Should Gary Barlow return his OBE?

Also don't really care. He has become a bit of an icon for a lot of Brits (depressingly) which could lead to them being somewhat disappointed. How ever those who love him probably aren't of high enough intelligence to realise what has even happened in this instance.
 
Legal or not. It's morally wrong.

So some rich millionaire can put his money in a scheme so he pays less tax than a working man on a basic salary. But that's OK as it's legal.

But if the working man did an extra cash in hand job on the side he'll get shafted by HMRC even though he's paying more tax to income ratio than the scheming millionaire.
 
The whole idea of paying an increasing rate of tax as a punishment for daring to do well for yourself is laughable. Now anyone who earns more than a comfortable salary of 32k is now a 'higher rate' tax payer - utter madness.

Anyone who is ACTUALLY rich, doesn't pay themselves with PAYE. PAYE is for the poor masses to squabble over. 50% tax rate comes in and tax revenues go DOWN. Well done there Labour, you really solved that problem.

Interesting how WELL David Camerons propaganda has filtered down to common language as people now connect the words 'morality' and 'tax avoidance' as a discussion topic. There is nothing amoral about avoiding tax. Only the British (and possibly the French) could be so obsessed with taxing each other to death while ironically we all sit in a crumbling country.

Once you work out how much of your actual money gets spent, instead of going to pay direct and indirect taxes, you are at a figure of roughly 66% going straight back to the government. I'd say you arent doing your duty as a citizen if you ARENT doing your best not to AVOID paying tax (not EVADE).

Anyways, if you get a chance, go over to Hong Kong and see how impoverished the government and people are with their 15% income tax rates. The people at the top will be very happy to see the proles squabbling to enforce laws over themselves. Sheepdogs will probably be out of work soon eh ;)
 
The whole idea of paying an increasing rate of tax as a punishment for daring to do well for yourself is laughable. Now anyone who earns more than a comfortable salary of 32k is now a 'higher rate' tax payer - utter madness.

Anyone who is ACTUALLY rich, doesn't pay themselves with PAYE. PAYE is for the poor masses to squabble over. 50% tax rate comes in and tax revenues go DOWN. Well done there Labour, you really solved that problem.

Interesting how WELL David Camerons propaganda has filtered down to common language as people now connect the words 'morality' and 'tax avoidance' as a discussion topic. There is nothing amoral about avoiding tax. Only the British (and possibly the French) could be so obsessed with taxing each other to death while ironically we all sit in a crumbling country.

Once you work out how much of your actual money gets spent, instead of going to pay direct and indirect taxes, you are at a figure of roughly 66% going straight back to the government. I'd say you arent doing your duty as a citizen if you ARENT doing your best not to AVOID paying tax (not EVADE).

Anyways, if you get a chance, go over to Hong Kong and see how impoverished the government and people are with their 15% income tax rates. The people at the top will be very happy to see the proles squabbling to enforce laws over themselves. Sheepdogs will probably be out of work soon eh ;)

So many hilarious inaccuracies.
 
People are brainwashed into thinking that paying tax, and berating others for not paying their 'fair' (laughable) share of tax, is the right thing to do.

How many TV shows and newspaper headlines are designed to enforce this. Have you seen 'saints and sinners' on the TV - OMG talk about programming. Ditto with all these other glamorisation's of public services like the NHS and Police Force. You don't see that on ITV eh. You can't even criticise the NHS these days without fear of people turning up at your door with flaming torches - it's all designed to dupe us into thinking something that isn't exactly great (far from it), is actually brilliant. Our attitude to tax is the same - although quite ironic that some of the worst tax cheats of all are people who work these 'salt of the earth' jobs where cash in hand and non reported earnings are par for the course.

A high tax society would be great if it actually worked, and succeeded in supporting its people with services and protection from unemployment. This one clearly doesnt - so more of the same is not going to fix the problem. The rich aren't dumb enough to just hand over their money to HMRC like its the 'right' thing to do.
 
