was set up in the 1980s. Why would you not do that to protect your assets from the (entirely possible) madness that would have followed the election of a Labour Government under Michael Foot? The lunatic that was going to reintroduce exchange controls!
It is also reported, shock horror, that this trust hasn't paid any tax in the UK for 30 years. What a terrible thing! Or perhaps no income has been crystallised that would trigger a tax bill?
I might be out of date, but I think, still, there are simple offshore products where the income/capital gain is rolled-up gross. No tax except maybe some withholding becomes due until such time as a UK resident withdraws money. It's an entirely legitimate technique. So why wouldn't anyone use it to avoid the grasping hands of the taxman?
Why do so many greedy c**ts think it beneath them to pay tax and are quite happy to indulge in money laundering and fraud. If nobody paid any tax then how the f**k would we pay for public services. I'm sick of selfish greedy f**ers who lie and cheat and then try to justify their actions - there are numerous politicians who operate beyond the law but aren't investigated because of their power.
Probably because it's ingrained in our society? Apparently around £1 in every £8 is spent in the shadow economy. Estimates suggest a loss to the taxman of around £64bn a year. Perhaps someone who has never "paid cash to avoid the VAT" would like to volunteer to cast the first stone? Meanwhile, as has been pointed out before, the richest 1% still pay around 30% of all income tax. In fact the richest 3000 pay more tax than the poorest 9mn. In the USA the richest 1% pay in excess of 50% of federal taxes.
BTW would you like to name the politicians who are operating beyond the law? Because their "influence" doesn't seem to help them much. On a pro rata basis, behind, football supporters and members of the armed services, MPs are the third most likely individuals to get arrested.
If you look round the world you can see numerous politicians who are operating beyond the law and they will always get better treatment than you or I. The reason why the rich pay more tax is that they have far more money and the gap continues to get wider - a large number certainly haven't earned it. Look at politicians around the world who have bled their countries dry - are you seriously telling me their influence doesn't help them? How has Blair managed to become so wealthy or Clinton? Why are the Chinese and Russian leaders so keen on censorship of financial affairs? Numerous MPs have bent the law on taxes, expenses, sex scandals etc yet they're rarely prosecuted. Look at the pathetic investigation regarding Greville Janner. You'd have to be pretty naive or just plain stupid to think they don't get special treatment. So much stuff is covered up it's beyond belief and the fact that our PM's father made a career built on tax evasion schemes says a lot about morality. I'm sick to death of people excusing these ludicrous tax evasion schemes in Panama etc many of which would fall short of the law if they were properly investigated. Money laundrers, drug barons,terrorists etc are amongst those happy to use them. Governments could quite easily tighten up tax laws etc but they won't because of numerous personal conflicts of interest? How can politicians expect to be taken seriously when they do nothing to address the tax issues. If I complete my tax return late I immediately get fined whereas multinationals are allowed to flout tax laws especially in dear old Britain.
What a ridiculously naive and sheltered comment... Starbucks coffee is nice?!
I guess that you at least know what you are going to get...
Out of the chains, I think Harris and Hoole was the one that I used to like the most, they quite often had nice happy staff so the shops had a good warm atmosphere, they tended to use more rustic furniture and flooring so didn't feel like a chain, and allowed dogs in to the coffee shop which means the unusual in this day and age situation of being able to enjoy a coffee and cake inside a coffee shop with your dog - they even used to have Bonios for dogs in the Ruislip and North Finchley H&H. Sadly both of those are no more I think Tesco bought Harris and Hoole, and pretty much destroyed them.
No limit to human greed - never ceases to amaze me how corrupt and greedy some of the rich are. Hope the money chokes them.....
You are however looking at things in today's terms and in the light of today's tax regime. Which is relatively benign.
Back in the late 1970s. The investment income surcharge took tax rates up to 90%. Even Thatcher, at first only reduced the top rate of income tax to 60%. So, it is said that the Cameron's father's offshore trust was set up in the 1980s. Why would you not do that to protect your assets from the (entirely possible) madness that would have followed the election of a Labour Government under Michael Foot? The lunatic that was going to reintroduce exchange controls!
It is also reported, shock horror, that this trust hasn't paid any tax in the UK for 30 years. What a terrible thing! Or perhaps no income has been crystallised that would trigger a tax bill?
I might be out of date, but I think, still, there are simple offshore products where the income/capital gain is rolled-up gross. No tax except maybe some withholding becomes due until such time as a UK resident withdraws money. It's an entirely legitimate technique. So why wouldn't anyone use it to avoid the grasping hands of the taxman?
Why do so many greedy c**ts think it beneath them to pay tax and are quite happy to indulge in money laundering and fraud. If nobody paid any tax then how the f**k would we pay for public services. I'm sick of selfish greedy f**ers who lie and cheat and then try to justify their actions - there are numerous politicians who operate beyond the law but aren't investigated because of their power.
Probably because it's ingrained in our society? Apparently around £1 in every £8 is spent in the shadow economy. Estimates suggest a loss to the taxman of around £64bn a year. Perhaps someone who has never "paid cash to avoid the VAT" would like to volunteer to cast the first stone? Meanwhile, as has been pointed out before, the richest 1% still pay around 30% of all income tax. In fact the richest 3000 pay more tax than the poorest 9mn. In the USA the richest 1% pay in excess of 50% of federal taxes.
BTW would you like to name the politicians who are operating beyond the law? Because their "influence" doesn't seem to help them much. On a pro rata basis, behind, football supporters and members of the armed services, MPs are the third most likely individuals to get arrested.
Is the UK stat about the richest 3000 limited to income tax? If not, I'm struggling to believe it.
No limit to human greed - never ceases to amaze me how corrupt and greedy some of the rich are. Hope the money chokes them.....
You are however looking at things in today's terms and in the light of today's tax regime. Which is relatively benign.
Back in the late 1970s. The investment income surcharge took tax rates up to 90%. Even Thatcher, at first only reduced the top rate of income tax to 60%. So, it is said that the Cameron's father's offshore trust was set up in the 1980s. Why would you not do that to protect your assets from the (entirely possible) madness that would have followed the election of a Labour Government under Michael Foot? The lunatic that was going to reintroduce exchange controls!
It is also reported, shock horror, that this trust hasn't paid any tax in the UK for 30 years. What a terrible thing! Or perhaps no income has been crystallised that would trigger a tax bill?
I might be out of date, but I think, still, there are simple offshore products where the income/capital gain is rolled-up gross. No tax except maybe some withholding becomes due until such time as a UK resident withdraws money. It's an entirely legitimate technique. So why wouldn't anyone use it to avoid the grasping hands of the taxman?
Why do so many greedy c**ts think it beneath them to pay tax and are quite happy to indulge in money laundering and fraud. If nobody paid any tax then how the f**k would we pay for public services. I'm sick of selfish greedy f**ers who lie and cheat and then try to justify their actions - there are numerous politicians who operate beyond the law but aren't investigated because of their power.
Probably because it's ingrained in our society? Apparently around £1 in every £8 is spent in the shadow economy. Estimates suggest a loss to the taxman of around £64bn a year. Perhaps someone who has never "paid cash to avoid the VAT" would like to volunteer to cast the first stone? Meanwhile, as has been pointed out before, the richest 1% still pay around 30% of all income tax. In fact the richest 3000 pay more tax than the poorest 9mn. In the USA the richest 1% pay in excess of 50% of federal taxes.
