Tax Avoidance = Immoral

[Dr Jekyll]

According to the BBC Danny Alexander has decided to deal with all the complexity of tax laws by introducing yet another law.

Danny Alexander said:

We should create a new offence of corporate failure to avoid preventing an economic crime

Failure to avoid preventing people from not paying more tax eh? That clears everything up.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-31574557

[NicD]

'Danny Alexander: "Organisations who facilitate or encourage evasion should face the same financial penalty as evaders themselves"'

sounds like good sense to me!

[turbobloke]

Danny Alexander said:

We should create a new offence of corporate failure to avoid preventing an economic crime

He obviously thought that through with whatever thinking powers were available at the time. This must be another PPE success story.

Works at HM Treasury

[NicD]

They are good at soundbites:
'Treat tax dodge advisers as accomplices, says Lib Dem Danny Alexander who wants avoidance to be a taboo like drink-driving'

[NDA]

I find taxation inherently immoral. It's my money, I work for it, why should the government just dip into it to fund their stupid, money wasting schemes?

It is the government who should justify their demands for my cash.

[Alex]

Exactly. You could go to prison for non-payment of taxes, so for every penny of planned government spending, politicians should ask themselves, "Am I prepared to send people to prison for this?"

[gruffalo]

Alex said:

Exactly. You could go to prison for non-payment of taxes, so for every penny of planned government spending, politicians should ask themselves, "Am I prepared to send people to prison for this?"

I like that view, it may make them think a little more.






Sorry, rose tints on there for a moment, of course they wouldn't.

My view is that politicians enter politics for power and influence, what gives them power and influence is money, unfortunately as governments don't have their own money they have to use ours in order for them to have power and influence and the more of it they have the more they get what they want.

[crankedup]

gruffalo said:

Alex said:

Exactly. You could go to prison for non-payment of taxes, so for every penny of planned government spending, politicians should ask themselves, "Am I prepared to send people to prison for this?"

I like that view, it may make them think a little more.






Sorry, rose tints on there for a moment, of course they wouldn't.

My view is that politicians enter politics for power and influence, what gives them power and influence is money, unfortunately as governments don't have their own money they have to use ours in order for them to have power and influence and the more of it they have the more they get what they want.

Power and influence = money=power and money. Not only Politico's but business as well. This is something that I was debating a few weeks back. So many PH'ers disagreed with this philosophy that I was truly quite astounded. I look forward to these posters to come back again for a second debate.

[turbobloke]

crankedup said:

gruffalo said:

Alex said:

Exactly. You could go to prison for non-payment of taxes, so for every penny of planned government spending, politicians should ask themselves, "Am I prepared to send people to prison for this?"

I like that view, it may make them think a little more.

Sorry, rose tints on there for a moment, of course they wouldn't.

My view is that politicians enter politics for power and influence, what gives them power and influence is money, unfortunately as governments don't have their own money they have to use ours in order for them to have power and influence and the more of it they have the more they get what they want.

Power and influence = money=power and money. Not only Politico's but business as well. This is something that I was debating a few weeks back. So many PH'ers disagreed with this philosophy that I was truly quite astounded. I look forward to these posters to come back again for a second debate.

Nothing has changed. Politicians were doing this back then, and they're doing it now - what's exciting you so much when this exposé (Straw & Rifkind) adds nothing to your case that wasn't absent previously?

[oyster]

NDA said:

I find taxation inherently immoral. It's my money, I work for it, why should the government just dip into it to fund their stupid, money wasting schemes?

It is the government who should justify their demands for my cash.

You make that money using an infrastructure paid for out of taxation.

UK government spend is too high, and higher than lots of G20 countries, but not that much higher. Sierra Leone and Sudan have very low levels of government spending and consequently low taxes, but I don't fancy your chances of making your cash there (and living to spend it).

[crankedup]

turbobloke said:

crankedup said:

gruffalo said:

Alex said:

Exactly. You could go to prison for non-payment of taxes, so for every penny of planned government spending, politicians should ask themselves, "Am I prepared to send people to prison for this?"

I like that view, it may make them think a little more.

Sorry, rose tints on there for a moment, of course they wouldn't.

My view is that politicians enter politics for power and influence, what gives them power and influence is money, unfortunately as governments don't have their own money they have to use ours in order for them to have power and influence and the more of it they have the more they get what they want.

Power and influence = money=power and money. Not only Politico's but business as well. This is something that I was debating a few weeks back. So many PH'ers disagreed with this philosophy that I was truly quite astounded. I look forward to these posters to come back again for a second debate.

Nothing has changed. Politicians were doing this back then, and they're doing it now - what's exciting you so much when this exposé (Straw & Rifkind) adds nothing to your case that wasn't absent previously?

