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 Kilkrazy wrote:

Isn't it traditional at this point for someone to point out that the top 10% pay more tax than the bottom 50% or something?

That's an argument that always makes me laugh when Amazon or someone makes it. My favourite is where they say 'We have invested x amount of money in Britain and created x number of jobs', as if they expect us to be grateful that they graciously deign to run their business here, when we all know that the only reason that they've done such things is because they think that they can turn a profit by doing so.

The obvious retort that 'Many other large companies have also done those things and yet somehow find it in their hearts to pay their taxes' never quite seems to be aired by the newspapers, however. Probably because the owners of those papers are doing exactly the same thing. How much did the Barclay Brothers pay last year again? Or Mr Lebedev? A quick check shows Mr Murdoch hasn't paid corporation tax in over a decade!

The whole thing is laughable. Yet governments refuse to prosecute it because donations from these people is what keeps the party coffers full.

Yeah, we all find ourselves in the unusual position of having a consensus on an issue.

Companies like Amazon and Apple forget that it's British tax money that funds the police, the judiciary, the roads, the houses for the workers etc etc

that allows Britain to be a stable country where the rule of law is respected, which makes it attractive to Apple and Amazon.

Let's see how long Apple and Amazon last with their Kabul or Mogadishu branches.


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 Kilkrazy wrote:
Yes indeed. My head was spinning by the end of the explanatin of Lewis Hamilton's jet.

His company in the British Virgin Isles bought it then leased it to his company somewhere else. This second company then leased it to a third company which provides his servicing and crew. Hamilton then rented it back at an inflated rate. In end, Hamilton was able to land it in the Isle of Man, claim £3.5 million refund of VAT, and fly all around Europe and the rest of the world.

I don't understand what the IoM got out of all this, and I don't understand why all of us ordinary people can't form similar Human Caterpillars of companies and lease our own houes, cars and clothes to each other to save the VAT.

Maybe we can? Maybe we should start doing that and watch the country spin down the plughole under the lack of taxes.

Isn't it traditional at this point for someone to point out that the top 10% pay more tax than the bottom 50% or something?

At this point, it's usually traditional in British history for the masses to march on parliament and turf the fethers out and start again!


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Herzlos wrote:

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:

Yeah, for sure, the Queen doesn't manage her portfolio, but ultimately, the buck stops with her. She may not know where every penny is going, but it's her duty to ask where her money goes and why it went there.

Should she also check that every food item entering the palace was make in a clean environment where all workers rights are satisfied? That none of the paint bought for the palace is lead free? That every staff member are getting breaks on time? That the PAT testing has been done for every appliance?

No. She has delegates she trusts to do that management (same as Monty and ammo). Sure, she's entitled to ask for a breakdown of her investments, but she's also perfectly entitlted to leave the details to her investment managers. There may even be a few levels of indirection, like her manager has invested some money in a 50/50 fund or a FTSE100 or something, of which that fund has some offshoring.

As already pointed out, none of this seems to be illegal, and HRH isn't under any actual obligation to pay tax anyway, so can't really be accused of tax evasion.

No, I don't expect the Queen to know the exact number of every paperclip in Buckingham palace, but it's her job to watch the delegates and ask the touch questions.

It's a principal akin to command responsibility under the Geneva convention. The buck stops here, as Harry Truman once said.


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Skullhammer wrote:
And of course the queen is a vitural 'prisioner' as her every move out side of her residence is strictly controlled and monitored. Hell she would have to ask permission to go to the coner shop (if she ever did). She is under vertual house arrest and has been scince birth, i wouldnt like the lack of freedom, even if payed a fortune.

There 's a lot of people on a lot of council estates the length and breadth of Britain who'd love to be that kind of 'prisoner.'


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nfe wrote:
Boris indignantly refusing to apologise and, to boot, has just claimed in parliament that his words have nothing to do with what is happening to Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe.

I watched Bojo's statement to the house, and it was a sham from start to finish.

He even talked about the Syrian Democratic forces with a straight face.

You also seem to forget the Queen is a 91+ year old who is still in daily public service. To simply expect her to follow and ask constant questions is unrealistic to say the least.

Well, I never!

It's official: Brexit was good for the nation's wellbeing.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-41893598

No doubt reds8n will be along with pie charts and graphs to prove otherwise

but we have black and white evidence that Brexit was a sound move

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:

but we have black and white evidence that Brexit was a sound move

Are you trying to start a riot?