BTW would you like to name the politicians who are operating beyond the law? Because their "influence" doesn't seem to help them much. On a pro rata basis, behind, football supporters and members of the armed services, MPs are the third most likely individuals to get arrested.
Is the UK stat about the richest 3000 limited to income tax? If not, I'm struggling to believe it.
So this really just demonstrates how unequal things have become - are you meant to feel sorry for the 3000? Very few of them will be entrepreneurs - we're awash with incompetent bankers and CEOs who get paid vast sums regardless of performance. The gap between a CEO and the average worker within a company continues to grow and there is zero evidence to prove this has actually benefitted business. Too many companies are run for the benefit of the directors at the top as opposed to general employees and shareholders - banks know they will get bailed out whenever they fail. So much effort is made to reward mediocrity at the top and to design tax laws to help this further - for every brilliant entrepreneur there is a host of average CEOs and mediocre bankers who are grossly overpaid.
No limit to human greed - never ceases to amaze me how corrupt and greedy some of the rich are. Hope the money chokes them.....
You are however looking at things in today's terms and in the light of today's tax regime. Which is relatively benign.
Back in the late 1970s. The investment income surcharge took tax rates up to 90%. Even Thatcher, at first only reduced the top rate of income tax to 60%. So, it is said that the Cameron's father's offshore trust was set up in the 1980s. Why would you not do that to protect your assets from the (entirely possible) madness that would have followed the election of a Labour Government under Michael Foot? The lunatic that was going to reintroduce exchange controls!
It is also reported, shock horror, that this trust hasn't paid any tax in the UK for 30 years. What a terrible thing! Or perhaps no income has been crystallised that would trigger a tax bill?
I might be out of date, but I think, still, there are simple offshore products where the income/capital gain is rolled-up gross. No tax except maybe some withholding becomes due until such time as a UK resident withdraws money. It's an entirely legitimate technique. So why wouldn't anyone use it to avoid the grasping hands of the taxman?
Why do so many greedy c**ts think it beneath them to pay tax and are quite happy to indulge in money laundering and fraud. If nobody paid any tax then how the f**k would we pay for public services. I'm sick of selfish greedy f**ers who lie and cheat and then try to justify their actions - there are numerous politicians who operate beyond the law but aren't investigated because of their power.
Probably because it's ingrained in our society? Apparently around £1 in every £8 is spent in the shadow economy. Estimates suggest a loss to the taxman of around £64bn a year. Perhaps someone who has never "paid cash to avoid the VAT" would like to volunteer to cast the first stone? Meanwhile, as has been pointed out before, the richest 1% still pay around 30% of all income tax. In fact the richest 3000 pay more tax than the poorest 9mn. In the USA the richest 1% pay in excess of 50% of federal taxes.
BTW would you like to name the politicians who are operating beyond the law? Because their "influence" doesn't seem to help them much. On a pro rata basis, behind, football supporters and members of the armed services, MPs are the third most likely individuals to get arrested.
Is the UK stat about the richest 3000 limited to income tax? If not, I'm struggling to believe it.
So this really just demonstrates how unequal things have become - are you meant to feel sorry for the 3000? Very few of them will be entrepreneurs - we're awash with incompetent bankers and CEOs who get paid vast sums regardless of performance. The gap between a CEO and the average worker within a company continues to grow and there is zero evidence to prove this has actually benefitted business. Too many companies are run for the benefit of the directors at the top as opposed to general employees and shareholders - banks know they will get bailed out whenever they fail. So much effort is made to reward mediocrity at the top and to design tax laws to help this further - for every brilliant entrepreneur there is a host of average CEOs and mediocre bankers who are grossly overpaid.
I seem to recall a quote in several papers about John Caudwell being the UK's highest tax payer. Which was confusing, because whilst he has a lot of money (worth four times as much as Roland I think?) he's far from the wealthiest person living in the country
No limit to human greed - never ceases to amaze me how corrupt and greedy some of the rich are. Hope the money chokes them.....
You are however looking at things in today's terms and in the light of today's tax regime. Which is relatively benign.
Back in the late 1970s. The investment income surcharge took tax rates up to 90%. Even Thatcher, at first only reduced the top rate of income tax to 60%. So, it is said that the Cameron's father's offshore trust was set up in the 1980s. Why would you not do that to protect your assets from the (entirely possible) madness that would have followed the election of a Labour Government under Michael Foot? The lunatic that was going to reintroduce exchange controls!
It is also reported, shock horror, that this trust hasn't paid any tax in the UK for 30 years. What a terrible thing! Or perhaps no income has been crystallised that would trigger a tax bill?
I might be out of date, but I think, still, there are simple offshore products where the income/capital gain is rolled-up gross. No tax except maybe some withholding becomes due until such time as a UK resident withdraws money. It's an entirely legitimate technique. So why wouldn't anyone use it to avoid the grasping hands of the taxman?
Why do so many greedy c**ts think it beneath them to pay tax and are quite happy to indulge in money laundering and fraud. If nobody paid any tax then how the f**k would we pay for public services. I'm sick of selfish greedy f**ers who lie and cheat and then try to justify their actions - there are numerous politicians who operate beyond the law but aren't investigated because of their power.
Probably because it's ingrained in our society? Apparently around £1 in every £8 is spent in the shadow economy. Estimates suggest a loss to the taxman of around £64bn a year. Perhaps someone who has never "paid cash to avoid the VAT" would like to volunteer to cast the first stone? Meanwhile, as has been pointed out before, the richest 1% still pay around 30% of all income tax. In fact the richest 3000 pay more tax than the poorest 9mn. In the USA the richest 1% pay in excess of 50% of federal taxes.
BTW would you like to name the politicians who are operating beyond the law? Because their "influence" doesn't seem to help them much. On a pro rata basis, behind, football supporters and members of the armed services, MPs are the third most likely individuals to get arrested.
Is the UK stat about the richest 3000 limited to income tax? If not, I'm struggling to believe it.
So this really just demonstrates how unequal things have become - are you meant to feel sorry for the 3000? Very few of them will be entrepreneurs - we're awash with incompetent bankers and CEOs who get paid vast sums regardless of performance. The gap between a CEO and the average worker within a company continues to grow and there is zero evidence to prove this has actually benefitted business. Too many companies are run for the benefit of the directors at the top as opposed to general employees and shareholders - banks know they will get bailed out whenever they fail. So much effort is made to reward mediocrity at the top and to design tax laws to help this further - for every brilliant entrepreneur there is a host of average CEOs and mediocre bankers who are grossly overpaid.
I seem to recall a quote in several papers about John Caudwell being the UK's highest tax payer. Which was confusing, because whilst he has a lot of money (worth four times as much as Roland I think?) he's far from the wealthiest person living in the country
It is widely asserted (most recently by @Dippenhall above) that what Starbucks and Google, Amazon and Facebook is doing is 'legal'. They then go on to argue that this is all the fault of the tax regimes, they ask for too much tax, or tax too highly relative to other countries.
