Tax Avoidance = Immoral

[Rude-boy]

Bless.

Let's be honest this sort of claptrap is all they have left since their last great set of ideas proved to be a total waste of life, money and time. Even our Sino friends are only communist in name these days.

"Look Mummy, it's a dinosaur."

[jeff m]

They make the rules.....
You are only legally bound to pay what those rules say you owe.
If you pay more than you should then you are either stupid or......can't think of another word to complete this sentence. Stupid will suffice.

[audidoody]

BOR said:

I don't think you grasp the difference between paying what you owe, and exploiting loopholes that shouldn't exist, but are impossible to eradicate.

Pay your share.

Better slap the cuffs on me. I've got an ISA.

[DonkeyApple]

Avoidance is the use of ISA's, pensions, gifting money, employing your wife etc etc.

All systems created by Govt to achieve certain goals.

It's interesting that some feckless monkey has deemed these to be immoral and another load of feckless monkeys have jumped on the bandwagon.

God, how I hate the small minded, worthless, bitter scum that comprise the majority of sts who dare call themselves British.

[hewlett]

2 of my mates have been self employed for 20 years, neither has ever paid any kind of tax on income yet both earn good money (nice cars and houses etc). I pay my taxes properly and these guys just wing it hoping they don't get caught. Both keep invoices 'just in case'. I'd never report them as I'd hate to see them go through the hell of bankruptcy etc but, it still bugs me.

[supersingle]

I've been avoiding tax by deliberately working less. Is that immoral too?

Fed up of being robbed for going to work. I'm on strike.

[Jasandjules]

Einion Yrth said:

Tax is demanding money with menaces. Avoidance is fair game, evasion is deemed punishable.

^ This.

Avoidance is legal, that is the end of it......

If the socialists want to pay more tax then let them...... But I am sure that when offered the chance to do so they will decline....

[anonymous-user]

BOR said:

I don't think you grasp the difference between paying what you owe, and exploiting loopholes that shouldn't exist, but are impossible to eradicate.

Pay your share.

what's a fair share? the majority of people using so called 'loopholes' already pay way more than their 'fair' share.

Edited by fbrs on Monday 20th September 18:06

[ninja-lewis]

fbrs said:

BOR said:

I don't think you grasp the difference between paying what you owe, and exploiting loopholes that shouldn't exist, but are impossible to eradicate.

Pay your share.

what's a fair share? perhaps half the country pays no tax at all should pay their 'share' first?

Edited by fbrs on Monday 20th September 18:03

Is that not misleading? What percentage of overall income do the top 1% earn? If it's more than the equivalent percentage of the overall income tax take, that would suggest they pay less than their "fair" share - i.e. if the top 1% earn 30% of the income but only pay 25% of the tax.

[paddyhasneeds]

Avoidance isn't the same as evasion.

I admit to getting heartily sick of hearing about "MP's expenses" however tax does seem a very good case of if you don't like people playing by the rules of the game, change the rules rather than moan about it.

[DonkeyApple]

[quote=hewlett]2 of my mates have been self employed for 20 years, neither has ever paid any kind of tax on income yet both earn good money (nice cars and houses etc). I pay my taxes properly and these guys just wing it hoping they don't get caught. Both keep invoices 'just in case'. I'd never report them as I'd hate to see them go through the hell of bankruptcy etc but, it still bugs me.[/quote

fk 'em I say.

[Don]

Hmmm.

Tax Avoidance. Avoiding paying taxes you do not need to and paying those that you do. Fair play: that's paying the right amount of tax.

Tax Evasion: Illegally not paying taxes you are supposed to pay. Quite bad.

I admit the area gets grey in the middle, there. But all the same in the greyness there is a line - not to be crossed.

[Ribol]

If I thought for one second that the money paid in taxes was being used wisely then I would be more than happy to pay my fair share and probably a bit more.

However, whilst whichever moron who is currently at the helm continues to allow money to be wasted (pick your own example, plenty to choose from) I will do whatever I can to pay as little as possible.

I think the only people who are "happy" to pay taxes are those on PAYE and don't have any choice.

[Sticks.]

jeff m said:

They make the rules.....
You are only legally bound to pay what those rules say you owe.
If you pay more than you should then you are either stupid or......can't think of another word to complete this sentence. Stupid will suffice.

