hiding scrap metal

[Jacob]

Just in case anybody is wondering; there are no offshore funds/trusts which I, my misses or the kids will benefit from in future. Though I occasionally tuck away a bit of scrap metal behind the shed.

 

[sunnybob]

Thats funny, I've got none of them too. Must be my working class upbringing.
Dont even get scrap now I'm retired. Oh well, the state pension will see me through.

 

[Fitzroy]

I consider myself a well educated and well paid individual but I still have absolutely do clue about all this offshore stuff. I have a bank account, a savings account and a credit card. How do you even get introduced to all this other stuff, and if you do the only reason you could possibly have for using them is surely to avoid fully paying your dues!

 

[AJB Temple]

Few people volunteer to pay tax. We pay an enormous amount in income taxes, national insurance, fuel duties, inheritance tax VAT and disguised taxes (such as the crazily excessive business rates).

 

[lurker]

Few people volunteer to pay tax. We pay an enormous amount in income taxes, national insurance, fuel duties, inheritance tax VAT and disguised taxes (such as the crazily excessive business rates).

Correction:
"little people" pay a high proportion of their income in various taxes.
The reason is that folks like Dave's Dad avoid whats due.

 

[RogerP]

I consider myself a well educated and well paid individual but I still have absolutely do clue about all this offshore stuff. I have a bank account, a savings account and a credit card. How do you even get introduced to all this other stuff, and if you do the only reason you could possibly have for using them is surely to avoid fully paying your dues!

... by hiring the right accountant. :wink:

 

[Rorschach]

If the opportunity is there to legally avoid paying taxes I don't blame anyone for doing it. What needs to be changed is the law and the way we pay tax. For starters we need a flat rate for income tax.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Few people volunteer to pay tax. We pay an enormous amount in income taxes, national insurance, fuel duties, inheritance tax VAT and disguised taxes (such as the crazily excessive business rates).

Correction:
"little people" pay a high proportion of their income in various taxes.
The reason is that folks like Dave's Dad avoid whats due.

That's the point though, isn't it? You make arrangements to make sure it's not due. It's perfectly legal. If someone said to you put your wages into Barclays and you'll pay tax, put them into HSBC and won't - what would you do? I know what I'd do. Why the moral outbursts about people doing things that are perfectly legal - the law needs changing so that they are not.

 

[Wuffles]

I offshored my scrap metal, was pretty easy. It sank.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Ironically, the best performing tax laws in the world are thought to be Hong Kong's - and they are also the world's shortest. HK's are 276 pages, ours are over 17,000. I did read a very interesting article once where the writer claimed that ours was deliberately too long and over complicated - so that clever people could always find ways of bulldozing holes through it.

 

[Wuffles]

Ironically, the best performing tax laws in the world are thought to be Hong Kong's - and they are also the world's shortest. HK's are 276 pages, ours are over 17,000. I did read a very interesting article once where the writer claimed that ours was deliberately too long and over complicated - so that clever people could always find ways of bulldozing holes through it.

Which may explain "China and Hong Kong were Mossack Fonseca’s biggest sources of business", from this Guardian article.

 

[Eric The Viking]

I have never understood either VAT or the objections to "flat" income tax.

I know where VAT came from, and that it offloads the cost of collection onto the business rather than the state, but it is horribly inefficient and wasteful, and very unfair.

Flat tax -- by which everyone pays the same percentage of their income -- seems straightforward and cheap to run. If the purpose of tax is to get money for public services, making taxation costly in itself is simply daft.

But we seem now to have government that seeks simply to exist for its own sake, rather than to serve as efficiently and effectively as possible.

Tax avoidance is the honest behaviour of a rational person to minmise the tax they pay; tax evasion is dishonesty. There is no reason to confuse the two, unless you are a politician or bureaucrat trying to make a case that people should simply pay everything the government demands of them, no matter what and without question.

In the UK, roughly 40% of our GDP* is taken as tax by government[1]. But that doesn't reflect the fact that less than half the population are considered 'taxpayers' at all[2]. For those people, the total they give to government each year is well over half their total income.

It's time things changed.

E.

PS: more than 1/3 the total government budget now is spent on benefits (of various kinds).

*Gross Domestic Product - is an official attempt to put a value on ALL eonomic activity in the UK over each year.
[1] Wikipedia.
[2] Institute for Fiscal Studies report, table 2.1, p.5.

 

[Jacob]

I have never understood either VAT or the objections to "flat" income tax.

A flat tax wouldn't raise enough dosh. The rate couldn't be very high or people with low incomes would not have enough to live on. It's that simple. It hasn't worked anywhere else either, except in the usual exceptions of banana republics and poverty stricken dictatorships, etc.