However when you examine how the companies operate (perhaps with a degree of knowledge, as I have in the case of Google and FB), you see that their tax arrangements are based on explanations of how they do business which are based on preposterous fairy tales. The only reason they remain 'legal' is because HMRC do not understand the businesses well enough, and do not feel they can get together the legal (and political) firepower that would enable them to mount a legal challenge. Briefly to summarise the main fairy tales:
1. Starbucks reduce their local profit not so much by overcharging for the coffee (Costa has to buy in coffee too, don't forget) but by charging for "the use of the brand". The amount they charge for this is truly ludicrous, but HMRC refuse to use marketing experts to build a case to challenge it.
2. Amazon until recently pretended that you and I did lots of business with them in Luxembourg, as you will see from your invoices. Recently they climbed down, but the amount of extra tax they are actually paying as a result of this climbdown is still not clear, and nobody is talking about prosecuting them for telling porkies about Luxembourg for the last ten years.
3. Google and FB have teams of highly paid sales people based in the UK who visit the big advertising agencies and pull off deals for millions of pounds with of advertising. That is their business, not providing a free search engine. But because the invoice for those millions is produced in Ireland, they maintain that 'the business was concluded' in Ireland. The French have had enough of this fairy tale, and told them to pull the other one, but HMRC? Too busy pursuing plumbers.
That is why I disagree with @Dippenhall that the tax regimes and laws are at fault. The problem is the lack of competence and political will to enforce existing laws on these smartass Americans, who are of course busy avoiding US tax too.
The frustrating thing as well is if you're a multi-million pound business you can afford to hire the most innovative, creative and intelligent accountants to oversee all of this. HRMC is not in a position to employ experts who have the same calibre of knowledge as these organisations who seemingly have a bottomless pit of money. Not clamping down on it early doors has created a vicious cycle where HMRC are playing catch up with big organisations not vice versa.
Where Dippenhall has got it wrong is, he thinks if these mega rich people only had to pay 20% tax, they wouldn’t bother trying to avoid it through tax havens. I think this is clearly wrong, as these people don’t generally allow morals or fairness to affect their decisions, and would still try to pay less tax if they could find the loophole whatever the tax rate is. We would just lose revenue from those who do pay their taxes properly – whether they begrudge doing so or not. I don’t know how anybody could argue otherwise. This right wing – Boris Johnsonesque - making indefensible situtations sound reasonable to what they consider are the plebs (us) really does need challenging at every opportunity.
It seems to be a trait at the moment to blending outright cheats, fraudsters drug dealers and money-launderers in to the same category as entirely honest people who happen to have a lot of money and tarring them with the same brush even though official statistics demonstrate that the large majority of wealthy pay high levels of taxation. Why?
None of this money is taxable anywhere UNTIL SUCH TIME as it earned income or makes a capital gain.
Again, because it's dish of the day with the media (who seems to have lost any ability to create stories with some degree of intellectual rigour*) let's look at Cameron's Dad. Nothing he has done upon the facts to hand has been illegal. No one has said whether any tax would be due even if the monies were held onshore. Take Corbyn's crass comment yesterday: "there cannot be one set of tax rules for the elite and another for the rest of us." Sorry to disappoint, Jezza you fecking moron, but there is just one set of rules for everyone. If there's a problem it's because Govt taxes everything that moves and many that don't. That's why there's 200 odd tax manuals running to 80,000 odd pages.
So, to illustrate, there's a financial product called an insurance bond. Anybody can buy one here in the UK and you can choose which category of investment you'd like. You can keep it for 30 odd years and pay no tax (because you have not crystallised any income or gains). You can even withdraw all the original capital and just keep the growth/income in the product. The benefit is seen as being that any gains might not get paid out until you've retired and your marginal tax rate is lower. So, why all the hoo-hah about anybody doing this entirely legitimate, sanctioned by Government, stuff in order to minimise justifiably their tax liability?
*As I understand it from the BBC news programmes (I didn't watch Panorama) At least 30 years ago, possibly more, a man who is now dead visited the Bahamas and did nothing illegal whatsoever. In short the headline could read "Dead man complied with the law entirely. What an utterly useless story.
Postscript. If I've got the time, I might go back and check to see whether anyone whingeing in the media about the right-wing press character assassination of the Milibands' communist father are taking a different stance on this one.
Where Dippenhall has got it wrong is, he thinks if these mega rich people only had to pay 20% tax, they wouldn’t bother trying to avoid it through tax havens. I think this is clearly wrong, as these people don’t generally allow morals or fairness to affect their decisions, and would still try to pay less tax if they could find the loophole whatever the tax rate is. We would just lose revenue from those who do pay their taxes properly – whether they begrudge doing so or not. I don’t know how anybody could argue otherwise. This right wing – Boris Johnsonesque - making indefensible situtations sound reasonable to what they consider are the plebs (us) really does need challenging at every opportunity.
It seems to be a trait at the moment to blending outright cheats, fraudsters drug dealers and money-launderers in to the same category as entirely honest people who happen to have a lot of money and tarring them with the same brush even though official statistics demonstrate that the large majority of wealthy pay high levels of taxation. Why?
None of this money is taxable anywhere UNTIL SUCH TIME as it earned income or makes a capital gain.
Again, because it's dish of the day with the media (who seems to have lost any ability to create stories with some degree of intellectual rigour*) let's look at Cameron's Dad. Nothing he has done upon the facts to hand has been illegal. No one has said whether any tax would be due even if the monies were held onshore. Take Corbyn's crass comment yesterday: "there cannot be one set of tax rules for the elite and another for the rest of us." Sorry to disappoint, Jezza you fecking moron, but there is just one set of rules for everyone. If there's a problem it's because Govt taxes everything that moves and many that don't. That's why there's 200 odd tax manuals running to 80,000 odd pages.
So, to illustrate, there's a financial product called an insurance bond. Anybody can buy one here in the UK and you can choose which category of investment you'd like. You can keep it for 30 odd years and pay no tax (because you have not crystallised any income or gains). You can even withdraw all the original capital and just keep the growth/income in the product. The benefit is seen as being that any gains might not get paid out until you've retired and your marginal tax rate is lower. So, why all the hoo-hah about anybody doing this entirely legitimate, sanctioned by Government, stuff in order to minimise justifiably their tax liability?
*As I understand it from the BBC news programmes (I didn't watch Panorama) At least 30 years ago, possibly more, a man who is now dead visited the Bahamas and did nothing illegal whatsoever. In short the headline could read "Dead man complied with the law entirely. What an utterly useless story.
Postscript. If I've got the time, I might go back and check to see whether anyone whingeing in the media about the right-wing press character assassination of the Milibands' communist father are taking a different stance on this one.
There is a what is legal and what is moral question here. The main difference of opinion seems to be that if it is legal you are a law abiding citizen who can do what you like to avoid tax. Good job it isn't legal to shoot people! Ok, If that is your view, but for me there is right and wrong here and using a tax haven in Panama is wrong.
Where Dippenhall has got it wrong is, he thinks if these mega rich people only had to pay 20% tax, they wouldn’t bother trying to avoid it through tax havens. I think this is clearly wrong, as these people don’t generally allow morals or fairness to affect their decisions, and would still try to pay less tax if they could find the loophole whatever the tax rate is. We would just lose revenue from those who do pay their taxes properly – whether they begrudge doing so or not. I don’t know how anybody could argue otherwise. This right wing – Boris Johnsonesque - making indefensible situtations sound reasonable to what they consider are the plebs (us) really does need challenging at every opportunity.
