On 21 Jun 2012 at 4:46pm Cheeky Monkey wrote:
Is it just me or do others find this kind of witch hunt about a famous persons tax affairs a bit strange? Jimmy Carr has not broken the law and yet the prime minister feels he can accuse him and his ilk of immorality?
Pots, kettles, dark colours?
Jimmy Carr earned his money and good luck to him.
What news has been buried today that we have missed?
On 21 Jun 2012 at 5:05pm padster wrote:
Yes i agree, Philip Green where are you? but he has corrected his "moral crime" because he got found out. This is how the rich stay rich whilst the rest of us get taxed at source. I don't dislike Jimmy Carr, I think he has been swift and humble in his apology.
Maybe we should try to make these loopholes illegal but i imagine it would become a game of cat and mouse with the taxpayer footing the bill again.....
On 21 Jun 2012 at 5:12pm Deelite wrote:
I hate him, just hate him.... and I don't know why.
On 21 Jun 2012 at 5:15pm Annette Curtin-Twitcher wrote:
Of course, it's fine for Gidiot to have all his money in a trust.
On 21 Jun 2012 at 5:22pm Southover Queen wrote:
It seems to me that if HMRC has set things up in such a way that schemes such as the one he joined are legal then it's up to HMRC and the government to make them illegal, not pontificate about it being "immoral".
I'm much keener that they pursue the multinationals who do the same thing far more successfully and depriving the exchequer of far far more - Vodafone, Boots, Goldman Sachs etc etc.
I must say I do look forward to the forensic examination of every one of Cameron's relatives' own tax affairs in the wake of his comments. I bet there have been a few panicked phone calls to their tax advisors over the last few hours.
On 21 Jun 2012 at 5:26pm Southover Queen wrote:
Supplementary amusing thing
Check it out here »
On 21 Jun 2012 at 5:27pm Cliffite wrote:
So it's perfectly fine to let Vodafone off their monstrous tax evasion but let's all go after the little guy *sic
On 21 Jun 2012 at 6:07pm Pete wrote:
Look guys, just vote Labour next time, for heavens sake - ok, ok, I know TB wasn't great, but at least he didn't hoard millions like these boys in blue ?
On 21 Jun 2012 at 6:37pm Ducatipete wrote:
Anyone who accumulates that amount of money is not entirely honest and above board.
On 21 Jun 2012 at 7:57pm Silver spoon wrote:
Brilliant !!! As expected all the liberal elite come out in defence of a tax cheat!legal or not ............moral? And have the cheek to make that money from jokes about tax evasion!!! And as for TB he really struggled at his private school........didn't he!!!!
On 21 Jun 2012 at 8:48pm Boris wrote:
The dreadful Philip Green. The man who's business's have created thousands of jobs across the country a man who's business's pay millions to the exchequer in the form of employers NI. How dare he be rich.
On 21 Jun 2012 at 9:25pm jonnyboy wrote:
Looking forward to tomorrow's 8 out of 10 cats. Going to be a roasting and yet he's done nothing illegal. For Cameron to call his behaviour immoral.................
On 21 Jun 2012 at 9:29pm Southover Queen wrote:
Dear oh dear, predictably the Tory self-defined underclass* are rather missing the point, aren't they? I'm not leaping to the defence of a rich comic (i really couldn't care less) but I am interested in multiple double standards and incompetent government. If it's immoral and should be illegal to avoid tax in such schemes then make them illegal. Don't expect individuals to sit down and consider whether it's ethical or not.
And by the way, Philip Green's company has just been forced to pay 700 unpaid interns the money they were entitled to by law and which he fought tooth and nail to avoid. Not a lot of tax and NI paid by them, and actually Arcadia was breaking the law, not just some moral stricture we seem content to invent post-hoc. That's not creating jobs: that's pure exploitation.
*If I'm part of the Liberal elite (I'd say left-leaning but let's not quibble) then the Tories are part of the underclass...