Not picking on you Jeff, but next time you see a PH p boiling thread about someone with 10 kids, they might equally say.......

They make the rules.....
You are legally allowed to claim what those rules say you can.
If you claim less than you can then you are either stupid or......can't think of another word to complete this sentence. Stupid will suffice.

No, I'm not defending them but what's the difference.

[anonymous-user]

ninja-lewis said:

Is that not misleading? What percentage of overall income do the top 1% earn? If it's more than the equivalent percentage of the overall income tax take, that would suggest they pay less than their "fair" share - i.e. if the top 1% earn 30% of the income but only pay 25% of the tax.

you are assuming fair means a certain % of income. whats fair about a guy who works twice the hours of his neighbour and pays twice the tax for exactly the same government services? infact due to graduated tax bands and means testing he pays more than twice as much tax for less benefit.

Sticks. said:

No, I'm not defending them but what's the difference.

you're absoultely right. 'we' have only ourselves to blame, the government sets the welfare rules you can't be suprised when people play by them. had nulabour wanted to rig the game to breed a generation of voters trapped in welfare they couldnt have done it any better. surely they wouldn't?

Edited by fbrs on Monday 20th September 19:07

[ninja-lewis]

fbrs said:

ninja-lewis said:

Is that not misleading? What percentage of overall income do the top 1% earn? If it's more than the equivalent percentage of the overall income tax take, that would suggest they pay less than their "fair" share - i.e. if the top 1% earn 30% of the income but only pay 25% of the tax.

you are assuming fair means a certain % of income. whats fair about a guy who works twice the hours of his neighbour and pays more than twice the tax for exactly the same government services? infact due to graduated tax bands and means testing he pays more than twice as much for less benefit.

But does he really? What if the guy pays less than twice as much? That was my question.

I wasn't making assumptions about the definition of fairness so much as whether that graph represents what you think it represents. Roughly we have three definitions of fairness: leftie-types define it as progressive - pay more because you can afford to; a flat definition, which I suspect is more inline with PH thinking - everyone pays x% of their income; and lastly a poll-tax style everyone pays £x (almost) regardless of income. The definition of fairness is complicated by what the tax is for - after all some services aren't used anymore no matter how much income you earn, yet some high incomers might be more dependent on government services (for example, they stand to lose proportionally more).

But if the second definition - where say everyone pays a single rate of 20% income tax - was being assessed by that graph, then simple saying the top 1% pay 24.1% doesn't tell us anything - because we don't know how much income that top 1% represents. The reason that I ask is that I suspect the top 1% earn more than 24.1% of income.

[sidicks]

fbrs said:

BOR said:

I don't think you grasp the difference between paying what you owe, and exploiting loopholes that shouldn't exist, but are impossible to eradicate.

Pay your share.

what's a fair share? the majority of people using so called 'loopholes' already pay way more than their 'fair' share.

Edited by fbrs on Monday 20th September 18:06

BOR

Are you prepared to reveal which income group in the chart on the left you fall into....??

Sidicks

Edited by sidicks on Monday 20th September 19:51

[BOR]

Yes babe, put a scale next to it and I will. I'm not sure how that info would help you, but I know my place.

[anonymous-user]

ninja-lewis said:

Roughly we have three definitions of fairness: leftie-types define it as progressive - pay more because you can afford to; a flat definition, which I suspect is more inline with PH thinking - everyone pays x% of their income; and lastly a poll-tax style everyone pays £x (almost) regardless of income.

i'd agree with most of your points but i think its clear as you earn 25k, 50k, 75k, 100k... you pay progressively higher % tax. (self employed 'scams' aside). its really only when you start earning 250k+ there are any 'loopholes', but i know of so many people who have been badly burned trying these imo they should, in themselves, be considered highly speculative and not something i would ever chance (m'lud). its only when you escape PAYE, ie when you're into millions that you can start to get paid in dividends and carried interest and st like that. for the vast majority of people the more you earn the higher % you pay.

Edited by fbrs on Monday 20th September 20:12

[sidicks]

Does this help?

http://www.ifs.org.uk/wheredoyoufitin/