What are you blabbering about now! I am not referring to the political case at all! How the heck do you construe the idea that I am. Were you one of the posters that disagrees that Power and wealth goes hand in hand with money?

[turbobloke]

We may be at cross porpoises, but that's no reason for you to act like one.

[Murph7355]

oyster said:

You make that money using an infrastructure paid for out of taxation.

UK government spend is too high, and higher than lots of G20 countries, but not that much higher. Sierra Leone and Sudan have very low levels of government spending and consequently low taxes, but I don't fancy your chances of making your cash there (and living to spend it).

Now this is a fair argument...so what part of current govt expenditure is important to ensure the infrastructure for prosperity exists for everyone...?

The challenge we have at present is that we're way above that level of expenditure I strongly suspect (comparisons with the G20 don't necessarily work when you have countries like Germany spunking money on the EU experiment). Which serves to undermine the argument you give unfortunately. It'd be nice to reel things in properly.

[turbobloke]

Murph7355 said:

The challenge we have at present is that we're way above that level of expenditure I strongly suspect (comparisons with the G20 don't necessarily work when you have countries like Germany spunking money on the EU experiment)...It'd be nice to reel things in properly.

[anonymous-user]

oyster said:

You make that money using an infrastructure paid for out of taxation.

UK government spend is too high, and higher than lots of G20 countries, but not that much higher. Sierra Leone and Sudan have very low levels of government spending and consequently low taxes, but I don't fancy your chances of making your cash there (and living to spend it).

Plenty of places in the world have low taxes and high standards of living.

[Pit Pony]

Alex said:

roachcoach said:

Ed: For clarity, I reckon all the forces should be paid free of tax, given what they do.

ALL public sector employees should be paid tax free. Their wages come from taxation after all.

Indeed, what is the point of collecting money, in the form of tax and national insurance, that you just gave out.

Same with Child benefit. Anyone that works for the civil service and has kids should just get extra pay.


It's a bizarre job creation system, in collecting and giving it out again.

[NicD]

A bit of long overdue action (if indeed, it works out):

'To compensate for the loss of hundreds of thousands of low income taxpayers, it is believed the budget will crackdown on multinational corporations avoiding tax in Britain.
Google, Facebook and Amazon and other companies accused of diverting profits from the UK to jurisdictions with lower tax are set to be hit by a punitive 25% fee – higher than the 20% corporation tax which is also due to begin this April.

Dubbed the "Google Tax", it will be levied at companies judged to be side-stepping HM Revenue and Customs.

It is understood the Chancellor will force multinationals to reveal exact revenue and profit figures on a country-by-country basis, for the first time.'
http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/562674/George-Osb...

[crankedup]

NicD said:

A bit of long overdue action (if indeed, it works out):

'To compensate for the loss of hundreds of thousands of low income taxpayers, it is believed the budget will crackdown on multinational corporations avoiding tax in Britain.
Google, Facebook and Amazon and other companies accused of diverting profits from the UK to jurisdictions with lower tax are set to be hit by a punitive 25% fee – higher than the 20% corporation tax which is also due to begin this April.

Dubbed the "Google Tax", it will be levied at companies judged to be side-stepping HM Revenue and Customs.

It is understood the Chancellor will force multinationals to reveal exact revenue and profit figures on a country-by-country basis, for the first time.'
http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/562674/George-Osb...

Anyone would think an election is upon us, blatant electioneering on a grandiose scale is all this amounts to.

[Welshbeef]

Sounds like
£10,600 goes up to £11,000 from this April a massive £1k increase in the tax free allowance - sure National insurance isn't being touched but it still takes the poorest out of taxation altogether.

How is it funded by targeting specifically the google-amazons- Starbucks to force then to disclose revenue created by country.


No one will be unhappy about this . Sure they could say why do it now why not down it sooner, however they have moved tax free from £6.3k to £11k and counting in 5 years that's remarkable and a huge upside to the poorest pensioners and workers. How any labour or SNP voters cannot day thank you and apologise for not doing that while in power for 13 years is beyond me

[Murph7355]

crankedup said:

Anyone would think an election is upon us, blatant electioneering on a grandiose scale is all this amounts to.

It's no different to any other party, except the topic on which he's decided to grandstand.

I can't imagine large corps are illegally withholding this info. The "problem" is how companies arrive at such figures (legally).

We need to stop pandering to those who wouldn't be happy even even if Google et al donated ALL their money to the HMRC (there'd still be something to bh about).

Lower headline tax rates and encourage large firms to channel their bulk through here. Corp taxes aren't really a tax on a company anyway, but its customers.