Liechtenstein to give UK tax information

scorza said:
No come on, you're the one obsessed with fairness. Surely if it was unfair then people wouldn't put up with it and refuse pay rises?
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Are you for real? Even if you think it is unfair you would still rather have 60% of your earnings than nothing surely? I am sorry but your argument is utterly retarded. People "put up with it" because they have no choice.

scorza said:
The reason that they don't is because they know that it's perfectly fair that those who take the most out of the system put more back into it.
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Or they have no choice but to pay?
 
Hikari Kisugi said:
Define 'going out on a limb' exactly what have they to lose?
This is money generally made in the UK, or money belonging to UK residents who hold the money elsewhere to simply avoid paying tax like us poor people do.
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Read the thread, I have already defined it.

What they have to lose is money that is owed legally to the exchequer.

I don't know why you lot are finding this little concept so very hard to grasp.
 
zain said:
I understand the govt wants to be like Singapore (99% of transactions through card), therefore not a penny to go missing when dealing with tax obligations, however the way they go about it is really depressing.

For most real business people that earn millions it isn't an easy journey and they do pay their obligations, but to hunt down to the penny and eradicate all tax avoidance strategies really does leave a bitter taste on the people trying to succeed.
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Not really it works both ways. I've had a repayment claim from traders for 3p before.

I paid it because they were LEGALLY entitled to it. Just like we are entitled to the tax due down to the penny.
 
Biohazard said:
Read the thread, I have already defined it.

What they have to lose is money that is owed legally to the exchequer.

I don't know why you lot are finding this little concept so very hard to grasp.
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Well, given the government and it's agencies history of spending massive amounts of money for little or no gain (see SOCA for just one example), I wouldn't even put a bet on that there would be any net gain from this.
 
Dolph said:
Well, given the government and it's agencies history of spending massive amounts of money for little or no gain (see SOCA for just one example), I wouldn't even put a bet on that there would be any net gain from this.
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Need to wait till next year to find out, but the tax gap will never be closed completely. That is not to say they should not try. Massive amounts of money for no gain? I do not think that could be applied to tax avoidance /large business group, they are constantly assessing business and trade for risk, compliance and tax avoidance.

SOCA is starting to build up speed, although I find it odd sitting between Police and UKBA to be truthful for you. I am sure the recovered assets to cost ratio was negative. However, I am not a government mouthpiece!
 
Dolph said:
Well, given the government and it's agencies history of spending massive amounts of money for little or no gain (see SOCA for just one example), I wouldn't even put a bet on that there would be any net gain from this.
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A lot of things that SOCA do and get involved in do not make the headlines.

I can't argue though that the haven't made the gains that they were trumped to do and one has to wonder if the old National Crime Squad should have remained in force with sworn officers and not Government agents as SOCA employs who had to resign their commission in the police force to join them.
 
I can, because I have the figures from their own reports, using their own performance metrics, to support it.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/new...Soca-spending-15-for-every-1-it-recovers.html

Soca has received around £1.2bn since it began in 2006 but has so far only recovered £78 million from criminals, MPs were told.

Sir Stephen Lander, it's outgoing chairman, also admitted the organisation had underestimated the scale of crimelords and gangs it had to tackle.
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and also I'll reference a post I made previously in SC about the issue.

http://www.soca.gov.uk/assessPublications/downloads/SOCAAnnualRep2006_7.pdf

That's their annual report for 2006-2007. I refer you to pay 33 of the PDF.

In 2005, the then Home Secretary described a range of ways in which SOCA’s progress towards the longer
term aim of harm reduction would be assessed. Of these, the two that should appear first as SOCA
develops are:
• growth in SOCA’s own capacity to make a difference, with particular focus on the quality of
understanding of organised crime; and
• performance in asset recovery work.
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I am assessing them by the exact same standards they set themselves, and they fail, and not just a little.

We can also look at conviction numbers...

Figures show that the Serious Organised Crime Agency achieved 243 convictions in 2007-08 for drug trafficking, a 27 per cent fall compared to the 309 convictions under its predecessor the National Crime Squad in 2005/06.

The disappointing performance comes despite the body boasting a budget of £452million and 4,000 staff and spending more than half of its time trying to tackle class A drugs crimes.

There was also a similar poor showing last year in 2006/07 when SOCA - described as the "British FBI" - only achieved 236 convictions for drug trafficking offences.