If you didn't keep misquoting me to suit your narrative you might have noticed that I said the tax havens need to disappear for the low rate common tax rate to work. This is not as difficult as it seems, it only requires enforced banking transparency and is where political will is really needed.
It is widely asserted (most recently by @Dippenhall above) that what Starbucks and Google, Amazon and Facebook is doing is 'legal'. They then go on to argue that this is all the fault of the tax regimes, they ask for too much tax, or tax too highly relative to other countries.
However when you examine how the companies operate (perhaps with a degree of knowledge, as I have in the case of Google and FB), you see that their tax arrangements are based on explanations of how they do business which are based on preposterous fairy tales. The only reason they remain 'legal' is because HMRC do not understand the businesses well enough, and do not feel they can get together the legal (and political) firepower that would enable them to mount a legal challenge. Briefly to summarise the main fairy tales:
1. Starbucks reduce their local profit not so much by overcharging for the coffee (Costa has to buy in coffee too, don't forget) but by charging for "the use of the brand". The amount they charge for this is truly ludicrous, but HMRC refuse to use marketing experts to build a case to challenge it.
2. Amazon until recently pretended that you and I did lots of business with them in Luxembourg, as you will see from your invoices. Recently they climbed down, but the amount of extra tax they are actually paying as a result of this climbdown is still not clear, and nobody is talking about prosecuting them for telling porkies about Luxembourg for the last ten years.
3. Google and FB have teams of highly paid sales people based in the UK who visit the big advertising agencies and pull off deals for millions of pounds with of advertising. That is their business, not providing a free search engine. But because the invoice for those millions is produced in Ireland, they maintain that 'the business was concluded' in Ireland. The French have had enough of this fairy tale, and told them to pull the other one, but HMRC? Too busy pursuing plumbers.
That is why I disagree with @Dippenhall that the tax regimes and laws are at fault. The problem is the lack of competence and political will to enforce existing laws on these smartass Americans, who are of course busy avoiding US tax too.
@PragueAddick I defer to your knowledge on this and was surmising about the detail as i was too lazy to look it up.
If BP's logo, as a piece of artwork, is valued at over £200m I can see the problem for HMRC in valuing the brand for any company. You and I might think it ludicrous but what other grounds can HMRC use apart from market values of brands.
Where Dippenhall has got it wrong is, he thinks if these mega rich people only had to pay 20% tax, they wouldn’t bother trying to avoid it through tax havens. I think this is clearly wrong, as these people don’t generally allow morals or fairness to affect their decisions, and would still try to pay less tax if they could find the loophole whatever the tax rate is. We would just lose revenue from those who do pay their taxes properly – whether they begrudge doing so or not. I don’t know how anybody could argue otherwise. This right wing – Boris Johnsonesque - making indefensible situtations sound reasonable to what they consider are the plebs (us) really does need challenging at every opportunity.
It seems to be a trait at the moment to blending outright cheats, fraudsters drug dealers and money-launderers in to the same category as entirely honest people who happen to have a lot of money and tarring them with the same brush even though official statistics demonstrate that the large majority of wealthy pay high levels of taxation. Why?
None of this money is taxable anywhere UNTIL SUCH TIME as it earned income or makes a capital gain.
Again, because it's dish of the day with the media (who seems to have lost any ability to create stories with some degree of intellectual rigour*) let's look at Cameron's Dad. Nothing he has done upon the facts to hand has been illegal. No one has said whether any tax would be due even if the monies were held onshore. Take Corbyn's crass comment yesterday: "there cannot be one set of tax rules for the elite and another for the rest of us." Sorry to disappoint, Jezza you fecking moron, but there is just one set of rules for everyone. If there's a problem it's because Govt taxes everything that moves and many that don't. That's why there's 200 odd tax manuals running to 80,000 odd pages.
So, to illustrate, there's a financial product called an insurance bond. Anybody can buy one here in the UK and you can choose which category of investment you'd like. You can keep it for 30 odd years and pay no tax (because you have not crystallised any income or gains). You can even withdraw all the original capital and just keep the growth/income in the product. The benefit is seen as being that any gains might not get paid out until you've retired and your marginal tax rate is lower. So, why all the hoo-hah about anybody doing this entirely legitimate, sanctioned by Government, stuff in order to minimise justifiably their tax liability?
*As I understand it from the BBC news programmes (I didn't watch Panorama) At least 30 years ago, possibly more, a man who is now dead visited the Bahamas and did nothing illegal whatsoever. In short the headline could read "Dead man complied with the law entirely. What an utterly useless story.
Postscript. If I've got the time, I might go back and check to see whether anyone whingeing in the media about the right-wing press character assassination of the Milibands' communist father are taking a different stance on this one.
There is a what is legal and what is moral question here. The main difference of opinion seems to be that if it is legal you are a law abiding citizen who can do what you like to avoid tax. Good job it isn't legal to shoot people! Ok, If that is your view, but for me there is right and wrong here and using a tax haven in Panama is wrong.
I hear what you are saying. But where should you keep your money ideally?
According to The Tax Justice Network, Panama is 11th on the list of major tax havens. But, perhaps surprisingly, mainland USA is 6th and the UK 21st.
To demonstrate that we are all moral upright citizens, should we transfer all our money to, say, Denmark or Sweden which have tax to GDP ratios hovering around the 50% mark. Where do you draw the line? At what level of income do you change from being a regular Joe doing a bit of cash in hand, to a tax avoiding monster?
Where Dippenhall has got it wrong is, he thinks if these mega rich people only had to pay 20% tax, they wouldn’t bother trying to avoid it through tax havens. I think this is clearly wrong, as these people don’t generally allow morals or fairness to affect their decisions, and would still try to pay less tax if they could find the loophole whatever the tax rate is. We would just lose revenue from those who do pay their taxes properly – whether they begrudge doing so or not. I don’t know how anybody could argue otherwise. This right wing – Boris Johnsonesque - making indefensible situtations sound reasonable to what they consider are the plebs (us) really does need challenging at every opportunity.
It seems to be a trait at the moment to blending outright cheats, fraudsters drug dealers and money-launderers in to the same category as entirely honest people who happen to have a lot of money and tarring them with the same brush even though official statistics demonstrate that the large majority of wealthy pay high levels of taxation. Why?
None of this money is taxable anywhere UNTIL SUCH TIME as it earned income or makes a capital gain.
Again, because it's dish of the day with the media (who seems to have lost any ability to create stories with some degree of intellectual rigour*) let's look at Cameron's Dad. Nothing he has done upon the facts to hand has been illegal. No one has said whether any tax would be due even if the monies were held onshore. Take Corbyn's crass comment yesterday: "there cannot be one set of tax rules for the elite and another for the rest of us." Sorry to disappoint, Jezza you fecking moron, but there is just one set of rules for everyone. If there's a problem it's because Govt taxes everything that moves and many that don't. That's why there's 200 odd tax manuals running to 80,000 odd pages.
So, to illustrate, there's a financial product called an insurance bond. Anybody can buy one here in the UK and you can choose which category of investment you'd like. You can keep it for 30 odd years and pay no tax (because you have not crystallised any income or gains). You can even withdraw all the original capital and just keep the growth/income in the product. The benefit is seen as being that any gains might not get paid out until you've retired and your marginal tax rate is lower. So, why all the hoo-hah about anybody doing this entirely legitimate, sanctioned by Government, stuff in order to minimise justifiably their tax liability?