On 21 Jun 2012 at 9:54pm padster wrote:
Hey Boris dont be so defensive, i understand people who make money should profit from their hard work , put think about this , if phillip Green should be knocked down in london, he will be picked up by the ambulance and taken to a hospital with the very best care all funded by the tax payer......whilst you and I pay for this, tax avoiders don;t! Tax is there for a reason we shoul pay our fair share.
On 21 Jun 2012 at 11:34pm expat two wrote:
He also does pretty well out of not contributing towards the education of those that make his business so profitable. Or towards the roads he uses to distribute his product. Or towards the.. oh, you get the picture.. we pay taxes which go towards his profits.
On 22 Jun 2012 at 2:22am Dingo wrote:
Jimmy Carr pays a 1% tax rate on his not insubstantial earnings.I pay 35% or more on the money I earn where is the justice in that?
Jimmy Carr is a Tw@t, end of.
On 22 Jun 2012 at 4:55am expat two wrote:
I can't stand the chap. Nobody illustrates the word 'smug' quite so comprehensively. I hope, and half expect, his career is ruined. As repeated oft enough, he's only the tip of the iceberg - most high earners squirrel their earnings away in shell companies registered in tax havens. Its a simple process of batting 'loans' backwards and forwards to fill their wallets and frustrate tax collectors.
On 22 Jun 2012 at 5:23am Silver spoon wrote:
Oh dear SQ, no one else mentions liberal elite in their replies.............me thinks I have hit a nerve...here's another cliche for you......champagne solcialist! Would love to have made longer thread but have to go and do my tax return!
On 22 Jun 2012 at 7:02am Teacher wrote:
What a load of hypocrites we are. Love or hate Jimmy Carr I am sure any of you in his position would have done the same if it was legal. You can't tell me that if your accountant said to you I can save you a lot of tax by using this legal loophole you would turn round and say No No I want to be fair and pay my wack. Baloney! And for a politician of all people to criticise him, Well it beggars belief.
On 22 Jun 2012 at 7:57am Annette Curtin-Twitcher wrote:
The problem with tax loopholes is that as fast as governments close one, clever (and incredibly highly paid) tax lawyers find a way round it.
I wonder if tax laws should be prescriptive, rather than proscriptive. If it spelled out all the legal ways in which in which people can access income, then declared any other way illegal, it would make it easier to enforce and harder to get round.
I know people who make all their money from property. They buy houses with improvement/extension potential, make them bigger and worth double the money, then sell them. They make sure they live in each one for a few months before they sell it, so that it is their main residence and no tax is due on the profit.
One of them made £1.2m profit on the last 2, even in the current gloomy market, and paid not a penny in tax, perfectly legally.
It's not illegal, and I don't really think it's immoral, but it doesn't seem right either.
On 22 Jun 2012 at 10:29am Whistle blower wrote:
ACT. If HMRC were aware of a person serially developing houses in the way you mention they would claim back tax. In fact they will investigate anyone they know about who does this more than once within four years.
There is a man near us currently developing a listed barn. It is the fourth property he has developed. His method is always the same, move in, make the property as large and as he can possibly get past the planners, then sell up pretty soon after having lived in it for two years.
The materials for developing listed buildings are VAT exempt. He pays no income tax (does not have a job) and no capital tax gains on his profit. When he uses tradesmen he pays cash so gets them cheap. When he sells the barn he will have taken about 1.4m tax free in 8 years.
The man developed the Swan Inn (now Swan House) at Cooksbridge. He ran an antique shop in it half a day a week to prove to the planners that it could not be used for a viable business so he could apply for residential planning permission. Incredibly, even though he only stocked about five antiques (in actually pieces of rubbish), after a year or so the planners granted his permission.
On 22 Jun 2012 at 11:02am Southover Queen wrote:
Oh dear Silver Spoon, what a very short memory you have. I quote you verbatim: "As expected all the liberal elite come out in defence of a tax cheat!legal or not ."
I can assure you no nerves are even approximated let alone touched. Or not on my part, at any rate.
On 22 Jun 2012 at 1:21pm someone else wrote:
Teacher - don't judge the rest of us by your low standards. I could earn more net by being a self-employed consultant if I wanted. I choose PAYE just because I earn enough (not loads) and I think it's the decent thing to do. Ironic (if you are a school teacher) if you expect to be paid by the state but think it's OK not to pay the state.
