Google Avoids £450 Million UK Tax

Robbie G said:
Not if you know what you're talking about.
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I wasn't saying legally they are, I'm saying in their meaning they are.

It's remind me of, say I have a family member who for some reason I want dead. Now they totally depend on me. If I didn't feed them for a month, there's nothing illegal about that, but if I murdered them there is. I see it the same way with tax avoidance vs tax evading. One might be legal, but both are the scummiest activities known to man
 
dangerstat said:
If you want to trade in this country you pay what tax is due. If you avoid or evade it, you should be fined. Simple as that.
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What's the difference between avoidance and compliance? You're complying with the rules but have a lower tax bill if you completed x transaction now rather than in a years time.
 
dangerstat said:
Avoiding vs evading = semantics.

Anyone who tries to avoid / evade taxation should be fined heavily, and in my opinion have all their assets frozen and barred from any business activity. Rather than pandering to those who earn grotesque amounts, the govt should work smarter and faster to close any loop holes. The same goes for the "big four", systematic evidence of advice to the business community to avoid / evade taxation should be dealt with immediately - and harshly.

If you want to trade in this country you pay what tax is due. If you avoid or evade it, you should be fined. Simple as that.
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Tax avoidance involves paying what is due and nothing more.
 
Dolph said:
Tax avoidance involves paying what is due and nothing more.
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I know your argument Dolph but it really isn't that black and white. I think you could have teams of thousands of government policy makers spending decades forming the most highly sophisticated set of tax rules known to man, and still scum sucking tax specialists will worm there way out of paying what is due. Why? Because that's what there paid for, they are paid to defraud us.

These scum (sorry to use the word so much but I can't think of a better term) that call themselves tax specialists should be ashamed of themselves. They're a disgrace.
 
dangerstat said:
I know your argument Dolph but it really isn't that black and white. I think you could have teams of thousands of government policy makers spending decades forming the most highly sophisticated set of tax rules known to man, and still scum sucking tax specialists will worm there way out of paying what is due. Why? Because that's what there paid for, they are paid to defraud us.
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The solution to that problem is simple, straightfoward (and above all) low taxation practices. This of course also involves curtailing government spending to the necessary only, but this is not a bad thing given the inherent inefficiency of state spending.

These scum (sorry to use the word so much but I can't think of a better term) that call themselves tax specialists should be ashamed of themselves. They're a disgrace.
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Ad hom isn't really a substitute for reasonable debate. The tax system in the UK is excessively complicated, making it both easy to avoid and unnecessarily inefficient. A simple tax program would solve both these problems, making it harder to reduce the amount you pay, and reducing government wastage in the process. The other trick to raising tax revenues is to make it attractive for businesses to pay taxes here rather than elsewhere.
 
dangerstat said:
I know your argument Dolph but it really isn't that black and white. I think you could have teams of thousands of government policy makers spending decades forming the most highly sophisticated set of tax rules known to man, and still scum sucking tax specialists will worm there way out of paying what is due. Why? Because that's what there paid for, they are paid to defraud us.

These scum (sorry to use the word so much but I can't think of a better term) that call themselves tax specialists should be ashamed of themselves. They're a disgrace.
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If it's legal how is it defrauding anyone? The government get what they're owed by law, simple.
 
Dolph said:
The solution to that problem is simple, straightfoward (and above all) low taxation practices. This of course also involves curtailing government spending to the necessary only, but this is not a bad thing given the inherent inefficiency of state spending.



Ad hom isn't really a substitute for reasonable debate. The tax system in the UK is excessively complicated, making it both easy to avoid and unnecessarily inefficient. A simple tax program would solve both these problems, making it harder to reduce the amount you pay, and reducing government wastage in the process. The other trick to raising tax revenues is to make it attractive for businesses to pay taxes here rather than elsewhere.
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Personally I don't think lowering taxes is the best solution, moreover I don't feel it's the optimal position or the government to take. The optimal position (as I'm sure you'll agree) is to push taxes as high as they can go, whilst tackling tax avoidance and evasion, to the tipping point where companies are ****ed off but will optimality decide it's not financially viable to move.

The UK tax system is complex, imho, because the measure used by the "scum" is ever-so complicated. I would say it's difficult to reduce the complexity of the system without increasing the amount of scope the "scum" have to exploit loop holes.
 
dangerstat said:
Personally I don't think lowering taxes is the best solution, moreover I don't feel it's the optimal position or the government to take. The optimal position (as I'm sure you'll agree) is to push taxes as high as they can go, whilst tackling tax avoidance and evasion, to the tipping point where companies are ****ed off but will optimality decide it's not financially viable to move.