 Kilkrazy wrote:
.Maybe we can? Maybe we should start doing that and watch the country spin down the plughole under the lack of taxes.

You can do this, but it's not straightforward.
You set up a company which you own. You then employ yourself on minimum wage. Your company contracts out it's employee to another company. Because you're on minimum wage you (employee) pay little tax and can claim from yourself (company) bonuses and business expenses.
You (company) are so small you don't pay a great deal in business tax. You also get the bonus of giving your employee a pension scheme that, because you (company) are employing you (employee), the government has to match.

One difficult part is in finding a company that will subcontract to your company. If you're working for a tech company that's pretty easy, but you won't be able to do it stacking shelves at Tesco.

The really difficult part is keeping on top of your accounts. Unless you're skilled or have the time to learn you'll need to hire an accountant, at which point if you're on a low wage you've just spent all that money you were trying to save.

Once again, it's a situation where only those with the money can afford to take advantage and financially benefit.

Isn't it traditional at this point for someone to point out that the top 10% pay more tax than the bottom 50% or something?

It's true. But when the top 10% has 50% of the money they bloody well better pay that much.

Correlation does not prove causation.

Personally speaking my well-being improved immensely as I went from unemployed to skivvy to off-licence manager to anti-piracy officer at OUP.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Correlation does not prove causation.

Personally speaking my well-being improved immensely as I went from unemployed to skivvy to off-licence manager to anti-piracy officer at OUP.

Not your orthodox career path, but I like it


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 Ketara wrote:

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:

but we have black and white evidence that Brexit was a sound move

Are you trying to start a riot?

No, just adding some balance to the mix. My opposition to the EU is well known on these boards, but I'm not a Brexit extremist.

I'm happy to praise the EU when they take on Amazon and Apple, but on balance, I obviously think we're better off out.

 Henry wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
.Maybe we can? Maybe we should start doing that and watch the country spin down the plughole under the lack of taxes.

You can do this, but it's not straightforward.
You set up a company which you own. You then employ yourself on minimum wage. Your company contracts out it's employee to another company. Because you're on minimum wage you (employee) pay little tax and can claim from yourself (company) bonuses and business expenses.
You (company) are so small you don't pay a great deal in business tax. You also get the bonus of giving your employee a pension scheme that, because you (company) are employing you (employee), the government has to match.

One difficult part is in finding a company that will subcontract to your company. If you're working for a tech company that's pretty easy, but you won't be able to do it stacking shelves at Tesco.

The really difficult part is keeping on top of your accounts. Unless you're skilled or have the time to learn you'll need to hire an accountant, at which point if you're on a low wage you've just spent all that money you were trying to save.

Once again, it's a situation where only those with the money can afford to take advantage and financially benefit.

Isn't it traditional at this point for someone to point out that the top 10% pay more tax than the bottom 50% or something?

It's true. But when the top 10% has 50% of the money they bloody well better pay that much.

IR35 attempts to solve this fake contractor issue, as they are all over the place. The issue is that these contractors come up with more and more elaborate lies to pretend they are not employees. The contractor legislation as it is harms everyone.

There are low paid contractors who get screwed over with pretend contractors status so companies are not bound by minimum wage, pension, holiday or unfair dismissal laws.

There are high paid contractors who know they are employees who come up with more and more elaborate lies to ensure that they pay less tax, but they also know that they are too vital to a company to get rid of or are in an industry where most of the people are contractors, for example project manager. Where I work we lost a load of contractors recently because being public sector we are now being audited on IR35 compliance and have obligations not to let our contractors commit this from fraud.

With regards to the top 10% paying 50% and owning 50%, they are not the problem. By income I am in the top 10%, but I don’t even pay higher rate tax (buy wealth I am not, but mostly due to not being old enough to have paid off much mortgage). Even the top 1% includes “normal” people like your GP or local solicitors. The issue is the top 0.1% who pay a far smaller amount of tax but own the vast majority of that 50%. But they like to push this story that they pay a fair amount of tax buy lumping themselves in with the right percentage of middle class who happily pay most of the tax, or using statistics about their contributions to the economy by including all the contributors of the people that work for them, as if the CEO of a building company (for example) is key to the bricklayers skills. Lies, dam lies and statistics.



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 Kilkrazy wrote:
Correlation does not prove causation.

Personally speaking my well-being improved immensely as I went from unemployed to skivvy to off-licence manager to anti-piracy officer at OUP.

I found the same thing when I worked at OUP. Mostly because I love an office where you can get a cooked breakfast or a latte at any time. Probably good I left. At least at the time my pay was low enough that it was an occasional treat. Now I would be so unhealthy if I was still there!

