The 12 tax dodgers of Christmas

Probably a repost, but thought it might be worth sharing

https://secure.38degrees.org.uk/pages/tax_dodgers_guide

https://s3.amazonaws.com/38degrees.3cdn.net/3bc9acb0ed3c58f562_nom6ikntj.pdf

Makes me very annoyed!

 

A nice list of companies we should try to not purchase from ! Remember they are cheating all of us , especially the honest firms. We know its kind of "legal", but it is time Europe got its tax laws sorted out , and make the tax parasite countries like Luxembourg and Switzerland no go areas.

 

I have mixed feeling about this. Yes its wrong, is it wrong for the nation in the long run considering all the alternatives (I'm not siding, I just don't know).

Lets say Google (for example) gets told to pay all the taxes they've been dodging. Great, if they stay, but what if they decide its no longer economical for them to operate out of Britain? I'm not sure how big Google UK is, but I know they have a massive office in London, and must presumably pay a fair few people in Britain to work for them, paying income tax into the British government and contributing to the economy in Britain.

If Google was to up sticks and leave the UK, then presumably everyone that works for them would be looking for another job, and all the contracts they have with the likes of BT for comms infrastructure would have to be left to expire.

I'm not saying that Google (and the likes) should not pay their dues, but I think as is usually the case, its not quite as simple as the campaign groups would have us believe. Its like some boffin from history once said, "Every action has an equal and opposite reaction".

And closer to home too. I believe both Jersey and Isle of Man are both tax havens, and they're even British.

 

I use both Amazon and ebay, quite honestly their tax situation is of no interest to me whatsoever as both offer extremely good value for money!!

Val

 

My sentiments exactly. I really couldn't give a damn.

 

The profits that some of the companies make go towards the pension funds of their employees in this country too. They pay VAT on every transaction here.

Its not as straightforward as it seems. What does seem straightforward is that our government is getting desparate to be seen to be getting money into the treasury.

 

They can always put up the price of cigarettes & beer!!!!!!!!

Val

 

You'll know it if they are truely desparate, they'll reverse the budget decision of 1960

 

As an ex accountant i am getting fed up with all of this crap.One of their roles is to minimize tax liabilities.As in the Jimmy Carr case nothing the companies have done is illegal.I am fairly sure George and the boys have their own highly skilled tax advisors who are minimizing their liabilities.These companies still pay business rates and items such as employers NIC.

 

Britain, as it stands, is stuffed. It has to change in order to compete with other countries. Until our government (whichever one) realises this, we'll remain on a steady downhill slide to oblivion.

The cause is simple, as is the solution. The cause is that bureaucracy has replaced common sense. The solution is to reinstate common sense and reduce bureaucracy.

Lets consider an example. I'll choose a winter themed example seeing as its winter

Farmers tend to have lots of heavy machinery. A modern tractor is a huge beast of a machine, and costs an absolute fortune. Harvest is done, ploughing is done, there's not that much use for that tractor now for a few months.

Over the next few months, the economy will suffer the double whammy of loss of money to the economy because of lost business because of the inevitable travel chaos that we get when it snows, and the immense cost to the councils to pay for the machines (gritters and snow ploughs) to try to keep the roads open. Those tractors on the farms could easily push a snow plough or tow gritting gear, and the farmers that drive those machines are perfectly capable of driving them, so why not save the government money by reducing the fleet of of gritters and snow ploughs, and paying the farmers a few bob extra to come out and do it instead? Because first of all the farmer would have to drain the red diesel out of his machines, and replace it with regular diesel so as to avoid getting stung by HM Revenue and Customs. Once he's done that he'll have to sort out his different insurance policies so he can be insured for his work on the roads, and of course he'd have to work out exactly where he was to go and when, and who to submit his time sheets to and he'd have to make sure he didn't accidental cross a county boundary otherwise he'd have to sort it all out with another council.

That's just one example. We can learn a lot from other countries. In Spain for example certain pharmacists are allowed to make diagnoses for less serious ailments and sell you prescription drugs to treat them, thus reducing the need for expensive GPs, which they still need but only for stuff that's beyond the expertise of the pharmacist. A taxi driver can claim his fare off the government for taking an emergency case to hospital, reducing the need for expensive ambulances, and freeing up their fleet of ambulances for more serious needs. In France, I believe nobody can sue you for trying to help, as long as it is clear that you acted with the best intentions. That means ordinary people can help each other (for example in cases of broken down vehicles or minor accidents) instead of having to leave it to the 'relevant authorities'.

Britain is so departmentalised, everything is someone else's job, and nobody is allowed to even consider how their work might overlap with someone else's, so in effect we have to pay for everything twice. Its got like that because too much is privately owned. The farmer is never going to be asked to clear snow from roads as long as a private firm has an exclusive contract to do the work and get paid an insane amount for doing so (while the actual workers get a basic wage at best). That's why the country is skint, and will continue to be skint for the foreseeable future until someone in power learns how to coordinate resources.

 

Nothing to do with banks, sub-prime mortages, excessive borrowing, then?

 

If you drop a ten pound note down a drain, then the drain is partly to blame for swallowing your money. Just as if you set up a government body to regulate the financial sector, and then turn a blind eye while they relieve everybody else of their money, then the financial sector is partly to blame.

The government were quick to blame the banks, but it was the government that set the rules that the banks worked by, and when the banks bent the rules, the government knew they were doing it, and did nothing.

A bank has no reason at all to act in the best interests of the nation. As a PLC their first responsibility is to their shareholders. That's the law. Don't get me wrong, I'm not defending them for a second. Just like a cant defend a shark that eats an innocent swimmer, but everybody knows its the nature of the beast. The FSA was set up to monitor and regulate the beast. The FSA is a government body. It let the beast run riot and do its own thing because for a while there was the illusion by short sighted individuals that the gamble was paying off, but like every gamble, sooner or later it goes pear shaped. The FSA was there to ensure that not too much was gambled and that everyone got a reasonably fair deal, and that transactions were realistic. The FSA did nothing, and then the nation almost went bust.

Now we're skint. No more so than we were before, its just that everybody has realised it. Its like we were living off the ever growing overdraft because money kept coming out of the cash point, and then someone did a balance enquiry.

None of that changes the fact that we're broke because we throw our money away like its going out of fashion.

Here's a thing. I spent a significant chunk of my career working on a high profile government contract. While I was picking up about £90 per day (my salary), my time was being charged to the government at a rate of £750 per day for project work, on top of the £330 per day retainer, and I wasn't even senior. Ok, the private company I worked for had to make a profit. But my kit was billed to the gov, my desk was, and even the rent for our office was billed to the gov. At the peak of the project, there were about 2000 of us working on it. That means you and I were paying (via our taxes) around £2 million per day just for staff for that project, while the actual cost of it was more like £100k per day if the government had hired us directly to fulfil the contract. This is normal, standard practice. Its called privatisation. It means the government can blame someone else if it goes wrong. Since the Freedom of Information act came out, it also means its easier to withhold information from the public (because the FoI act only applies to public bodies), and it means private companies are only too happy to tie the government into exclusive contracts rather than sharing resources, because its a very profitable way to work. Its also why we're skint.

 

Well you've got my vote

 

If they had to pay UK corporation tax, it would make no difference if they left
As they would still need the warehouses and staff in the UK to continue the rapid distribution,
If they did not then delivery would be too slow and we would all shop elsewhere

Jack McH

 

How many people have ISA's, legal way of not paying Tax

No one likes paying Tax, so if there's a legal way not to pay tax an accountant will do it for the company