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Pick it apart quote by quote, and let's party ;)

"Now anyone who earns more than a comfortable salary of 32k is now a 'higher rate' tax payer" - Wrong, you forgot to add on the tax free personal allowance, which is about £9k these days.

"50% tax rate comes in and tax revenues go DOWN" - Wrong, even George Osborne recognised that it brought in £1bn of extra revenue. Sure it brought in less than expected, but that's because everyone brought forward their bonuses a month to avoid paying 50% income tax on it - that would have been harder to do in subsequent years.

"There is nothing amoral about avoiding tax." - Think you mean immoral there :)

"Once you work out how much of your actual money gets spent, instead of going to pay direct and indirect taxes, you are at a figure of roughly 66% going straight back to the government." - Economists talk about tax revenue as a percentage of GDP, which is essentially what you're talking about. For the UK this currently stands somewhere between 34% and 39% depending who you ask (Source) and is pretty much in the middle of overall tax burdens for OECD nations.
 
Quick lesson: When your in a shop and you see something on offer so you buy more than you need so you don't end up paying more later, that's a form of tax avoidance.

We all do it, the more money you have the bigger it is but everyone does it to some degree even if they are not aware of it. Hell most companies even HAVE to do it to stay in business, if I stopped my companies tax avoiding policies I would have to let some employees go.
 
Quick lesson: When your in a shop and you see something on offer so you buy more than you need so you don't end up paying more later, that's a form of tax avoidance.

It that case, signing on and burning your dole check is a form of tax avoidance.

And long may it continue. Wouldn't want to pay more than you leaglly need to.
 
Nobody got rich on PAYE.

First rule of tax avoidance - don't pay yourself. Use a shell company or other legal entity as a means of moving money around.

To fix this issue, we need a simplified tax system, and not a increasingly complex one that charges different rates here or there depending on who we want to shaft a little more than the next guy. The very nature of how complex it is, is the precise reason everyone does anything they can to avoid paying it in full.

Ditto for corporation tax. If we cut that to something incredibly low like 10% and banned all forms of cross charging that allow Amazon to pay close to nothing, you'd probably have MORE jobs being created as companies rush to set up shop, and a lower welfare bill at the same time.

The sad thing here is that as our economy is shipped offshore to a Chinese sweatshop, or Bermuda so it can be washed a few times before coming out tax free, we all have to try and balance the books by paying more tax, and having to support a welfare state that represents 25% of all government spending. There is nothing 'Great' in Britain any more.
 
Ditto for corporation tax. If we cut that to something incredibly low like 10% and banned all forms of cross charging that allow Amazon to pay close to nothing, you'd probably have MORE jobs being created as companies rush to set up shop, and a lower welfare bill at the same time.
You seem to think that a low income tax rate will creates jobs (as opposed to demand).

A business if viable if it can make a profit, as tax is only on profit reducing the corporation tax amount to 10% will not make an unprofitable business profitable, neither will it cause businesses to hire people they don't need.

All you will achieve is the creating of a huge void in public finances.
 
I'm not saying it will ALONE create jobs, but with all the companies out there wanting to set up shop, or park their affairs, a 10% tax rate would make the UK an attractive prospect.

Putting it to 10% would, as you say, cause a massive shortfall in revenues and of course create chaos. What we could have course do, which would solve some other big issues in the north/south divide is create low tax economic zones in places OTHER than London, and put a system in place so huge existing companies don't just up and leave their current base to move across the country (causing job losses).

In any case, the subject of tax, or personal taxation in this case has a darker result in that it's a way to keep a lid on anyone daring to aspire to the middle class. The ladders have well and truly been pulled up by the rich (Gary Barlow) who have their tax planners to ensure they stay wealthy, and we can all stay as the glamorised image of 'hard working families' which is generally shown as a 2 parent, 2 child family who live in a house too small for their actual needs, and both work two full time jobs.

If we go and tax Gary now, then we will have no more of those wonderful songs. Imagine if he had to go and write 100,000,000 - 40% = '600 thousand love songs' - It just doesn't have the same kick as the whole 1 million of those love songs.
 
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