The banker loving, baby-eating Tory party thread (regenerated)

[tonyh29]

10 minutes ago, meregreen said:

Statement from Cameron today that he will not be benefiting from his Fathers tax avoidance "in the future". Rather confirms his profit in the past methinks. 

I'm not sure that counts as proof tbh .. I mean you can argue that he benefitted from his father avoidance by going to Eton paid for from that avoidance wealth created by giving advice to others on how to avoid tax  ...his flat in Notting Hill when he was younger may have also been purchased as a result of that money  ... but I think the smoking gun , if there is one , hasn't been found  (yet)

 

[AVFC_Hitz]

[tonyh29]

On 6 April 2016 at 16:27, meregreen said:

Statement from Cameron today that he will not be benefiting from his Fathers tax avoidance "in the future". Rather confirms his profit in the past methinks. 

Even better statement today ....

[chrisp65]

George Osborne ‏@George_Osborne  29 Oct 2014

Tax evasion is not just illegal it's immoral.People evading tax should be treated same as common thieves.This agreement helps us tackle them

 

 

More

Edited April 7, 2016 by chrisp65

[CarewsEyebrowDesigner]

tax avoidance should be illegal too.

[Shaw_nuff]

The inevitable London Housing bubble has started to collapse and there is nothing the tories can do about it. All the bullets have ben fired.

http://www.standard.co.uk/business/hedge-funds-up-bets-against-luxury-london-property-a3219296.html

"

Hedge funds have upped their bets against London’s luxury homes market in the latest sign of overheating in the capital, it emerged today.

Earls Court developer Capital & Counties has become the latest target for short-sellers, a couple of months after hedge funds began to circle luxury housebuilder Berkeley Group, the Standard can reveal.

Filings from the Financial Conduct Authority reveal Boston-headquartered Wellington, one of the world’s biggest asset managers, has built a short position of 1% in Capco.

Last week, London-based Marshall Wace took out a short of 0.5%, the level at which the City watchdog must disclose bearish bets. 

Data from Markit suggest that as much as 5.1% of shares in the FTSE 250 group are now on loan, up from 1% in January — a wager worth more than £140 million."

"...

It comes amid concerns about a glut of homes in parts of the capital, with inflated prices and new stamp duty rises on buy-to-let homes scaring off potential buyers, especially from overseas.

Last month, Morgan Stanley warned prices of new, upmarket London flats could fall by as much as 20% this year, meaning Capco might delay pre-sales until the market has improved."

 

It should be noted that NewTory were just as much to blame as the Tories for this mega bubble that is going to wreak havoc over the country now it's bursting.

 

[tonyh29]

could have put this in various threads , but here seems as good as any   ..finally the Greens have done something good ( stop the video around 2 min 38 to avoid the preaching bollocks  though)

 

Edited April 8, 2016 by tonyh29

[blandy]

12 hours ago, CarewsEyebrowDesigner said:

tax avoidance should be illegal too.

By definition it cannot be illegal. I agree with the sentiment though. The legal moving of money to minimise the tax you need to pay is kind of viewed by many people, most people in the UK as "wise" or "good" or "why should I pay more tax than I need to" when it applies to them (us). Instead of "I have a moral duty to pay for schools, roads, hospitals etc. from which I have/will benefit, and which my kids ....etc."

Only if the collective mindset moves further towards making the moral obligation compelling, will anything change for the better. Once punishment (in one way or another - reputational harm etc.) starts to outweigh or minimise the potential gains from tax dodging, then it will happen a lot less.

[tonyh29]

1 hour ago, blandy said:

I agree with the sentiment though. The legal moving of money to minimise the tax you need to pay is kind of viewed by many people, most people in the UK as "wise" or "good" or "why should I pay more tax than I need to" when it applies to them (us). Instead of "I have a moral duty to pay for schools, roads, hospitals etc. from which I have/will benefit, and which my kids ....etc."

 

I think the problem with this view is that people are kinda confusing the uber rich with the slightly well off ? moving money to panama to avoid tax =bad , working cash in hand to avoid vat , tax etc = good .. , but clearly one crime is a few thousand , one is a few million(s)  , though  arguably the panama one isn't actually illegal , where as the VAT and tax avoidance is !!

indecently , I can legally look at * schemes like alphabet shares whereby I only pay a small % of tax on the dividend I receive and I can use this scheme to run my company car through it (taking the cash and running the car as my own private car instead)  and save around £500 a month in the tax liability the car is costing me each month  ... Is that immoral ? probably to the VT left , but I'm still paying my way and you could argue paying myself in this way comes under the "wise " category ..

Personally I think someone who earns £15k a year should pay roughly the same towards schools , roads ,hospitals etc as someone who earns £50k  , thus the fact the £50k  earning person is paying more through their tax code and NI contributions , is on the whole a fair system ...  it's when you start heading towards 50% I think it becomes unfair ...

 

but as I say I don't think this current anger is towards people earning 100k or even £200k a year  , it's aimed more as a class war type feeling towards Lord Lady Inbred as much as anything

 

 

* I don't currently do this , it's just something that my accountant has suggested , but it is totally legal under HMRC rules .

[Xann]

14 minutes ago, tonyh29 said:

Personally I think someone who earns £15k a year should pay roughly the same towards schools , roads ,hospitals etc as someone who earns £50k

As a percentage rather than a sum, aye?

[Chindie]

Tax avoidance also props up entire industries - we aren't going to make it illegal.

