Pay your taxes you scum - doesn't apply to tax-dodging millionaires or corporations.

[stockhausen]

I don't know how to make it any simpler as you appear to be unable to comprehend the argument and the point of discussing this is a public forum.

I know there is no legally defined concept of 'tax avoision'. It is simply a convenient term to distinguish 'normal' tax avoidance in the spirit of the law from behaviour which exploits tax instruments and utilises artificial structures/transactions designed to avoid tax in ways the government has not anticipated and which the majority of people feel is immoral. Of course, both are legal in the eyes of the law.

As the latter type of tax avoidance behaviour was not anticipated, the government has not legislated against it. Neither have they sought to preempt this by utilising a GAAR to reclassify this activity as tax evasion. This GAAR will not magically appear. It will only be implemented when the government have more to gain from listening to the public over their puppet-masters in big business. Discussing this is a public forum and bringing the implications of such behaviour to the fore is a very small part to advancing that goal.

While behaviour which should come under a GAAR continues against a growing public consensus by a government that refuses to act, I as a UK citizen, am forced to pay for it making it most certainly my business. Moreover, other businesses that do not undertake such behaviour pay for it too. The only people who tell me its no business of mine are idealogues, multi-nationals and tax professionals who directly benefit from such behaviour.

Companies make a choice whether to use immoral tax avoidance schemes until it becomes too toxic to their brand. That is why, in absence of a GAAR and a responsive government, it is also important to put pressure on such companies until they have more to lose from embarking on this behaviour, reflecting negatively on sales of their goods and services.

A quite superb post. The only comment I could possibly add is to say that for anyone who doesn't know, GAAR stands for "General Anti-Avoidance Rule".

 

[Derek W]

speaking of general avoidance.......can you answer the simple question of why if you find Amazon's tax payment situation so offensive that you have purchased an Amazon Kindle and feel the need to accessorise it? Bit of a hypocrite are you not? or are you going to do your usual ignorance of not taking into account a valid point which doesn't match your own?

 

[singularity]

It's just silly ain't it, everyone should pay a fair share

 

[Angilion]

If you don't understand the difference between hiding and moving income I have no interest in discussing anything related to tax with you..

Of course you don't - I disagree with you.

You are citing entirely artificial differences created by the complexities of the interaction of laws of different countries as if they were dramatic, fundamental differences. They aren't.

Let's say that I have two garages. You have a key to one of them, but not the other.

We're competition vegetable growers. You have a nice big allotment. With your consent, I grew a very large cabbage in your allotment. We're going to show it together and share the credit for the prize it's going to win.

One night, I sneak out, dig up the cabbage and move it into my second garage, the one you don't have a key for. I tell you it's in there and I just straight up lie to everyone, telling them that I grew it in my garage and not in your allotment, even though everyone had seen it growing in your allotment.

Due to the entirely artificial rules of the vegetable-growing competition, any vegetable is treated as having been grown wherever the official entrant says it was grown, even if that's an obvious lie.

So, I get all the credit and there's nothing you can do about it because I moved the cabbage to somewhere you couldn't see it. By moving it in that way, I hid it from you.

Short version: You can hide something by moving it.

 

[stockhausen]

speaking of general avoidance.......can you answer the simple question of why if you find Amazon's tax payment situation so offensive that you have purchased an Amazon Kindle and feel the need to accessorise it? Bit of a hypocrite are you not? or are you going to do your usual ignorance of not taking into account a valid point which doesn't match your own?

Just to shut up your boring repetition

• I don't own a Kindle
• I have never owned a Kindle
• I have never used a Kindle
• To the best of my knowledge, I have never even touched a Kindle

Now why don't you go away and post rubbish in some other thread?

Just to save you continuing with this stupidity, I will not indulge you with any more responses, so go forth and (for God's sake, don't) multiply

 

[Derek W]

i do beg your pardon......you're wanting kindle accessories for a friend. Still goes against your feeling towards the big bad corporations actively seeking something which you feel so strongly against

~EDIT

and why not take your own advice and post this rubbish in speakers corner

 

[Pudney]

A quite superb post. The only comment I could possibly add is to say that for anyone who doesn't know, GAAR stands for "General Anti-Avoidance Rule".

Well, the current discussions have changed it to "General Anti-Abuse Rule". Just as a FYI

 

[stockhausen]

After thousands of angry messages were posted on her Facebook page, Christine Lagarde, the head of the IMF wrote that she was "very sympathetic to the Greek people and the challenges they are facing".

French minister Najat Vallaud-Belkacem told France's Canal+ TV that Ms Lagarde should not have made the comments. "I find (her point of view) rather simplistic and stereotypical. I think that these days it shouldn't be about trying to teach people a lesson." she said.

Mr Tsipras, whose Syriza party is one of the two main contenders for the 17 June election, said: "The last thing we seek in Greece is her sympathy. Greek workers pay their taxes, which are unbearable. For tax-evaders, she should turn to Pasok and New Democracy [previous coalition government partners] to explain to her why they haven't touched the big money and have been chasing the simple worker for two years."

How strange . . . Christine Lagarde seems to have a very similar outlook to that of the British Government - "If the poor would only make an effort, there wouldn't be any need for the rich to pay their taxes".