*As I understand it from the BBC news programmes (I didn't watch Panorama) At least 30 years ago, possibly more, a man who is now dead visited the Bahamas and did nothing illegal whatsoever. In short the headline could read "Dead man complied with the law entirely. What an utterly useless story.
Postscript. If I've got the time, I might go back and check to see whether anyone whingeing in the media about the right-wing press character assassination of the Milibands' communist father are taking a different stance on this one.
There is a what is legal and what is moral question here. The main difference of opinion seems to be that if it is legal you are a law abiding citizen who can do what you like to avoid tax. Good job it isn't legal to shoot people! Ok, If that is your view, but for me there is right and wrong here and using a tax haven in Panama is wrong.
I hear what you are saying. But where should you keep your money ideally?
According to The Tax Justice Network, Panama is 11th on the list of major tax havens. But, perhaps surprisingly, mainland USA is 6th and the UK 21st.
To demonstrate that we are all moral upright citizens, should we transfer all our money to, say, Denmark or Sweden which have tax to GDP ratios hovering around the 50% mark. Where do you draw the line? At what level of income do you change from being a regular Joe doing a bit of cash in hand, to a tax avoiding monster?
As I see it the issue is not 'tax avoidance' per se but the hypocrisy of those caught with their pants down in this latest scandal.
According to his lad 'Dodgy Dave' there appears to be one law for the late Ian Cameron and another when private citizens like Jimmy Carr do much the same as Daddy did.
It is widely asserted (most recently by @Dippenhall above) that what Starbucks and Google, Amazon and Facebook is doing is 'legal'. They then go on to argue that this is all the fault of the tax regimes, they ask for too much tax, or tax too highly relative to other countries.
However when you examine how the companies operate (perhaps with a degree of knowledge, as I have in the case of Google and FB), you see that their tax arrangements are based on explanations of how they do business which are based on preposterous fairy tales. The only reason they remain 'legal' is because HMRC do not understand the businesses well enough, and do not feel they can get together the legal (and political) firepower that would enable them to mount a legal challenge. Briefly to summarise the main fairy tales:
1. Starbucks reduce their local profit not so much by overcharging for the coffee (Costa has to buy in coffee too, don't forget) but by charging for "the use of the brand". The amount they charge for this is truly ludicrous, but HMRC refuse to use marketing experts to build a case to challenge it.
2. Amazon until recently pretended that you and I did lots of business with them in Luxembourg, as you will see from your invoices. Recently they climbed down, but the amount of extra tax they are actually paying as a result of this climbdown is still not clear, and nobody is talking about prosecuting them for telling porkies about Luxembourg for the last ten years.
3. Google and FB have teams of highly paid sales people based in the UK who visit the big advertising agencies and pull off deals for millions of pounds with of advertising. That is their business, not providing a free search engine. But because the invoice for those millions is produced in Ireland, they maintain that 'the business was concluded' in Ireland. The French have had enough of this fairy tale, and told them to pull the other one, but HMRC? Too busy pursuing plumbers.
That is why I disagree with @Dippenhall that the tax regimes and laws are at fault. The problem is the lack of competence and political will to enforce existing laws on these smartass Americans, who are of course busy avoiding US tax too.
The frustrating thing as well is if you're a multi-million pound business you can afford to hire the most innovative, creative and intelligent accountants to oversee all of this. HRMC is not in a position to employ experts who have the same calibre of knowledge as these organisations who seemingly have a bottomless pit of money. Not clamping down on it early doors has created a vicious cycle where HMRC are playing catch up with big organisations not vice versa.
I think that you will find that a major issue has to be the way in which multinational accountancy firms second staff to (for example the Treasury), where they can be involved in drawing up taxation legislation. At the end of their secondment, such staff can be expected to have a slightly greater working knowledge of the intricacies of the legislation than HMRC staff.
Now, I would not, for one minute suggest that anything untoward was happening, I'm absolutely sure that it's purely coincidental....
If I had a quid for every time I'd heard a politician announce a clampdown on tax avoidance my account in the Bahamas would be looking a lot healthier than it is...
Where Dippenhall has got it wrong is, he thinks if these mega rich people only had to pay 20% tax, they wouldn’t bother trying to avoid it through tax havens. I think this is clearly wrong, as these people don’t generally allow morals or fairness to affect their decisions, and would still try to pay less tax if they could find the loophole whatever the tax rate is. We would just lose revenue from those who do pay their taxes properly – whether they begrudge doing so or not. I don’t know how anybody could argue otherwise. This right wing – Boris Johnsonesque - making indefensible situtations sound reasonable to what they consider are the plebs (us) really does need challenging at every opportunity.
It seems to be a trait at the moment to blending outright cheats, fraudsters drug dealers and money-launderers in to the same category as entirely honest people who happen to have a lot of money and tarring them with the same brush even though official statistics demonstrate that the large majority of wealthy pay high levels of taxation. Why?
None of this money is taxable anywhere UNTIL SUCH TIME as it earned income or makes a capital gain.
Again, because it's dish of the day with the media (who seems to have lost any ability to create stories with some degree of intellectual rigour*) let's look at Cameron's Dad. Nothing he has done upon the facts to hand has been illegal. No one has said whether any tax would be due even if the monies were held onshore. Take Corbyn's crass comment yesterday: "there cannot be one set of tax rules for the elite and another for the rest of us." Sorry to disappoint, Jezza you fecking moron, but there is just one set of rules for everyone. If there's a problem it's because Govt taxes everything that moves and many that don't. That's why there's 200 odd tax manuals running to 80,000 odd pages.
So, to illustrate, there's a financial product called an insurance bond. Anybody can buy one here in the UK and you can choose which category of investment you'd like. You can keep it for 30 odd years and pay no tax (because you have not crystallised any income or gains). You can even withdraw all the original capital and just keep the growth/income in the product. The benefit is seen as being that any gains might not get paid out until you've retired and your marginal tax rate is lower. So, why all the hoo-hah about anybody doing this entirely legitimate, sanctioned by Government, stuff in order to minimise justifiably their tax liability?
*As I understand it from the BBC news programmes (I didn't watch Panorama) At least 30 years ago, possibly more, a man who is now dead visited the Bahamas and did nothing illegal whatsoever. In short the headline could read "Dead man complied with the law entirely. What an utterly useless story.
Postscript. If I've got the time, I might go back and check to see whether anyone whingeing in the media about the right-wing press character assassination of the Milibands' communist father are taking a different stance on this one.
There is a what is legal and what is moral question here. The main difference of opinion seems to be that if it is legal you are a law abiding citizen who can do what you like to avoid tax. Good job it isn't legal to shoot people! Ok, If that is your view, but for me there is right and wrong here and using a tax haven in Panama is wrong.
I hear what you are saying. But where should you keep your money ideally?
According to The Tax Justice Network, Panama is 11th on the list of major tax havens. But, perhaps surprisingly, mainland USA is 6th and the UK 21st.
To demonstrate that we are all moral upright citizens, should we transfer all our money to, say, Denmark or Sweden which have tax to GDP ratios hovering around the 50% mark. Where do you draw the line? At what level of income do you change from being a regular Joe doing a bit of cash in hand, to a tax avoiding monster?