It's one of those things where there comes a clear 'you're taking the piss' point I think, the unfortunate thing being my taking the piss level is probably lower than the kind of person able to pay for a good accountant and tax lawyer to mitigate my costs to the tax man. Without knowing the ins and outs, I'd probably say Tony's suggested scheme above would probably go above my taking the piss level. I'm also aware of a scheme to avoid stamp duty which is clearly, whilst arguably legal, obviously a dodge and immoral in my view.

But it isn't going away. Government basically needs to keep shifting the goalpost to make it seem like they're doing something but in actuality all they're doing is opening an opportunity elsewhere to be found. And everyone's happy in ignorance and/or a reduced rate...

The particularly daft thing, for me anyway, is that i've been sat watching the news this week on all this and seeing Mr Cameron squirm (which is always fun) and I was struck by an immense feeling of 'is anyone shocked, really?'. I just naturally assume anyone earning significant money is playing the system somewhere to minimise their tax obligation. I don't for a second believe Cameron's accountant isn't earning his keep by squirreling money via some route somewhere, even now. And the same goes for, I'd imagine, at least half the Commons. You don't get rich by spending money when you can avoid doing so. You don't pay your accountant to simply only tick the boxes.

So we'll play this silly dance for a while and a few with their hands too far in the cookie jar might be nobbled and a few will have broken the line of legality and the rest will squirm for a while, hunker down and in 6 months will be eagerly hearing their accountant tell them off the latest wheeze to pay 3% where you'd normally pay 20%. 

[tonyh29]

14 minutes ago, Chindie said:

Tax avoidance also props up entire industries - we aren't going to make it illegal.

my friend who lives in Panama actually gave this same argument , well I longer version of it  but that was the kinda crux of it  ..

He works in property but even that as an overseas visitor to Panama works with some very lax tax laws for him

[tonyh29]

25 minutes ago, Xann said:

As a percentage rather than a sum, aye?

yeah , hence the bit where I said the current system is fair 

 

 

 

[Chindie]

Indeed. There are whole swathes of people whose job it is to essentially find these loopholes and work out how to exploit them. There is money sloshing around that derived from someone not being whiter than white with HMRC.

I don't like it, I don't think a number of these schemes are right. But there's no way they're going anywhere.

[Xann]

7 minutes ago, tonyh29 said:

yeah , hence the bit where I said the current system is fair

I'd sort of go along with that.

50k isn't as much money as it used to be, but 15k is really not much at all.

20-22 up to 60 maybe.

 

Edited April 8, 2016 by Xann

[Risso]

The current Conservative government has done far, far more than the previous government to crack down on tax avoidance.  In the last few years, we've had the Disguised Remuneration acts, GAAR, enhanced DOTAS rules, APNs and in the budget a few weeks ago another set of rules aimed at tackling avoidance.  Compared to what happened under Labour (ie next to nothing) that's pretty good going.  Also they're introducing the new scheme whereby the ultimate beneficial owners of companies have to be declared at Companies House.

David Cameron hasn't avoided any tax at all on his Blairmore investment.  Compare that to the steps the Benn family have taken in respect of Tony's multi-million pound property legacy.

[HanoiVillan]

1 hour ago, Risso said:

The current Conservative government has done far, far more than the previous government to crack down on tax avoidance.  In the last few years, we've had the Disguised Remuneration acts, GAAR, enhanced DOTAS rules, APNs and in the budget a few weeks ago another set of rules aimed at tackling avoidance.  Compared to what happened under Labour (ie next to nothing) that's pretty good going.  Also they're introducing the new scheme whereby the ultimate beneficial owners of companies have to be declared at Companies House.

David Cameron hasn't avoided any tax at all on his Blairmore investment.  Compare that to the steps the Benn family have taken in respect of Tony's multi-million pound property legacy.

I haven't been following this story, and so have little to no opinion on it, and not a lot of technical knowledge either, so I'm certainly not saying you're wrong. But I'm just wondering why he hasn't been saying what you've said here in public? I mean, if he's basically done nothing wrong.

[blandy]

6 hours ago, tonyh29 said:

I think the problem with this view is that people are kinda confusing the uber rich with the slightly well off ? moving money to panama to avoid tax =bad , working cash in hand to avoid vat , tax etc = good .. , but clearly one crime is a few thousand , one is a few million(s)  , though  arguably the panama one isn't actually illegal , where as the VAT and tax avoidance is !!

Yes, indeed. Tax avoidance being defined as the legal avoidance of tax liabilities can never be illegal. So there's only 2 things that can reduce the "losses" - moral pressure and removing the chicanery that lets people do it.

The tories have (as was the case with Labour before them) done insufficient to reduce the avoidance via these trust funds and such like. Both made some efforts, but it's not much more than lip service, in the scheme of things.

With so many millionaires i the Gov't, I wonder who else will be exposed . Hopefully it will increase the Moral pressure for people to pay their share.

 

[blandy]

3 hours ago, Risso said:

The current Conservative government has done far, far more than the previous government to crack down on tax avoidance.  ....Compare that to the steps the Benn family have taken in respect of Tony's multi-million pound property legacy.

And at the same time the Gov't has been blocking EU moves to have beneficial owners of these Trust fund type things declared.

Quote

Downing Street has defended a move by David Cameron to water down the effect of EU transparency rules on trusts despite warnings it could create a loophole for tax dodgers.
The Prime Minister successfully argued in 2013 for trusts to be treated differently to companies in anti-money laundering rules, The Financial Times revealed.

No one's whiter than white.

[Risso]

Have you seen that letter whereby the trust proposals have been "blocked" Pete?  I'd have thought that EU legislation was a bit more complicated than Cameron merely writing a letter.  The fact is, the UK now has a register of beneficial owners, which a lot of countries in the world don't have.  I'm not entirely sure having a register of trusts would work, less so how it would prevent tax avoidance.