 Steve steveson wrote:
IR35 attempts to solve this fake contractor issue, as they are all over the place. The issue is that these contractors come up with more and more elaborate lies to pretend they are not employees. The contractor legislation as it is harms everyone.

Well that explains why you can't do it working for Tesco. But most of the time it's got to be tough for HMRC to prove that these contarcted one employee companies are doing the job of a full time employee and not that of a contractor.

Good post Steve.


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 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
It's official: Brexit was good for the nation's wellbeing.

Indeed, if by well being it is meant the feeling of happiness and satisfaction as was asked in the questionnaire.

By that definition the same could be said for binge drinking and heroin.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-41895387


tucked away in the bowels of the article....

He also accused the EU of being guilty of "extreme protectionism".
Mr Ross, who met Theresa May and other senior ministers during a two-day visit, identified continued "passporting" of financial services, compliance with EU food standards on GM crops and chlorine-washed chicken and future trade tariffs as areas that could pose problems in negotiations between the nations.
But he said it would not be possible to identify specific points of contention until the shape of the divorce deal is known and insisted he hopes a UK-US free trade agreement will take less than 10 years to negotiate.

10 years.




gotta laugh at someone from the Trump administration accusing others of being too protectionist

 Ketara wrote:
Edit:- This is a ludicrous line of argument to be pursuing, so I'm actually going to erase my last comment and leave it there. Suffice to say Whirlwind, I think you and I have some exceptionally fundamental disagreements about the definition of the word 'racism'.

Wait you've only just worked this out? I think I could have pointed that this was the case many months ago...



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 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
Well, I never!

It's official: Brexit was good for the nation's wellbeing.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-41893598

No doubt reds8n will be along with pie charts and graphs to prove otherwise

but we have black and white evidence that Brexit was a sound move

The problem is that there has been a general trend of increasing well being since way before the Wrexit vote. The increases is roughly the same as the increases we've seen for a number of years. These statistics are generally meaningless without a detailed review of people across the employment spectrum. I doubt for example the poorest who have to use food banks more and more because of increasing food prices as a direct result of Wrexit are more content with life. There are too many factors that could easily be at play here (for example those suffering under the current cruel Tory regime may simply be dropping out of the system as they can no longer afford phone lines, internet access and so on.

On the other hand if you are clinging to such a ridiculous notion I would point out that this is probably the feeling from going out on town, getting blind drunk and going home with someone. It's just you have not yet rolled over in the morning to find the person is an absolute basket case - just like Wrexit is...

Of course it shouldn't be a surprise that some might think its all green fields and it's going to be a wonderful thing. In reality though retail is stalling (except food)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-41886330

and investment is 20% *lower* than the BoE predicted as a result of voting Wrexit.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/11/05/britain-would-booming-wasnt-brexit-mark-carney-says/


On the other hand there are whole organisations that manage day to day activities that our politicians haven't even considered as to how to cost and implements - that includes Aviation Safety Agency, the European Food Safety Authority and the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control all of which we'd drop out of in case of a hard Wrexit.

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/mary-creagh-eu-agencies_uk_5a003b1be4b0baea263318c6?utm_hp_ref=uk-politics

It's fine! We will be getting £350 million a week to cover the cost! (Actually amount may differ. In fact it will probably be about 3s6d by the time we have paid off all the stuff we owe, taken out what we get back in rebate, EU funding and grants, revalued for the horrific damage to our currency and returned to the 1950s.

Ketara wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
The problem is not illegal behaviour, it is that the authorities have allowed this kind of behaviour (e.g. Lewis Hamilton's VAT refund for his private jet) to be legal.

Aye. You see one statement repeated over and over with every fresh revelation from people's spokesmen. Namely 'Everything is perfectly legal'. Which is, in and of itself, the problem. It's legal for the richest people not to pay any tax.

And it's only legal because the people who are already rich and have the power made it legal. It's not like the population in general decided that it would be a great idea for the rich to be able to avoid paying taxes with a few extra steps while the same accounting tricks are, more or less, useless for the rest of us.

Ketara wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:

Isn't it traditional at this point for someone to point out that the top 10% pay more tax than the bottom 50% or something?

That's an argument that always makes me laugh when Amazon or someone makes it. My favourite is where they say 'We have invested x amount of money in Britain and created x number of jobs', as if they expect us to be grateful that they graciously deign to run their business here, when we all know that the only reason that they've done such things is because they think that they can turn a profit by doing so.