Where Dippenhall has got it wrong is, he thinks if these mega rich people only had to pay 20% tax, they wouldn’t bother trying to avoid it through tax havens. I think this is clearly wrong, as these people don’t generally allow morals or fairness to affect their decisions, and would still try to pay less tax if they could find the loophole whatever the tax rate is. We would just lose revenue from those who do pay their taxes properly – whether they begrudge doing so or not. I don’t know how anybody could argue otherwise. This right wing – Boris Johnsonesque - making indefensible situtations sound reasonable to what they consider are the plebs (us) really does need challenging at every opportunity.
It seems to be a trait at the moment to blending outright cheats, fraudsters drug dealers and money-launderers in to the same category as entirely honest people who happen to have a lot of money and tarring them with the same brush even though official statistics demonstrate that the large majority of wealthy pay high levels of taxation. Why?
None of this money is taxable anywhere UNTIL SUCH TIME as it earned income or makes a capital gain.
Again, because it's dish of the day with the media (who seems to have lost any ability to create stories with some degree of intellectual rigour*) let's look at Cameron's Dad. Nothing he has done upon the facts to hand has been illegal. No one has said whether any tax would be due even if the monies were held onshore. Take Corbyn's crass comment yesterday: "there cannot be one set of tax rules for the elite and another for the rest of us." Sorry to disappoint, Jezza you fecking moron, but there is just one set of rules for everyone. If there's a problem it's because Govt taxes everything that moves and many that don't. That's why there's 200 odd tax manuals running to 80,000 odd pages.
So, to illustrate, there's a financial product called an insurance bond. Anybody can buy one here in the UK and you can choose which category of investment you'd like. You can keep it for 30 odd years and pay no tax (because you have not crystallised any income or gains). You can even withdraw all the original capital and just keep the growth/income in the product. The benefit is seen as being that any gains might not get paid out until you've retired and your marginal tax rate is lower. So, why all the hoo-hah about anybody doing this entirely legitimate, sanctioned by Government, stuff in order to minimise justifiably their tax liability?
*As I understand it from the BBC news programmes (I didn't watch Panorama) At least 30 years ago, possibly more, a man who is now dead visited the Bahamas and did nothing illegal whatsoever. In short the headline could read "Dead man complied with the law entirely. What an utterly useless story.
Postscript. If I've got the time, I might go back and check to see whether anyone whingeing in the media about the right-wing press character assassination of the Milibands' communist father are taking a different stance on this one.
There is a what is legal and what is moral question here. The main difference of opinion seems to be that if it is legal you are a law abiding citizen who can do what you like to avoid tax. Good job it isn't legal to shoot people! Ok, If that is your view, but for me there is right and wrong here and using a tax haven in Panama is wrong.
I hear what you are saying. But where should you keep your money ideally?
According to The Tax Justice Network, Panama is 11th on the list of major tax havens. But, perhaps surprisingly, mainland USA is 6th and the UK 21st.
To demonstrate that we are all moral upright citizens, should we transfer all our money to, say, Denmark or Sweden which have tax to GDP ratios hovering around the 50% mark. Where do you draw the line? At what level of income do you change from being a regular Joe doing a bit of cash in hand, to a tax avoiding monster?
As I see it the issue is not 'tax avoidance' per se but the hypocrisy of those caught with their pants down in this latest scandal.
According to his lad 'Dodgy Dave' there appears to be one law for the late Ian Cameron and another when private citizens like Jimmy Carr do much the same as Daddy did.
But from what we know, these are different things. Carr was channeling earnings offshore upon which most people would agree, income tax should have been paid but wasn't and then he "borrowed" the money back. With Cameron, we just don't know the facts, but it seems likely that he was prudently sheltering capital from further tax and the vagaries of the erratic and irrational politicians around in the 1980s. Money upon which tax, presumably at a very high rate, would already have been paid across? No tax is due, either legally or morally, on such money until such time as it is paid away.
Unless anything new comes to light to indicate something different, i don't see how those two scenarios are at all comparative.
I have yet to hear of any UK residents alive or dead who have actually been caught with their pants down in this latest non-event. Maybe some will emerge in due course: it must take time to trawl through all those papers. Otherwise it will all have been a bit of a damp squib rather than an actual scandal.
Where Dippenhall has got it wrong is, he thinks if these mega rich people only had to pay 20% tax, they wouldn’t bother trying to avoid it through tax havens. I think this is clearly wrong, as these people don’t generally allow morals or fairness to affect their decisions, and would still try to pay less tax if they could find the loophole whatever the tax rate is. We would just lose revenue from those who do pay their taxes properly – whether they begrudge doing so or not. I don’t know how anybody could argue otherwise. This right wing – Boris Johnsonesque - making indefensible situtations sound reasonable to what they consider are the plebs (us) really does need challenging at every opportunity.
It seems to be a trait at the moment to blending outright cheats, fraudsters drug dealers and money-launderers in to the same category as entirely honest people who happen to have a lot of money and tarring them with the same brush even though official statistics demonstrate that the large majority of wealthy pay high levels of taxation. Why?
None of this money is taxable anywhere UNTIL SUCH TIME as it earned income or makes a capital gain.
Again, because it's dish of the day with the media (who seems to have lost any ability to create stories with some degree of intellectual rigour*) let's look at Cameron's Dad. Nothing he has done upon the facts to hand has been illegal. No one has said whether any tax would be due even if the monies were held onshore. Take Corbyn's crass comment yesterday: "there cannot be one set of tax rules for the elite and another for the rest of us." Sorry to disappoint, Jezza you fecking moron, but there is just one set of rules for everyone. If there's a problem it's because Govt taxes everything that moves and many that don't. That's why there's 200 odd tax manuals running to 80,000 odd pages.
So, to illustrate, there's a financial product called an insurance bond. Anybody can buy one here in the UK and you can choose which category of investment you'd like. You can keep it for 30 odd years and pay no tax (because you have not crystallised any income or gains). You can even withdraw all the original capital and just keep the growth/income in the product. The benefit is seen as being that any gains might not get paid out until you've retired and your marginal tax rate is lower. So, why all the hoo-hah about anybody doing this entirely legitimate, sanctioned by Government, stuff in order to minimise justifiably their tax liability?
*As I understand it from the BBC news programmes (I didn't watch Panorama) At least 30 years ago, possibly more, a man who is now dead visited the Bahamas and did nothing illegal whatsoever. In short the headline could read "Dead man complied with the law entirely. What an utterly useless story.
Postscript. If I've got the time, I might go back and check to see whether anyone whingeing in the media about the right-wing press character assassination of the Milibands' communist father are taking a different stance on this one.
There is a what is legal and what is moral question here. The main difference of opinion seems to be that if it is legal you are a law abiding citizen who can do what you like to avoid tax. Good job it isn't legal to shoot people! Ok, If that is your view, but for me there is right and wrong here and using a tax haven in Panama is wrong.
I hear what you are saying. But where should you keep your money ideally?
According to The Tax Justice Network, Panama is 11th on the list of major tax havens. But, perhaps surprisingly, mainland USA is 6th and the UK 21st.
To demonstrate that we are all moral upright citizens, should we transfer all our money to, say, Denmark or Sweden which have tax to GDP ratios hovering around the 50% mark. Where do you draw the line? At what level of income do you change from being a regular Joe doing a bit of cash in hand, to a tax avoiding monster?