Over the same period, recorded drugs offences as logged by the police jumped from 178,000 to 229,000 in England and Wales.

The Tories said that the poor performance was at odds with comments from Home Secretary Jacqui Smith who boasted in Parliament in January "we have seized record amounts of drugs, disrupting and dismantling organised drug trafficking groups".
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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/new...king-convictions-fall-under-Britains-FBI.html



We can also look at their 2009 report.

http://www.policeoracle.com/news/SOCA-Annual-Report-2008-09_19181.html

And ask whether the number of convictions and the issues 'solved' in the report mean that we are getting value for money from them.

So I'll ask again, what value for money benefit are they providing?
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If the whole operation is not a classic example of massive government wastage, I'm not sure what is. It's not just failed due to publicly percieved metrics, but by the metrics it measures itself on.
 
"Sir Stephen said the actual money seized did not include assets and cash that have been restrained and that overall criminals had been stopped from using some £460 million." From your article.

SOCA do more than confiscate, so it doesn't supprise me the cost of running the department exceeds what is brought in seized assets. Its aim is to distrupt and impact on crime - investigate laundering and drug crime.

I personally would give them longer, as they were shadowing other law enforcement departments and business streams. Other than that I refused a move to SOCA and UKBA so I cannot comment further.
 
Biohazard said:
"Sir Stephen said the actual money seized did not include assets and cash that have been restrained and that overall criminals had been stopped from using some £460 million." From your article.

SOCA do more than confiscate, so it doesn't supprise me the cost of running the department exceeds what is brought in seized assets. Its aim is to distrupt and impact on crime - investigate laundering and drug crime.
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Read their annual report, I've even quoted the relevant paragraph. Their performance in asset recovery is one of their key performance indicators. And they are abysmal at it.

With regards to their investigations in to drug crime, do you know how many people they arrested in 2007?

Figures show that the Serious Organised Crime Agency achieved 243 convictions in 2007-08 for drug trafficking, a 27 per cent fall compared to the 309 convictions under its predecessor the National Crime Squad in 2005/06.
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Hardly a ringing endorsment, nor is the 21 firearms they recovered in 2008...

I personally would give them longer, as they were shadowing other law enforcement departments and business streams. Other than that I refused a move to SOCA and UKBA so I cannot comment further.
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I just see a colossal waste of taxpayer's money, and it's not just this one department, the vast majority of government departments are massive wastes of money that provide insufficient benefit to justify the cost to the taxpayer.
 
I'm reading it just now. Yes very good, but they also say they have or are in the process of holding and recovering a lot more. Again, I do not think three years is long enough for them to get their feet or impartially deduce performance as there really is nothing for a direct comparison. If in five years arrest and seizures are similar then I don't see any point.

I never understood the reason for the creation of SOCA, it was spouted as being a knocking shop for some law enforcement professions to get together and become a super hit squad, all under one roof. Greater co-op etc I think the reality for them has just been a little harder than that. Essentially the same for UKBA. I don't think it is value for money - at the moment. Wait and see.
 
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Biohazard said:
I'm reading it just now. Yes very good, but they also say they have or are in the process of holding and recovering a lot more. Again, I do not think three years is long enough for them to get their feet or impartially deduce performance as there really is nothing for a direct comparison. If in five years arrest and seizures are similar then I don't see any point.

I never understood the reason for the creation of SOCA, it was spouted as being a knocking shop for some law enforcement professions to get together and become a super hit squad, all under one roof. Greater co-op etc I think the reality for them has just been a little harder than that. Essentially the same for UKBA. I don't think it is value for money - at the moment. Wait and see.
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I think one of the reasons. however controversial, is that Labour have never been a fan of the office of Constable and seemingly do not like their allegiance being to the Crown and not the government.

All SOCA officers have to resign as sworn Constables on joining them and they effectively become government agents.

They are known as Agent Smith for example and not DC Smith.
 
Von Smallhausen said:
I think one of the reasons. however controversial, is that Labour have never been a fan of the office of Constable and seemingly do not like their allegiance being to the Crown and not the government.

All SOCA officers have to resign as sworn Constables on joining them and they effectively become government agents.

They are known as Agent Smith for example and not DC Smith.
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You would have to resign as a sworn commissioned officer from any LE agency to move to SOCA because of the legallities of their operation. SOCA does not use crown commissions. Other departments are going down this way - scrapping commissions.

