Billionaire, morally defensible?
- Thread starter diy_fun_uk
- Start date
Sponsored Links
"In an interview with ITV News, the prime minister was asked about Carr's arrangement.
He replied: "Some of these schemes we have seen are quite frankly morally wrong.
"People work hard, they pay their taxes, they save up to go to one of his shows. They buy the tickets. He is taking the money from those tickets and he, as far as I can see, is putting all of that into some very dodgy tax avoiding schemes."
The Liberal Democrats' deputy leader, Simon Hughes, said it was "completely unacceptable" for stars to avoid paying proper rates of tax.
In his Budget speech in March, Chancellor George Osborne described illegal tax evasion and legal but aggressive tax avoidance as "morally repugnant".
And
"June 2013: Speaking at an event highlighting the damage that tax evasion does to global trade and developing countries, Mr Cameron said:
"The extraordinary thing about this tax, transparency and trade agenda is that it's not just the right thing for us to do morally it's right for our economies too.
"Because when some businesses don't pay their taxes, it corrodes public trust. When some companies don't play by the rules, that drives more regulation and makes it harder for other businesses to turn a profit...
"It means getting companies to report to tax authorities where they earn their profits and where they pay their tax. It also means transparency about who owns which companies and who benefits from it - so called beneficial ownership.
"Why? Because some people use complicated and fake structures to hide their profits and avoid taxes."
Source:BBC
Also
www.independent.co.uk
He replied: "Some of these schemes we have seen are quite frankly morally wrong.
"People work hard, they pay their taxes, they save up to go to one of his shows. They buy the tickets. He is taking the money from those tickets and he, as far as I can see, is putting all of that into some very dodgy tax avoiding schemes."
The Liberal Democrats' deputy leader, Simon Hughes, said it was "completely unacceptable" for stars to avoid paying proper rates of tax.
In his Budget speech in March, Chancellor George Osborne described illegal tax evasion and legal but aggressive tax avoidance as "morally repugnant".
And
"June 2013: Speaking at an event highlighting the damage that tax evasion does to global trade and developing countries, Mr Cameron said:
"The extraordinary thing about this tax, transparency and trade agenda is that it's not just the right thing for us to do morally it's right for our economies too.
"Because when some businesses don't pay their taxes, it corrodes public trust. When some companies don't play by the rules, that drives more regulation and makes it harder for other businesses to turn a profit...
"It means getting companies to report to tax authorities where they earn their profits and where they pay their tax. It also means transparency about who owns which companies and who benefits from it - so called beneficial ownership.
"Why? Because some people use complicated and fake structures to hide their profits and avoid taxes."
Source:BBC
Also
The David Cameron quotes on tax avoidance that look extremely hypocritical today
'Frankly some of these schemes where people are parking huge amounts of money offshore and taking loans back to just minimise their tax rates it is not morally acceptable'
www.independent.co.uk
Sponsored Links
- Joined
- 22 Aug 2006
- Messages
- 5,371
- Reaction score
- 603
- Country
So JohnD, using an ISA is clearly tax dodging then.
The morally correct thing to do is not use an ISA, and pay tax on the interest on all that filthy money you have.
How would you like someone to bang the table and tell you to pay up?
Amazon pays little tax - millions of tax on billions. One way they pay less is by paying employees in shares. It incentivizes the emloyees. Tax dodging?
Amazon shares are up 30% so far this year.
But the employes pay tax on that increase.
Unless they put the shares into a stocks and shares ISA. Then they don't. Or they can get the shares money into a pension, which HMG assumes is earned and therefore taxed income so it ups the money to account for the tax they paid. But they haven't paid any on it. So those people are then stealing tax , are they?
There's rules about tax.
If person A finds a way through the rules to pay less tax, and person B claims that's not ok, then B should get the rules changed, not seek to impose his wishes on the legal activities of A.
If B has a go at A, A is entitled to tell B to mind his own business.
The morally correct thing to do is not use an ISA, and pay tax on the interest on all that filthy money you have.
How would you like someone to bang the table and tell you to pay up?
Amazon pays little tax - millions of tax on billions. One way they pay less is by paying employees in shares. It incentivizes the emloyees. Tax dodging?
Amazon shares are up 30% so far this year.
But the employes pay tax on that increase.
Unless they put the shares into a stocks and shares ISA. Then they don't. Or they can get the shares money into a pension, which HMG assumes is earned and therefore taxed income so it ups the money to account for the tax they paid. But they haven't paid any on it. So those people are then stealing tax , are they?
There's rules about tax.
If person A finds a way through the rules to pay less tax, and person B claims that's not ok, then B should get the rules changed, not seek to impose his wishes on the legal activities of A.
If B has a go at A, A is entitled to tell B to mind his own business.
It seems that is down at least in part to where losses etc are declared. Also profits. Some aspects of an attempt to unify corporation tax appear to try and take account of this by giving govs the chance to say what they are doing is unfair.