As I see it the issue is not 'tax avoidance' per se but the hypocrisy of those caught with their pants down in this latest scandal.
According to his lad 'Dodgy Dave' there appears to be one law for the late Ian Cameron and another when private citizens like Jimmy Carr do much the same as Daddy did.
But from what we know, these are different things. Carr was channeling earnings offshore upon which most people would agree, income tax should have been paid but wasn't and then he "borrowed" the money back. With Cameron, we just don't know the facts, but it seems likely that he was prudently sheltering capital from further tax and the vagaries of the erratic and irrational politicians around in the 1980s. Money upon which tax, presumably at a very high rate, would already have been paid across? No tax is due, either legally or morally, on such money until such time as it is paid away.
Unless anything new comes to light to indicate something different, i don't see how those two scenarios are at all comparative.
I have yet to hear of any UK residents alive or dead who have actually been caught with their pants down in this latest non-event. Maybe some will emerge in due course: it must take time to trawl through all those papers. Otherwise it will all have been a bit of a damp squib rather than an actual scandal.
My point is that both schemes purport or purported to be 'legal' tax avoidance (as opposed to evasion) schemes and Cameron himself uses the word 'avoidance' in the Guardian article.
Morally I'm not disagreeing with your analysis but legally both were forms of avoidance scheme although I have a feeling Carr's may have subsequently been discredited from what is implied in the article.
The point still stands though that tax 'avoidance' appears acceptable for the late Ian Cameron and family but not Jimmy Carr given that Carr's scheme was at one time anyway avoidance rather than evasion.
It is being reported that it is very unlikely David Cameron will be exposed by this Panama scandal and anyone hoping for the rather morbid spectacle of a son publicly shaming his dead dad are probably going to be disappointed.
While it is easy to say the rich scum are avoiding their taxes, let's shoot them, at what point does legislation define them as rich scum to be executed rather than prudent middle-class savers?
At what point does a cash-receiving cab driver or plumber with a creative accountant become as bad as the rich scum? How do you legislate for that? What is the cut-off point?
If a couple had saved up to the maximum allowed every year in PEPs and then ISAs, starting with an annual allowance of £2,400 each in 1987 right up to £15,240 this tax year, they would have squirreled away a grand total of approx £0.5mn between them in a tax-free wrapper.
At what point do we start penalising these people for being prudent savers rather than reckless spenders? In fact, doing what the Government has not merely allowed but actually encouraged them to do?
Is it different having £2mn in an ISA pot and £2mn offshore, both of which are entirely legal?
Jeremy Corbyn's fairly modest house in North London is worth maybe £650K. If he sold that the capital gains would be tax free. Is it fair that he should get that tax break when someone who decides instead to invest their money in stocks and shares has to pay capital gains tax?
So, back to my main question, at what point do "sophisticated" or "self-certificated high net worth individuals*" become rich scum worthy only of abuse and execution?
* Someone with annual earnings of £100k and/or net investments of more than £250k.
At a reasonable point - there will of course be degrees beyond that point. There are lots of shades here and questions and nobody has mentioned executions - A lot of very rich people pay their taxes. Many of the richest people in the country not only do this, but are proud of the fact that they do and rightly so.
On another point -Tax breaks and tax avoidance are two completely different things and tax evasion is also completely different too. Tax breaks can be used to manage or reward behaviours the government feels are important and are not secret in the same way that a tax haven in Panama is.
On the point about Cameron's dad - I don't think he should be attacked personally for it. Although you can see why the press like the story. It isn't fair to judge or punish a son for their dad's actions. I don't think Corbyn brought up Cameron's father, hopefully for this reason.
While it is easy to say the rich scum are avoiding their taxes, let's shoot them, at what point does legislation define them as rich scum to be executed rather than prudent middle-class savers?
At what point does a cash-receiving cab driver or plumber with a creative accountant become as bad as the rich scum? How do you legislate for that? What is the cut-off point?
If a couple had saved up to the maximum allowed every year in PEPs and then ISAs, starting with an annual allowance of £2,400 each in 1987 right up to £15,240 this tax year, they would have squirreled away a grand total of approx £0.5mn between them in a tax-free wrapper.
At what point do we start penalising these people for being prudent savers rather than reckless spenders? In fact, doing what the Government has not merely allowed but actually encouraged them to do?
Is it different having £2mn in an ISA pot and £2mn offshore, both of which are entirely legal?
Jeremy Corbyn's fairly modest house in North London is worth maybe £650K. If he sold that the capital gains would be tax free. Is it fair that he should get that tax break when someone who decides instead to invest their money in stocks and shares has to pay capital gains tax?
So, back to my main question, at what point do "sophisticated" or "self-certificated high net worth individuals*" become rich scum worthy only of abuse and execution?
* Someone with annual earnings of £100k and/or net investments of more than £250k.
I thought I had answered it at least by implication.
Tax avoidance is fine because it is legal. Tax evasion is not because it is illegal.
David Cameron and others have blurred this fundamental distinction by their use of language as seen in the Grauniad article I linked. Cameron, in slating Jimmy Carr, condemns tax AVOIDANCE. The same rules do not appear to apply to his late father's tax AVOIDANCE.
For that reason, in my opinion, Dodgy Dave is a hypocrite.
This is the leaking of client details of ONE firm of lawyers, in ONE tax haven! Imagine how rife it must be. Cameron can claim "its personal" because presumably his mother benefits currently and he won't reap the rewards of evading tax until he is out of the hot seat.
Comments
- edit. Where did that come from?
However when you examine how the companies operate (perhaps with a degree of knowledge, as I have in the case of Google and FB), you see that their tax arrangements are based on explanations of how they do business which are based on preposterous fairy tales. The only reason they remain 'legal' is because HMRC do not understand the businesses well enough, and do not feel they can get together the legal (and political) firepower that would enable them to mount a legal challenge. Briefly to summarise the main fairy tales:
1. Starbucks reduce their local profit not so much by overcharging for the coffee (Costa has to buy in coffee too, don't forget) but by charging for "the use of the brand". The amount they charge for this is truly ludicrous, but HMRC refuse to use marketing experts to build a case to challenge it.
2. Amazon until recently pretended that you and I did lots of business with them in Luxembourg, as you will see from your invoices. Recently they climbed down, but the amount of extra tax they are actually paying as a result of this climbdown is still not clear, and nobody is talking about prosecuting them for telling porkies about Luxembourg for the last ten years.
3. Google and FB have teams of highly paid sales people based in the UK who visit the big advertising agencies and pull off deals for millions of pounds with of advertising. That is their business, not providing a free search engine. But because the invoice for those millions is produced in Ireland, they maintain that 'the business was concluded' in Ireland. The French have had enough of this fairy tale, and told them to pull the other one, but HMRC? Too busy pursuing plumbers.
That is why I disagree with @Dippenhall that the tax regimes and laws are at fault. The problem is the lack of competence and political will to enforce existing laws on these smartass Americans, who are of course busy avoiding US tax too.
The reason why the rich pay more tax is that they have far more money and the gap continues to get wider - a large number certainly haven't earned it. Look at politicians around the world who have bled their countries dry - are you seriously telling me their influence doesn't help them?
