HSBC scandal.

[Tunney]

Speeding is also a criminal offence...

Just think for a moment why murderers are incarcerated over other matters that are criminal offences. It's not difficult to understand.

Speeding is not a serious criminal offence. The maximum penalty for speeding is a £2,500 fine.

Meanwhile, tax evasion carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison.

One criminal offence carries a custodial penalty, the other does not. Do you understand the difference?

 

[spoffle]

Serious based on what? Sentencing guidelines? Why did you feel the need to use murder? The suggestion is that they are somehow comparable just because they both carry custodial sentences.

 

[The_Abyss]

Gifting your children's inheritance only serves one purpose and that is to avoid tax. Just because you haven't hired an accountant to "fiddle" it does not make it not so.

Likewise with those who "sell" their house to their children for £1.

Just a point to note though, that doesn't actually work. Either the kids will then pay enormous capital gains tax or, more likely, the transaction will be deemed wilful deprivation of an asset and be revalued.

 

[Tefal]

10 year stretch minimum for laundering drug money, HSBC get a 'fine'.

No ambiguity, Plain criminals.

send them all to jail, bank fails, country loses billions, new economic crisis, FSCS has to pay everyone their money back to cover the losses huge cost to government etc...

 

[Tunney]

Serious based on what? Sentencing guidelines?

Correct. Any crime with a maximum 10 year prison sentence is a serious crime.

Why did you feel the need to use murder? The suggestion is that they are somehow comparable just because they both carry custodial sentences.

I'm just pointing out that the decision to prosecute serious crimes should not be influenced by economic factors. That's a terrible way to run a justice system.

 

[Xordium]

send them all to jail, bank fails, country loses billions, new economic crisis, FSCS has to pay everyone their money back to cover the losses huge cost to government etc...

That demonstrates that the banks have been allowed to become to powerful and too big because nations have to capitulate to their will.

I'm just pointing out that the decision to prosecute serious crimes should not be influenced by economic factors. That's a terrible way to run a justice system.

Well that system does cost money I get what you are saying it is not a good way to impart justice but it is a consequence of running a justice system. The better way would be to remove such concerns and legislate against the banks not remove more legal guards against their behaviour like has happened in the past year.

 

[StriderX]

send them all to jail, bank fails, country loses billions, new economic crisis, FSCS has to pay everyone their money back to cover the losses huge cost to government etc...

Perhaps people should realise just how ****** the reality of the comment (our system) you just made is.

 

[dowie]

I personally wouldn't call most, if not all, of those "avoiding tax" despite being so in the most technical sense. I don't see the world of tax as that black and white.

I'd class avoiding tax as a legal activity that are the unintended consequences of gaps in tax legislation that is capitilised upon by people who have access to specialist knowledge and organisations. For example, locating yourself in tax havens, investing in vehicles with a very limited tax liability and exaggerated accounting entries which are blamed on ignorance.

I doubt that's what it says in the dictionary, but that's my view!

and it is wrong... avoiding tax is simply avoiding tax, defining it as being avoidance only if it involves some fiendishly complicated scheme might suit your own personal bias but doesn't reflect reality. Tax havens have more use for evasion than avoidance, if you're actually concealing wealth then that is evasion - though living in a tax haven, well if you've actually moved to the Isle of Man etc.. then you'll be paying their taxes rather than ours.

Tax avoidance can come about wherever the govt has decided to give a tax break/incentive for something - whether that is exempting farmland from inheritance tax or giving tax breaks for investing in the UK film industry etc..etc.. through to simply taking advantage of your full ISA allowance each year or investing in NS&I products.

 

[Jokester]

Essentially, tax avoidance I do = ok, tax avoidance I don't do, but others do = dirty tax avoiders.

 

[Tefal]

Perhaps people should realise just how ****** the reality of the comment (our system) you just made is.

shock horror as having to try and keep hundreds of millions of people fed, watered and reasonably happy ends up insanely complicated.

whats more ****ed up than some tax avoidance is that you're sat there with an income that puts you well into the top 1% of all earners on the planet, the thing your using to type this conversation on probbaly cost twice the worlds average yearly wage.

yet you think its ****ed up that some rich people try to avoid paying some other rich people a few extra quid?

 

[Will21st]

Essentially, tax avoidance I do = ok, tax avoidance I don't do, but others do = dirty tax avoiders.

that's what it comes down to, essentially. Seeing how our governments urinate money up the wall I think it's every citizens duty to give as little to the state as possible.

It's not like we aren't being fleeced 24/7 anyway.

 

[Tefal]

That demonstrates that the banks have been allowed to become to powerful and too big because nations have to capitulate to their will.

its not that they're too powerful its that they're the only ones providing the service.

if the government had the ability and capacity to run a large retail bank then they wouldn't have this problem but they don't.

 

[Danthus]

I wonder how many Labour donors are on the list?

 

[SlyReaper]

Rubbish, you just don't hear about it as much. Never wondered why the guy in front of you at the supermarket pays in cash for a hundred quid worth of groceries?

Wait what? I pay for everything in cash, it has nothing to do with tax.

 

[spoffle]

its not that they're too powerful its that they're the only ones providing the service.

if the government had the ability and capacity to run a large retail bank then they wouldn't have this problem but they don't.

Wouldn't this fall under the definition of too powerful? That puts them in a very powerful position.

 

[Tefal]

Wouldn't this fall under the definition of too powerful? That puts them in a very powerful position.

if your the only person who bothers to make the coffee in the morning in the office are you "too powerful" because if you get fired no one will have coffee?


if you want it to change you'd have to back a government run retail bank, would you?

 

[Xordium]

its not that they're too powerful.

Tell that to the "leader of the free world TM" who just got bent over by them and told to grin and bear it and more importantly repeal protectionist legislation.

 

[robgmun]

Just a point to note though, that doesn't actually work. Either the kids will then pay enormous capital gains tax or, more likely, the transaction will be deemed wilful deprivation of an asset and be revalued.

Not if the parent live over 7 years on from giving the house over. Then they can't be touched. If i was in that position i would differently sign over my house to my kids.

 

[robgmun]

I wonder how many Labour donors are on the list?

Well going by this..

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-31468781

He must be certain he's squeaky clean otherwise he's going to end up with serious amount of egg on his face

 

[StriderX]

shock horror as having to try and keep hundreds of millions of people fed, watered and reasonably happy ends up insanely complicated.

whats more ****ed up than some tax avoidance is that you're sat there with an income that puts you well into the top 1% of all earners on the planet, the thing your using to type this conversation on probbaly cost twice the worlds average yearly wage.

yet you think its ****ed up that some rich people try to avoid paying some other rich people a few extra quid?

Why should we care? I certainly dont see the 9-5 worker out on the streets, screaming that he/she has seen injustice...mostly because he/she is probably working.

Working for the very same people who control their jobs and fittingly the government, whom they pay vast (but ultimately tiny proportions of the overall wealth) to kiss their ass.

Society is headed for a completely unloving, severe consumerist life and no one wants to stop it.