Panama Papers

[Jeremy]

*Bob* Wrote:

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> Only your plumber doesn't use his ill-gotten gains

> to send his son to Eton, then on to Oxford -

> ushered through on a velvet cushion into a world

> fettered with access, contacts, privilege.. all

> the way up to the highest seat in the land where

> he sees fit to lecture others about fairness,

> equality and (all together now) 'all being in it together'.

Of course - I wasn't specifically pointing to Cameron. More the broader case of the wealthy avoiding tax, vs the rest of us avoiding tax. We're talking about larger sums of money, but morally I don't draw a distinction.

LondonMix Wrote:

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> It isn't equivalent because using offshore

> structures isn't illegal unlike what the plumber

> is doing.

I didn't say it is legally equivalent, I said it is "ethically equivalent"... and I also said "in my opinion", as (as miga said), morality is relative.

rahrahrah Wrote:

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> There are plenty of people who chose not to avoid

> tax believe it or not.

I'm sure there are, but in some occupations, avoidance or evasion is basically the norm. In the field I work in, literally every freelance worker (of which I am not one) takes measures to reduce tax to varying degrees.

[miga]

Parkdrive Wrote:

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> corporations and individuals not paying tax yet

> his own family are guilty.

I get what you're saying, but that's an association fallacy. Just because he's posh, his dad is a tax avoider etc. doesn't invalidate his point. Tony Blair or Gordon Brown didn't have particularly posh backgrounds, but these holes in the system flourished under their rule too. It's not a Tory or Labour thing, it's a money and ethics thing.

[LondonMix]

Fair enough Jeremy if you find the behaviors ethically equivalent. I don't find a freelancer earning part of his or her income from their company in dividends (which do still attract tax) morally equivalent to someone who intentionally evades tax by not declaring their income to HMRC.

But that's just my opinion.

[Jeremy]

LondonMix Wrote:

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> Fair enough Jeremy if you find the behaviors ethically equivalent.

Yep. Legality and morality are not always as strongly correlated as we'd like them to be.

[LondonMix]

I definitely agree with that. Many things that can be seen as ethically wrong are not illegal per se. Its in this specific instance, where I think we disagree rather than on that general point.

Jeremy Wrote:

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> LondonMix Wrote:

> --------------------------------------------------

> -----

> > Fair enough Jeremy if you find the behaviors

> ethically equivalent.

>

> Yep. Legality and morality are not always as

> strongly correlated as we'd like them to be.

[Earl Aelfheah]

LondonMix Wrote:

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> Rahrahrah-- I agree that there are people actually

> committing crimes and laundering money. It should

> be investigated who they are and they should be

> prosecuted.

>

> The point I was making to Jeremy is that people

> legally using existing tax law are unlikely not to

> do so unless the law changes. You think these

> people are morally bankrupt and I think these

> people are like most people on earth, neither good

> nor bad.

>

> I was simply drawing the distinction regarding the

> plumber that few people will knowingly break the

> law compared to those that simply use the law as

> its intended to their advantage.

I agree that people legally using existing tax law are unlikely to stop unless the law changes. I have said that the law needs to change. I haven't suggested people who reduce their tax burden are 'morally bankrupt', but that it's not true that everyone seeks to do so. People are capable of making different moral judgments.

I don't think it's necessarily true that people who avoid tax 'simply use the law as its intended to their advantage'. sometimes this is true, but often complex avoidance schemes deliberately take advantage of unintended flaws in the system, of loop holes. This is what I mean about breaking the spirit of the law, if not the letter of it.

[Earl Aelfheah]

....and we shouldn't lose sight of the fact, as you say, that there are people actually committing crimes and laundering money.

[LondonMix]

Yes rahrahah, but general anti-evasion laws exist in most countries. Meaning that even if a tax structure is technically allowed, if it is viewed by the tax authorities as 'aggressive' (meaning crossing the line into evasion), they are still deemed illegal. Its because of these catch-all rules that many groups now get official tax rulings from the tax authorities declaring that their structures are not an abuse of the law.

So, people doing what you describe above in my view are part of the criminal class of evaders. Perhaps that's part of where our misunderstanding rests.

And yes, there is a lot of outright criminal activity including money laundering. This impacts real estate in particular all over the world.

[LondonMix]

Also, similar to ISA's the tax break on dividends serves a purpose which is to encourage investment. A small business owner who also operates their business is just as entitled to that tax incentive as any other person who invests in a business. That's why I think its equivalent to an ISA. People using that tax break for their small companies are doing exactly what they are supposed it. To me, its worlds away from not declaring income to HMRC.

[titch juicy]

When doing my IMC qualification, in the section on tax regs our lecturer told us, "remember- tax evasion is illegal, tax avoidance is clever".

That phrase really stuck in the craw.

[Parkdrive]

miga Wrote:

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> Parkdrive Wrote:

> --------------------------------------------------

> -----

> > corporations and individuals not paying tax yet

> > his own family are guilty.

>

> I get what you're saying, but that's an

> association fallacy. Just because he's posh, his

> dad is a tax avoider etc. doesn't invalidate his

> point. Tony Blair or Gordon Brown didn't have

> particularly posh backgrounds, but these holes in

> the system flourished under their rule too. It's

> not a Tory or Labour thing, it's a money and

> ethics thing.