How has Blair managed to become so wealthy or Clinton? Why are the Chinese and Russian leaders so keen on censorship of financial affairs?
Numerous MPs have bent the law on taxes, expenses, sex scandals etc yet they're rarely prosecuted. Look at the pathetic investigation regarding Greville Janner.
You'd have to be pretty naive or just plain stupid to think they don't get special treatment.
So much stuff is covered up it's beyond belief and the fact that our PM's father made a career built on tax evasion schemes says a lot about morality.
I'm sick to death of people excusing these ludicrous tax evasion schemes in Panama etc many of which would fall short of the law if they were properly investigated. Money laundrers, drug barons,terrorists etc are amongst those happy to use them.
Governments could quite easily tighten up tax laws etc but they won't because of numerous personal conflicts of interest? How can politicians expect to be taken seriously when they do nothing to address the tax issues.
If I complete my tax return late I immediately get fined whereas multinationals are allowed to flout tax laws especially in dear old Britain.
Out of the chains, I think Harris and Hoole was the one that I used to like the most, they quite often had nice happy staff so the shops had a good warm atmosphere, they tended to use more rustic furniture and flooring so didn't feel like a chain, and allowed dogs in to the coffee shop which means the unusual in this day and age situation of being able to enjoy a coffee and cake inside a coffee shop with your dog - they even used to have Bonios for dogs in the Ruislip and North Finchley H&H. Sadly both of those are no more
It's a few years old but I'm assuming not much has changed. The article says the figures came from Govt.
So much effort is made to reward mediocrity at the top and to design tax laws to help this further - for every brilliant entrepreneur there is a host of average CEOs and mediocre bankers who are grossly overpaid.
None of this money is taxable anywhere UNTIL SUCH TIME as it earned income or makes a capital gain.
Again, because it's dish of the day with the media (who seems to have lost any ability to create stories with some degree of intellectual rigour*) let's look at Cameron's Dad. Nothing he has done upon the facts to hand has been illegal. No one has said whether any tax would be due even if the monies were held onshore.
Take Corbyn's crass comment yesterday: "there cannot be one set of tax rules for the elite and another for the rest of us."
Sorry to disappoint, Jezza you fecking moron, but there is just one set of rules for everyone. If there's a problem it's because Govt taxes everything that moves and many that don't. That's why there's 200 odd tax manuals running to 80,000 odd pages.
So, to illustrate, there's a financial product called an insurance bond. Anybody can buy one here in the UK and you can choose which category of investment you'd like. You can keep it for 30 odd years and pay no tax (because you have not crystallised any income or gains). You can even withdraw all the original capital and just keep the growth/income in the product.
The benefit is seen as being that any gains might not get paid out until you've retired and your marginal tax rate is lower.
So, why all the hoo-hah about anybody doing this entirely legitimate, sanctioned by Government, stuff in order to minimise justifiably their tax liability?
*As I understand it from the BBC news programmes (I didn't watch Panorama) At least 30 years ago, possibly more, a man who is now dead visited the Bahamas and did nothing illegal whatsoever. In short the headline could read "Dead man complied with the law entirely. What an utterly useless story.
Postscript. If I've got the time, I might go back and check to see whether anyone whingeing in the media about the right-wing press character assassination of the Milibands' communist father are taking a different stance on this one.
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2012/jun/20/jimmy-carr-tax-david-cameron
If BP's logo, as a piece of artwork, is valued at over £200m I can see the problem for HMRC in valuing the brand for any company. You and I might think it ludicrous but what other grounds can HMRC use apart from market values of brands.
According to The Tax Justice Network, Panama is 11th on the list of major tax havens. But, perhaps surprisingly, mainland USA is 6th and the UK 21st.
To demonstrate that we are all moral upright citizens, should we transfer all our money to, say, Denmark or Sweden which have tax to GDP ratios hovering around the 50% mark. Where do you draw the line? At what level of income do you change from being a regular Joe doing a bit of cash in hand, to a tax avoiding monster?
According to his lad 'Dodgy Dave' there appears to be one law for the late Ian Cameron and another when private citizens like Jimmy Carr do much the same as Daddy did.
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2012/jun/20/jimmy-carr-tax-david-cameron
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2012/jun/20/jimmy-carr-tax-david-cameron
Now, I would not, for one minute suggest that anything untoward was happening, I'm absolutely sure that it's purely coincidental....
Unless anything new comes to light to indicate something different, i don't see how those two scenarios are at all comparative.
I have yet to hear of any UK residents alive or dead who have actually been caught with their pants down in this latest non-event. Maybe some will emerge in due course: it must take time to trawl through all those papers. Otherwise it will all have been a bit of a damp squib rather than an actual scandal.
Morally I'm not disagreeing with your analysis but legally both were forms of avoidance scheme although I have a feeling Carr's may have subsequently been discredited from what is implied in the article.
The point still stands though that tax 'avoidance' appears acceptable for the late Ian Cameron and family but not Jimmy Carr given that Carr's scheme was at one time anyway avoidance rather than evasion.
While it is easy to say the rich scum are avoiding their taxes, let's shoot them, at what point does legislation define them as rich scum to be executed rather than prudent middle-class savers?
At what point does a cash-receiving cab driver or plumber with a creative accountant become as bad as the rich scum? How do you legislate for that? What is the cut-off point?
If a couple had saved up to the maximum allowed every year in PEPs and then ISAs, starting with an annual allowance of £2,400 each in 1987 right up to £15,240 this tax year, they would have squirreled away a grand total of approx £0.5mn between them in a tax-free wrapper.
With astute investing and dividends reinvested that money grows even further. According to this article telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/investing/isas/11468220/How-to-join-Britains-200-Isa-millionaires.html which is a year old there are likely to be a minimum of a couple of thousand individuals with over £1mn in an ISA wrapper. Hargreaves Lansdown has at least one canny investor with an ISA pot exceeding £2mn.
At what point do we start penalising these people for being prudent savers rather than reckless spenders? In fact, doing what the Government has not merely allowed but actually encouraged them to do?
Is it different having £2mn in an ISA pot and £2mn offshore, both of which are entirely legal?
Jeremy Corbyn's fairly modest house in North London is worth maybe £650K. If he sold that the capital gains would be tax free. Is it fair that he should get that tax break when someone who decides instead to invest their money in stocks and shares has to pay capital gains tax?
So, back to my main question, at what point do "sophisticated" or "self-certificated high net worth individuals*" become rich scum worthy only of abuse and execution?
* Someone with annual earnings of £100k and/or net investments of more than £250k.
On another point -Tax breaks and tax avoidance are two completely different things and tax evasion is also completely different too. Tax breaks can be used to manage or reward behaviours the government feels are important and are not secret in the same way that a tax haven in Panama is.
On the point about Cameron's dad - I don't think he should be attacked personally for it. Although you can see why the press like the story. It isn't fair to judge or punish a son for their dad's actions. I don't think Corbyn brought up Cameron's father, hopefully for this reason.
Tax avoidance is fine because it is legal. Tax evasion is not because it is illegal.
David Cameron and others have blurred this fundamental distinction by their use of language as seen in the Grauniad article I linked. Cameron, in slating Jimmy Carr, condemns tax AVOIDANCE. The same rules do not appear to apply to his late father's tax AVOIDANCE.
For that reason, in my opinion, Dodgy Dave is a hypocrite.