The UK tax system is complex, imho, because the measure used by the "scum" is ever-so complicated. I would say it's difficult to reduce the complexity of the system without increasing the amount of scope the "scum" have to exploit loop holes.
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It's complicated due to ad-hoc nature that tax law has been built up over the centuries. If you look at other 'younger' countries Australia for example their tax system is a lot simpler.
 
dangerstat said:
Personally I don't think lowering taxes is the best solution, moreover I don't feel it's the optimal position or the government to take. The optimal position (as I'm sure you'll agree) is to push taxes as high as they can go, whilst tackling tax avoidance and evasion, to the tipping point where companies are ****ed off but will optimality decide it's not financially viable to move.

The UK tax system is complex, imho, because the measure used by the "scum" is ever-so complicated. I would say it's difficult to reduce the complexity of the system without increasing the amount of scope the "scum" have to exploit loop holes.
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Ok, I've been holding back but you clearly have no idea how tax or economics works.

If you increase tax, companies will move. It's not that difficult or expensive these days. The best way to get rid of the "scum"? Make tax simple. I was recently told how one of our lecturers went to country where the only tax was 18%. Simple as that. No allowances, no reliefs, nothing. Just 18%. Guess how many tax consultants they had. I'll give you a clue, it's less than 10.

From a personal income tax point of view the best way to collect MORE tax would be a flat rate system. No complicated laws for kids tax relief, progressive rates or anything. People will be willing to work harder as they get more money, people will move from abroad, people will stop trying to avoid tax as it would cost more than it would save. Overall tax revenue would increase.
 
Kemik said:
Ok, I've been holding back but you clearly have no idea how tax or economics works.

If you increase tax, companies will move. It's not that difficult or expensive these days. The best way to get rid of the "scum"? Make tax simple. I was recently told how one of our lecturers went to country where the only tax was 18%. Simple as that. No allowances, no reliefs, nothing. Just 18%. Guess how many tax consultants they had. I'll give you a clue, it's less than 10.

From a personal income tax point of view the best way to collect MORE tax would be a flat rate system. No complicated laws for kids tax relief, progressive rates or anything. People will be willing to work harder as they get more money, people will move from abroad, people will stop trying to avoid tax as it would cost more than it would save. Overall tax revenue would increase.
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good post Kemik :)
 
dangerstat said:
Personally I don't think lowering taxes is the best solution, moreover I don't feel it's the optimal position or the government to take. The optimal position (as I'm sure you'll agree) is to push taxes as high as they can go, whilst tackling tax avoidance and evasion, to the tipping point where companies are ****ed off but will optimality decide it's not financially viable to move.
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We're already well beyond the point where companies will base themselves elsewhere, indeed that is exactly what google is doing already.

Pushing up taxes does not result in increased revenue if those paying taxes do not have to be based in the UK, this has been proven time and time again.

I don't agree that the optimal tax position is the highest you can get away with, the optimal position is the lowest taxation required to enable the government to perform it's necessary functions, we are way, way above that, because our government performs a lot of unnecessary functions in a very inefficient way.

The UK tax system is complex, imho, because the measure used by the "scum" is ever-so complicated. I would say it's difficult to reduce the complexity of the system without increasing the amount of scope the "scum" have to exploit loop holes.
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Simple income tax rules are very hard to circumvent, especially if there are minimum exemptions to hide behind.
 
As has been said by others, this is hardly big news or even remotely dodgy.

Simplified, you have a company in Ireland that is booking all the work. There is a UK company that employs a bunch of people to do some work. This cost is recharged out to Ireland.

Providing they have sufficient documentation in place to justify the charges for transactions with related parties ('transfer pricing'), then all is fine (i.e. it should be on an arm's length basis).

There's no way you can force them to carry out business through the UK company.
 
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Nate--IRL-- said:
Nonsense. Avoidance is legal. Evading is illegal. Those are legal definitions.
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Exactly. You can't just say 'you should pay the right amount'.

Take running a business - there are many ways you can extract money to remunerate yourself, all of which have different tax rates.

Which do you choose? The cheapest could be said to be 'avoiding' tax, but why would you voluntarily pick the most expensive?

Everybody 'avoids' tax as much as possible - you'd be daft not to.
 
Dangerstat - I've just spent 3 years studying tax and will hopefully soon find out that I've passed the second hardest professional qualification in the uk. To keep that qualification I need to do a huge amount of cpd as the tax system constantly changes. I can tell you that the uk tax system is incredibly complex.
 
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