..... more than 1/3 the total government budget now is spent on benefits (of various kinds).....

More like 100%. The whole idea is that government raises tax and spends it to benefit the whole community, one way or another.
Historically, here and in USA, the economy grew fastest when marginal tax rates were in the 80 - 90%. Basically the money goes around and powers the economy. Taxation drives economies. Letting personal wealth accumulate in off shore banks or whatever, drains the economy.

 

[Eric The Viking]

Taxation drives economies.

Actually, taxation and government spending drives inflation, unless it's done very carefully. Inflation can also be thought of as a "stealth" tax on the poor.

And you know very well what "benefits" means in that context: not the NHS, not education, not military spending, not infrastructure projects, not police...

 

[Jacob]

Taxation drives economies.

Actually, taxation and government spending drives inflation, unless it's done very carefully. Inflation can also be thought of as a "stealth" tax on the poor.

Exactly the opposite: inflation reduces the real value of money - those with a surplus are worse off, those with debts are better off. Can be used constructively - the only way to get house prices down without massive negative equity would be to devalue; house price stays same but value of money is reduced.

And you know very well what "benefits" means in that context: not the NHS, not education, not military spending, not infrastructure projects, not police...

You mean I know what you mean by benefits!
I don't discriminate in the same way, as far as I'm concerned they are all privileges of living in a civilised high-tax society.

 

[Fitzroy]

You mean I know what you mean by benefits!
I don't discriminate in the same way, as far as I'm concerned they are all privileges of living in a civilised high-tax society.

I'm loving the debate between you folks. Jacob's point above is actually very thought provoking. I think the media do a great job at stirring up ill feeling (is hatred too strong) towards those in society who require direct monetary benefits, whilst in all reality these are the very people who require societies greatest support. I think I am a closet socialist as I'm actually not to bothered about paying tax so long as it is well spent; that's my issue that government spending is so opaque.

Also does the same sentiment regarding, tax avoidance (legal) not also apply to benefits? If you are entitled to them why would you not claim them! We should be upset/annoyed with the system not the individual.

 

[Eric The Viking]

We should be upset/annoyed with the system not the individual.

I agree. I am.

 

[heimlaga]

I am very much against flat tax.

If the welfare system and defence and police and everything are to be upheld on a reasonable level the flat tax rate would end up at such a high level that lots of poor people like me would be driven bankrupt and loose all our belongings and our homes and be forced to live on benefits for the rest our lives. Bankrupt due to tax debths. After that we would have to pay such a high percentage of the benefits in tax that we would be forced to steal and rob from the rich to afford enough food and heating and clothes to survive.

The most typical feature of the new class society is that the new gentry are utterly ignorant of the daily reality of the poor.

I think the great deficiensy in European government budgets gould be cured by making two changes:
-Make it possible for everyone to pay tax on our actual incomes
-Make an agreement that every business must pay tax in the country where the activity or production takes place. Otherwise they would be thrown out of the country on two days notice ant their remaining assets auctioned off.
-Chase the tax cheaters and have them punished severely.

Once that is done I think most Euriopean countries could have a surplus of money and be able to cut down certain taxes to stimulete the economy.

 

[Jacob]

....
The most typical feature of the new class society is that the new gentry are utterly ignorant of the daily reality of the poor.

Nothing new about that it's always been that way.
It was thought to be just a natural fact of life
The rich man in his castle,
The poor man at his gate,
God made them high and lowly,
And ordered their estate.
But we've moved on a bit since then - well some of us have!

......... I think most European countries could have a surplus of money and be able to cut down certain taxes to stimulete the economy.

Funny how people miss the point entirely on this - in fact cutting taxes stifles economies. Taxation stimulates economies - it's fed back into infrastructure etc. The state is the biggest employer and the biggest investor into many things including research and development, or education - investment in "human capital", or health, housing and welfare; investment into your community - or nationalised industries; keeping them in UK ownership and keeping jobs here.
Tax: what goes around comes around.

 

[heimlaga]

That is absolutely correct!
What I was thinking about was certain fields that are currently taxed to death. In Finland that is for instance one man businesses with small turnover and workers with low wages living in the country. I think thet certain tax cuts aimed at certain small areas would be beneficial. Fewer would end up living on benefits and that would stimulate economy.
General tax cuts for all would only send more money towards foreign tax havens when the rich have exess money.

By the way I was taught in school that the rich and powerful are rich and powerful because God rewards them for being better persons than the rest of us. I was also taght that all illesses and powerty are God's punishment to people who are born sinful and inferrior and hence deserve it.
That was in the 1980-ies...... not the 1890-ies as one might think.

I wasn't very good at learning.......... fortunately. Instead I learned to never trust authorities and never obey stupidity.