The obvious retort that 'Many other large companies have also done those things and yet somehow find it in their hearts to pay their taxes' never quite seems to be aired by the newspapers, however. Probably because the owners of those papers are doing exactly the same thing. How much did the Barclay Brothers pay last year again? Or Mr Lebedev? A quick check shows Mr Murdoch hasn't paid corporation tax in over a decade!

The whole thing is laughable. Yet governments refuse to prosecute it because donations from these people is what keeps the party coffers full.

Amazon and other companies should pay more (in % and amount) than us regular people. If I use public transportation (or a car if I had one) I use a tiny amount of public resources (wear and tear for rails/road, environmental pollution,…) while Amazon has fleets of trucks, trains, and planes that "work for them" (so to speak) by delivering stuff. The companies benefit from that in addition to the general bonus of being afforded an educated population that they can employ as needed (giving them flexibility) and general law and order (making commerce, and their profits, possible).

I think it was some Austrian politician who said that some random independent local retail store pays more in taxes than Apple because Apple sells their own products to their own stores (in Austria) for an inflated price. That way their stores make no profit (lease, employees, and so on cost them something) but their Irish subsidiary with the lowest tax rate collects all the money. In addition to that Apple has/had some deal with Ireland that the EU is contesting. It gave them a 0.001% tax rate (or something similarly ridiculous low).

Whenever a company mentions that what they are doing is perfectly legal you can be sure that they are fething somebody over in some way (otherwise they wouldn't mention the legality of the situation). It's how some people defend some rubbish statement they made with the free speech argument when their speech has no other merit besides being legal. They are most probably just being a dick to someone and can't stand the fact that people are pushing back.

Apparently "Lack of precision" is the new colourful way of describing alternative facts.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-41896756

Priti Patel breaks the ministerial code and meets with Israeli officials unofficially 12 times. Apparently UK policy has not been changed, but strangely she has suggested that part of the UK's foreign aid budget should go to the Israeli army to help with humanitarian causes.

Got to say, I don't like her anyway, she seems arrogant, pompous and self righteous. But this sort of gak is really playing into her detractors hands.

With luck, she'll get the boot too. I honestly cannot see how this Govt can even function at the moment. It seems to be spiralling wildly out of control on all fronts. I have to ask, have the Conservatives actually lost their minds?

One scandal follows another -- bigger, smaller, bigger, smaller --like those serial explosion scenes in an episode of Thunderbirds.

There are half a dozen Tory MPs who would be sacked immediately if May wasn't a broken reed of a PM with no working majority.

Mrs Patel is clearly unfit for her office. So is Bozo. The assistant PM is under investigation for extreme porn. A Welsh assembly member commits suicide after being accused of sexual harassment and left out to hang in the wind.

Meanwhile the country faces its most difficult international situation for decades, and the economy wobbles uncertainly.

Mario wrote:
Whenever a company mentions that what they are doing is perfectly legal you can be sure that they are fething somebody over in some way (otherwise they wouldn't mention the legality of the situation).

Pretty much what the royal estate has responded with now its revealed the Queen and Prince Charles have offshore investments. When you know your actions are morallly or ethically indefensible, saying ‘it’s legal’ is the bare minimum. It also puts people’s backs up because it smacks of rubbing their faces in it.

Better still, Charles failed to declare his interests when lobbying for changes that benefited them.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-41901175

The reason these tax loopholes don’t close up is that people running our country profit by them. And they don’t look beyond their own wealth to the good of the country.

Turns out Patel had even more undisclosed meeting wealth Israeli officials in September.

She's got to go or May's authority is in total shreds.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
She's got to go or May's authority is in total shreds.

It already is. It's why May can't get rid of anyone no matter how badly they feth up.

DD, 13 days ago, Dexeu Committee:
“Of the 57” sectoral impact assessments “They are in excruciating detail”






7th of November




so 2 weeks or so ago there were papers prepared in "excruciating detail", so much so that the Pm et al could not be reasonably expected to read them.

..but now they don't exist.. ?


If they don't exist.. why the hell not ? What have they actually been doing ?

It's been 16 months. You would think the government would have managed to prepare some impact statements by now.

In unrelated news, Priti Patel has been summoned back from Uganda early, following more revelations about unauthorised meetings.

My money says she's toast.

 Kilkrazy wrote:

In unrelated news, Priti Patel has been summoned back from Uganda early, following more revelations about unauthorised meetings.