It is nothing to do with allegiance to crown, as the whole of parliament is anyway.

That is not different to the security services in the MI branches - of course because they are and have always been labelled agents mean that it is a snub to the crown? How ridiculous. I assume that agent was used as this was supposed to be a crime agency based on rough FBI dimensions and that they have 'agents' out in the field worldwide as well as in the UK.
 
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Biohazard said:
You would have to resign as a sworn commissioned officer from any LE agency to move to SOCA because of the legallities of their operation. SOCA does not use crown commissions. Other departments are going down this way - scrapping commissions.

It is nothing to do with allegiance to crown, as the whole of parliament is anyway.
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There is no reason to swear alliegence to the government rather than the crown for SOCA, it was never required for the national crime squad. I think Von has got the reason down perfectly.

That is not different to the security services in the MI branches - of course because they are and have always been labelled agents mean that it is a snub to the crown? How ridiculous. I assume that agent was used as this was supposed to be a crime agency based on rough FBI dimensions and that they have 'agents' out in the field worldwide as well as in the UK.
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The MI branches don't serve the government, they serve the crown.

There is literally no reason for the action taken by Labour apart from as a snub.
 
Dolph said:
There is no reason to swear alliegence to the government rather than the crown for SOCA, it was never required for the national crime squad. I think Von has got the reason down perfectly.



The MI branches don't serve the government, they serve the crown.

There is literally no reason for the action taken by Labour apart from as a snub.
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There is no reason to get all jumped up whether it is crown or government imo. I would love it if every living being snubbed those inbred cretins, they mean nothing and are nothing but an archaic old tradition. If that is how you feel I wholeheartedly apload labour for this, only if it gets up royalists noses. Crown tends to be synonymous with government. It is after all her government. I'm sure she took it very personally as well.

You are just a pair of pendants!
 
Biohazard said:
There is no reason to get all jumped up whether it is crown or government imo. I would love it if every living being snubbed those inbred cretins, they mean nothing and are nothing but an archaic old tradition. If that is how you feel I wholeheartedly apload labour for this, only if it gets up royalists noses. Crown tends to be synonymous with government. It is after all her government. I'm sure she took it very personally as well.

You are just a pair of pendants!
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There is a major reason, if your alliegence is to the government, you can't investigate them impartially when they **** up, and committing criminal or borderline criminal activities has been rampant throughout the labour administration, from cash for honours through vote tampering to fraudulent expenses claims. I can certainly see why Labour would want to restrict the ability of law enforcement to investigate their activities...

As for the rest of the anti-royal rant, would you really prefer the elected people we've had over the last 20 years (thatcher, major, Blair, Brown) to be our head of state? Do you somehow think that would benefit the country? And that's without the fact that the royal family provides a net profit to the state, they are a very good investment.
 
Dolph said:
There is a major reason, if your alliegence is to the government, you can't investigate them impartially when they **** up, and committing criminal or borderline criminal activities has been rampant throughout the labour administration, from cash for honours through vote tampering to fraudulent expenses claims. I can certainly see why Labour would want to restrict the ability of law enforcement to investigate their activities...

As for the rest of the anti-royal rant, would you really prefer the elected people we've had over the last 20 years (thatcher, major, Blair, Brown) to be our head of state? Do you somehow think that would benefit the country? And that's without the fact that the royal family provides a net profit to the state, they are a very good investment.
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I do not see it like that at all. Cash for peers and questions has been about a lot longer than the last decade. Police do investigate those activities, however I would be more concerned about the politcal Chief Met position.

I just do not think we should have her as head of state. I think their loss would benefit the country. At best I think that the vast majority of the Royals should have their handouts stopped completely, the ruling monarch and the next in line to the throne should still continue to be supported. No other member of the Royal Family should be supported by the British public. I'd rather have my 67p than them live it up like medevial serf masters. I am well aware of the financial differences between the Crown Estates and the Civil List. If it had not been for George III they would have still been riding rough shot over the populus. It is not the finances as such, just my political view. They only provide that surplus because of the position afforded to them. Get rid of them take the money and make long term investments. Whats the difference? Could make some pretty penny from the fake crown they twaddle about in.

Look at the damage the Institution has done to British culture since William the Conqueror! :p

Also why do I have to pay for that ugly tubby princess to go cavorting around the world? 8940th in line for the thone or whatever. ridiculous. Save up your royal pocket money and pay for it yourself.
 
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