- Joined
- 22 Aug 2006
- Messages
- 5,371
- Reaction score
- 603
- Country
Sounds fine, but what does it mean?
Change rules so there are no morally repugnant routes to go down, or
enforce the rules which are already there?
They could, say, cap the amount one can hold in an ISA, but offer routes to invest in new builds and get a return. £100k, say.
We might get more houses then, some for all those people we need to do the jobs where we're using immigrants, because Brits won't do them, like in the care sector.
Fiwfy rich people have double that in their Isas . So suddenly they'd have to pay tax on 5k-50k pa depending what it was earning. Oh well, several grand each they really couldn't complain about. Say 5m people, 10k each, 50bn quid. Every year.
That's too simple where have I gone wrong.
Let’s rewrite that so it’s more relevant:
Person A, a very wealthy person, lobbies the government to influence policy which gives tax advantages to the wealthy.
Person B, not so wealthy can only try and get the rules changed, but he can’t afford to give money to Tory govt or Tory MPs, so he can get anywhere.
- Joined
- 22 Aug 2006
- Messages
- 5,371
- Reaction score
- 603
- Country
Yuh I know, but...
You could say, if you want to sell in this country we're going to tax you on it. If necessary, estimate the Amazon sales. Simple?
Amazon has to pay HMG money, which they promptly get from their customers. So customers pay money which goes to the government, right.....
It’s very unjust that the biggest global corporations can avoid tax, but there’s little the U.K. can do in practice.
Amazon, Apple, Google etc can just say FO and they do.
They have the might of the USA behind them so what can we do?
And they could threaten to pull out of the U.K….which would damage our economy.
- Joined
- 22 Aug 2006
- Messages
- 5,371
- Reaction score
- 603
- Country
What you need there is to count the A's and the B's. There should be more B's than A's if it's actually an issue.
Then everybody votes.
But if there aren't enough votes, what does that mean?
- Joined
- 22 Aug 2006
- Messages
- 5,371
- Reaction score
- 603
- Country
I agree.
Tell you what, how about if we joined up with the rest of Europe and...
oh...
No I didn't mean rejoin the EU though that might help, I meant the yanks would do the same to us.
So we get our own Amazon, with a name like Severn.
Then we'd have our own Bezos.
Someone with a name like Boris.
Last edited:
Sadly democracy only works if there is an informed electorate
Imagine if wealthy person A has a wealthy mate that owns the Daily Mail, Express, Telegraph etc etc
And then imagine some very wealthy people give money to,”think tanks” which then get onto,BBC, Sky, Twitter etc etc.
Institute of Economic Affairs is a good example….they even had their own puppet as PM: Liz Truss. And she planned on….lowering taxes for the wealthy.
There’s a reason why the weakest democracies, such as FPTP U.K. system have far worse levels of inequality than more advanced PR systems.
- Joined
- 1 Apr 2016
- Messages
- 13,427
- Reaction score
- 540
- Country
I love how the dogs on here defend tax dodging billionaires because they think one day they will become one.
- Joined
- 22 Aug 2006
- Messages
- 5,371
- Reaction score
- 603
- Country
Bit of paranoia going on here. Clutching at straws for ulterior motives.
Nobody's defending anyone. If the system is faulty, people will exploit the faults to their advantage. System is what's wrong.
I'd like to know what people can "get away with" in this country that they couldn't in the rest of Euope. How many billionaires come here to take advantage of our systems? I suggest it's few, and the getting away with things makes v little difference. Ten percent of households hold half the personal wealth. How many got there with no connection to HMG? Overwhelming majority.
We're pretty unremakably placed here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_inequality-adjusted_Human_Development_Index
More able people, often with a decent education though sometimes not, get to be wealthier than others if they want to, regardless of the government.
Control of investment plays a large part in a country's wealth which it can distribute to support folk who don't generate any. UK has been crap with that. It's the difference between managing a load of chickens so they produce a sustainable number of chickens and eggs, and just giving the chickens out for people to eat until they're all gone.
---
And wannabe billionaire? No way. Maybe 40 years ago. Not now. Somebody would abduct the cat.
Nobody's defending anyone. If the system is faulty, people will exploit the faults to their advantage. System is what's wrong.
I'd like to know what people can "get away with" in this country that they couldn't in the rest of Euope. How many billionaires come here to take advantage of our systems? I suggest it's few, and the getting away with things makes v little difference. Ten percent of households hold half the personal wealth. How many got there with no connection to HMG? Overwhelming majority.
We're pretty unremakably placed here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_inequality-adjusted_Human_Development_Index
More able people, often with a decent education though sometimes not, get to be wealthier than others if they want to, regardless of the government.
Control of investment plays a large part in a country's wealth which it can distribute to support folk who don't generate any. UK has been crap with that. It's the difference between managing a load of chickens so they produce a sustainable number of chickens and eggs, and just giving the chickens out for people to eat until they're all gone.
---
And wannabe billionaire? No way. Maybe 40 years ago. Not now. Somebody would abduct the cat.
Last edited:
Sponsored Links