My money says she's toast.

It's getting much worse than that. Jewish Chronicle have revealed that No. 10 knew about all meetings as of Friday, including the September one (which they told Patel to omit from her statement on Monday), and knew about most of the summer ones whilst they were taking place, but seems to have chucked Patel under the bus - maybe because they were trying to conduct diplomacy without the involvement of the foreign office/Boris?

Some laugh, whatever is happening.

nfe wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:

In unrelated news, Priti Patel has been summoned back from Uganda early, following more revelations about unauthorised meetings.

My money says she's toast.

It's getting much worse than that. Jewish Chronicle have revealed that No. 10 knew about all meetings as of Friday, including the September one (which they told Patel to omit from her statement on Monday), and knew about most of the summer ones whilst they were taking place, but seems to have chucked Patel under the bus - maybe because they were trying to conduct diplomacy without the involvement of the foreign office/Boris?

Some laugh, whatever is happening.

Agreed. The stench of decay hangs over this government in a way that reminds me of the dying days of the John Major premiership.

A lame duck PM, a washed up chancellor, renegade cabinet ministers, a sack of gak for a foreign secretary, corruption and incompetence...

99 times out of 100, I would be dancing in the streets at the collapse of another Tory government

But we're in the most important talks this country has ever been involved in since the war. These talks will determine our future for decades to come...

And we have a government who couldn't organise a funeral in a graveyard...

Party before country. It really should be the Conservative party motto.

Which is why you should take into consideration whether the government is capable enough to handle such talks and negotiations before insisting they do so.

It was pointed out many times that the UK lacked negotiation experience compared to the EU and that our cabinet ministers were useless. Don't blame the government for being useless in important negotiations when you knew they were useless but insisted they begin negotiations anyway.

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:

But we're in the most important talks this country has ever been involved in since the war. These talks will determine our future for decades to come...

And we have a government who couldn't organise a funeral in a graveyard...

We told you that in May last year :(

 A Town Called Malus wrote:
Which is why you should take into consideration whether the government is capable enough to handle such talks and negotiations before insisting they do so.

It was pointed out many times that the UK lacked negotiation experience compared to the EU and that our cabinet ministers were useless. Don't blame the government for being useless in important negotiations when you knew they were useless but insisted they begin negotiations anyway.

And as I've pointed out before, just because the Tories are useless, doesn't make Brexit a bad idea

If we were to judge aviation solely on the basis of the Wright brother's plane, we'd have never have gotten off the ground.


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Herzlos wrote:

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:

But we're in the most important talks this country has ever been involved in since the war. These talks will determine our future for decades to come...

And we have a government who couldn't organise a funeral in a graveyard...

We told you that in May last year :(

To use another analogy, we don't yet have the tech for a manned space flight to Mars, but who would argue against it? Very few people I'll wager.

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:
Which is why you should take into consideration whether the government is capable enough to handle such talks and negotiations before insisting they do so.

It was pointed out many times that the UK lacked negotiation experience compared to the EU and that our cabinet ministers were useless. Don't blame the government for being useless in important negotiations when you knew they were useless but insisted they begin negotiations anyway.

And as I've pointed out before, just because the Tories are useless, doesn't make Brexit a bad idea

If we were to judge aviation solely on the basis of the Wright brother's plane, we'd have never have gotten off the ground.

Except the Wright Brothers did get off the ground, thus proving the feasibility of heavier than air powered flight.

Nobody has yet proved any feasibility of our government to successfully negotiate Brexit.

The tories being useless does make Brexit a terrible idea at this time. That does not mean it is a terrible idea in the future when we (supposedly) have a competent government and more civil servants with trade negotiation experience.

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:

To use another analogy, we don't yet have the tech for a manned space flight to Mars, but who would argue against it? Very few people I'll wager.

Not many would insist we should send the first shuttle in no less than two years, either.


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Ha'aretz now reporting that there was a 13th meeting in Israel in the summer. At an IDF field hospital in the Golan (which the UK does not recognise as being Israeli).

What a shambles.

nfe wrote:

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:

To use another analogy, we don't yet have the tech for a manned space flight to Mars, but who would argue against it? Very few people I'll wager.

Not many would insist we should send the first shuttle in no less than two years, either.

Or to do so without the required experience in our mission controllers and engineers.

If Nasa proposed a manned flight to mars without even having completed a remote controlled sample return and several manned tests of the craft flying out to Mars and performing docking dry runs, I would certainly be arguing against it and I strongly believe that we should get people on other planets.