And I did day there isn't, nor has there been, the political will to close the loop holes. My point being successive regimes have been equally guilty, not just the current shower of shite.

[Parkdrive]

I read somewhere that there are currently 3250 DWP staff investigating benefit fraud of ?1.2bn, and 300 HMRC staff investigating tax evasion of ?70bn. If correct, that's extremely telling.

[uncleglen]

That's really stupid if your figures are correct parkdrive. I personally know of someone who got caught claiming housing benefit whilst they had more than ?100,000 savings and they got caught doing it more than once but other than paying the money back there was no penalty. I also heard of people who squander benefits money and then get their rent arrears written off. There should definitely be an incentive system for the encouragement of honesty rather than the present system

[Blah Blah]

Thise stats would not suprise me at all Parkdrive if true.

It's an interesting discussion about legality and morality but no-one has yet mentioned fairness. A min wage PAYE worker (or any PAYE worker for that matter) has no say in how much tax they pay. And this is perhaps what is really wrong with the tax system, in that we catagorise workers and businesses in such a way that the more you earn, the more you can do to legally avoid paying tax. When looking at offshore havens, we could be literally talking about at least ?20 trillion, but don't really know for sure because of the secrecy involved. This amounts to 10-15% of global wealth - so the amounts lost in tax are huge. I don't know how much is lost in tax not paid on cash payments, and I know a lot of freelancers who struggle to make ends meet too, but I doubt it amounts to anything like ?20 trillion. Most workers are still paid PAYE though, so most workers are still paying their tax whilst the wealthy and corporations aren't.

[????]

Parkdrive Wrote:

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> I read somewhere that there are currently 3250 DWP

> staff investigating benefit fraud of ?1.2bn, and

> 300 HMRC staff investigating tax evasion of ?70bn.

> If correct, that's extremely telling.

Or it's not telling at all thinking through the numbers.

I expect that you require a lot more knowledge for the latter, so it's more specialist and your 'pool' is smaller in terms of the number of fish in it (although the value is far higher) so it requires a smaller number of specialists fishing for a far higher value return rather than volume

So if people think about it rather than pass this sort of thing round on social media - where it's doing the rounds - they might see why the numbers are like they are

Not holding my breathe though, I suspect it will be passed round with growing outrage and anger in the vacuous world of Facebook etc

[miga]

Or, from another angle, you can probably get a lot more of that 1.2bln back than of the 70bn, given how complex the avoidance tactics are in one case compared to the other. The recovery revenue per worker would be the real measure of whether those numbers make sense.

[????]

Yes - absolutely.

[Seabag]

*Bob* Wrote:

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> I don't know about anyone else (who's

> self-employed) but every time I read another story

> like this I ram another eight things through

> expenses I might have previously have been in two

> minds about.

Only 8 *Bob* ?

Yer, me too

[Earl Aelfheah]

Just seen the latest (5th?) statement from Cameron over (the ironically named) Blairmore. Must say, he's handled that marvellously. Seriously, who is advising him?

[Blah Blah]

lol yeah and you get the feeling that's not all there is. The problem is that never again can he claim we are all in it together, and that he is for hard working families and all the other BS he comes out with.

Of course he's been asked about this in the past, esp in relations to that viscount who's a family relative.

And then there's this little gem from 2013 :D

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qjBec3fpBI

[ratty]

He's Teflon tbh, and I am sure this is more about Europe for the right wing press than tax avoidance.

Happy Thatcher Day Everybody! Ding Dong!

[Jeremy]

What ? said... it simply takes more manpower to investigate 100,000 suspected of benefit fraud, than it does to investigate 5,000 high net worth individuals suspected of evasion. (I made the numbers up of course)

They're both wrong (again... IMO...) just because the sums are vastly different, I don't draw a moral distinction.

[LondonMix]

Why can't he say we are all in this together? I'm not saying I believe that but nothing that's happened specifically makes that statement unless plausible now than it was last month.

Blah Blah Wrote:

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> lol yeah and you get the feeling that's not all

> there is. The problem is that never again can he

> claim we are all in it together, and that he is

> for hard working families and all the other BS he

> comes out with.

>

> Of course he's been asked about this in the past,

> esp in relations to that viscount who's a family

> relative.

>

> And then there's this little gem from 2013 :D

>

> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qjBec3fpBI

[Parkdrive]

miga Wrote:

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> Or, from another angle, you can probably get a lot

> more of that 1.2bln back than of the 70bn, given

> how complex the avoidance tactics are in one case

> compared to the other. The recovery revenue per

> worker would be the real measure of whether those

> numbers make sense.

Just shows you that they go after the small fry than the big fry because there's no political will, not has there ever been , to go after the big targets. Further reinforces my deep rooted distrust of politicians of all persuasions, all thieving robbing no good coonts.

[Earl Aelfheah]

Cameron was very vocal on Jimmy Carr's tax avoidance. I believe he called it 'immoral'. He?s been exulting everyone not to avoid tax and yet he himself has held shares in a company which seems to have been set up with the purpose of doing exactly this.

@Londonmix - I think it's obvious why some feel that using off shore companies to hide income and avoid tax (opportunities which are certainly not open to all) is at odds with the notion of everyone being in 'it' (deficit reduction) together.