Found out the other day that, whereas many BBC newsreaders are paid via offshore companies, John Humphreys chooses PAYE at source because he think it's the right thing to do. Decent bloke.
On 22 Jun 2012 at 3:02pm Cheeky Monkey wrote:
Some fantastic opinions here people.
I would like to share the wisdom of one Essex's favourite sons, Mr B.Ecclestone.
"First you get rich, then you get honest"
On 22 Jun 2012 at 5:37pm Annette Curtin-Twitcher wrote:
You may well have a point teacher, but if the likes of Philip Green and Lord Ashcroft paid tax on all their dosh, our share would be smaller.
On 22 Jun 2012 at 7:35pm teacher wrote:
Someone Else, You undoubtably will go to heaven if there is such a place.
On 22 Jun 2012 at 9:07pm Sussex Jim wrote:
I disagree with income tax anyway; you should be able to keep what you earn. Those "rich" people spend their money, and create jobs for others. We should concentrate on encouraging them to spend here, and not abroad
On 22 Jun 2012 at 10:02pm Give up wrote:
rsole
On 23 Jun 2012 at 1:02am expat two wrote:
Jim, if there were no taxes, there'd be no state; no schools, no ambulances, no police, no roads, no government - there'd be no infrastructure that, amongst other things, allows businesses to operate.
Nobody's knocking the rich for being rich in this argument, just their refusal to pay a fair share of their taxes. Even if they could still run a business, if they don't have the moral mettle to pay taxes, I don't see they're going to be told where to spend their riches.
Taxes, however, channel money straight back into the national economy, which is what everybody wants - isn't it?
On 23 Jun 2012 at 8:53am Peasant wrote:
Note that Jimmy Carr said he had left the K2 scheme.
He did NOT say that he was planning to pay his taxes.
Probably just joined one of the host of other tax avoidance scams instead.
Could anything be more counter-productive tha cutting the number of HMRC staff, as has been done in the last two years? Adds to unemployment and reduces tax income. What a dimbo Osborne is.
On 24 Jun 2012 at 12:08pm Ed Can Do wrote:
I find it particularly weird that they went after Jimmy Carr for this. There are by all accounts over 1,000 other people using the perfectly legal K2 scheme so why not just publish a full list? It's a disclosable tax avoidance scheme so the government know exactly who is using it.
Also, whilst not as efficient as the 1% paid on the K2 scheme, I can guarantee there's not a single Premiership footballer who is an employee of their club and pays tax PAYE. They'll all be employees of their own limited companies and even if those are registered as UK companies, they'll be saving tax by paying themselves dividends rather than wages. I know John Terry and Wayne Rooney are employed by companies based in Ireland for tax purposes, I'd be amazed if the rest of the England squad didn't ave similar arrangements.
The problem is that tax avoidance is a self-perpetuating industry. The government hires expensive lawyers to close off tax loopholes but the time it takes to make these things law gives the much better and more highly paid lawyers and accountants in the private sector plenty of time to come up with new ones. The UK has the most complicated tax system of any country in the world by miles, if you base it on line of statute devoted to it. We have such a powerful and wealthy base of accounting firms that there's no way HMRC can compete on talent, even if senior partners from all the big four accountancy firms weren't employed as advisors to the government in the first place.
In the same way that people who fail to get into the army become police officers and those that fail that become bouncers, people who can't make it as an accountant become bookkeepers and those who can't manage that becoe tax inspectors. Although there are some exceptions, the vast majority of tax inspectors I've had professional dealings with were woefully unversed in basic principles of the tax laws they are attempting to uphold.
What is needed is a huge overhaul of the system and a vast simplification but that'll never happen because the tax system works in favour of rich peope in power and their mates plus if you simplified the tax system, there'd be no need for the majority of the finance sector in this country and a wave of unemployment on that scale would probably finish the country off.
On 24 Jun 2012 at 12:26pm Deelite wrote:
Great post Ed