Soldato
The Truth About Corporate Tax Dodging, BBC 1, Monday May 14th @ 8:30pm
- Thread starter stockhausen
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Soldato
Not everybody does, but I agree many do.
I refuse to do business with any company known to use the worst tax dodging methods, the problem is 90% of people cry "I hate tax avoiding companies" then go & buy a new shirt from Topman.
If the people would just stop doing business with these companies until they changed they would start paying tax, sadly that requires people paying a little more for the odd item & actually reading up on a few things before going shopping.
That's exactly the kind of attitude that drives us further into oblivion - small minded self interest.
We all live in a society & need to understand the cause & effect on a larger scale of these actions.
People have to realise that government does not care, after all these very people probably pay large sums to their electioneering nonsense.
They will just create a new safe haven elsewhere, it is fruitless.
The best decision is to end the pathetic excuse for a system of governance that we seem to have.
They will just create a new safe haven elsewhere, it is fruitless.
The best decision is to end the pathetic excuse for a system of governance that we seem to have.
not really using legal means to lower your tax is sensible.
Saying it's immoral is like saying when you buy something for say £8 with a ten pound note asking for your change is immoral.
It's money you earned and is yours it's not "avoidance" it's just not giving away money for nothing.
Soldato
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You make some good points. It seems most people don't see the hypocrisy in criticizing large scale tax avoiding companies whilst enjoying the cheaper prices they provide.
To use Amazon again as an example, you can say the same thing on two ways to your average Mirror reader and you'll get two conflicting reactions...
"Amazon have been caught avoiding millions of pounds in tax" gets 'Boo, what a bunch of (insert insulting swear words here)'.
However if you said "Amazon won't be able to use loop holes to sell cheap CDs anymore" you'll probably get 'That's rubbish, why don't they after the bankers instead of the common man'.
Well quite, as they say don't hate the player, hate the game.
The money is an IOU, it is not yours, the bank that printed it pays for the goods, you simply move it about, an official transporter.
Soldato
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Intelligent post is intelligent
I'm astounded that this thread has turned out some sense. I keep seeing these "tax dodge" arguments and usually it's moronic posts whining on about it.
Long term solution? Get rid of corporation tax. Raise revenues in other ways.
Short term solution? Drop it by a 1% or 2% every time we're not very competitive compared to other places. We're an extremely good place to do business, let's keep it that way until corporation tax bottoms out eventually.
Long term solution? Get rid of corporation tax. Raise revenues in other ways.
Short term solution? Drop it by a 1% or 2% every time we're not very competitive compared to other places. We're an extremely good place to do business, let's keep it that way until corporation tax bottoms out eventually.
I assist companies in ensuring their transfer pricing (allocation of profits) is correct and complies with the OECD Guidelines. These guidelines are used my tax authorities globally to assist all parties in properly rewarding each territory for the functions they perform, assets they own and risks they bear.
If HMRC had a problem with it, and they do check these things, then they would open an enquiry. The sheer amount of time companies of any decent size spend documenting what each country does is crazy.
Granted, situations like this and Amazon leave you itching your head but in most cases, where a group has a subsidiary in the UK which is only performing a sales function, or a distribution function then they will obviously only receive small returns as there is minimal risk. If the UK entity is performing contract R&D (i.e. they get told what to look at for how long on a fixed budget) then the contracting entity will own the IP and the UK will receive a simple cost plus.
At the end of the day, things like Senior Accounting Officers, who are personally liable if the company is messing around, means the top dogs pay a lot of attention to ensure their tax practices are legal and correct. They're not going to do anything too risky if it could cost them personally.
While I don't work for PwC, I have worked on Vodafone assessing their supply chain. I could go into detail as to the difficulties in allocating profits for roaming stations. You take your phone abroad and it has to search for a local network, who then talks to Vodafone (charge), and then manages your calls (charge). You pay 30p per minute for that call... who gets what of that money? Now try negotiating that for every country in the world. There are standardised contracts coming into place for this sort of thing but it's not easy.
Vodafone obviously want to reduce their tax bill, but there's a limited scope in how they can do it and I think you'll find if any clients do want to be agressive , it's usually us "scum" that tells them they can't.
If HMRC had a problem with it, and they do check these things, then they would open an enquiry. The sheer amount of time companies of any decent size spend documenting what each country does is crazy.
Granted, situations like this and Amazon leave you itching your head but in most cases, where a group has a subsidiary in the UK which is only performing a sales function, or a distribution function then they will obviously only receive small returns as there is minimal risk. If the UK entity is performing contract R&D (i.e. they get told what to look at for how long on a fixed budget) then the contracting entity will own the IP and the UK will receive a simple cost plus.
At the end of the day, things like Senior Accounting Officers, who are personally liable if the company is messing around, means the top dogs pay a lot of attention to ensure their tax practices are legal and correct. They're not going to do anything too risky if it could cost them personally.
While I don't work for PwC, I have worked on Vodafone assessing their supply chain. I could go into detail as to the difficulties in allocating profits for roaming stations. You take your phone abroad and it has to search for a local network, who then talks to Vodafone (charge), and then manages your calls (charge). You pay 30p per minute for that call... who gets what of that money? Now try negotiating that for every country in the world. There are standardised contracts coming into place for this sort of thing but it's not easy.
Vodafone obviously want to reduce their tax bill, but there's a limited scope in how they can do it and I think you'll find if any clients do want to be agressive , it's usually us "scum" that tells them they can't.
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We're not "scum", we're the "tax dodging specialists".
The question with tax-avoidance is: are the taxes moral? There's no reason for taxes to necessarily be a fair amount. If you had money/assets in a foreign country and they imposed ludicrous taxes, I bet you wouldn't claim there was a moral responsibility to pay them.
If the taxes are unfair and if it's legal to pay less, why not?
If the taxes are unfair and if it's legal to pay less, why not?
Caporegime
OP going on about morality.
This is business, it's all about profits, without it there is no business.
It is that simple. Morality? What morality? Morality would be for GSK to give drugs away for free to those who can't afford the medical bills. Do you think they would?
This is business.
This is business, it's all about profits, without it there is no business.
It is that simple. Morality? What morality? Morality would be for GSK to give drugs away for free to those who can't afford the medical bills. Do you think they would?
This is business.
well as im pretty sure Stockhausen keeps referring to various members of our government as war criminals maybe Amazon and others are actually very moral in not wanting to give money to war criminals so they can continue several illegal wars of aggression?
Man of Honour
Thanks for the heads up.
A company does not have any legal remit to its shareholders to maximise profits, not at all, that is a myth.
In my opinion they should put the taxes way higher for corporations. Their is only a finite amount of money in the Economy at any one time. If they companies are aquiring more and more and just functioning as leeches then the system/economy will degrade over time(that doesnt seem to be happening at all).
If a company continues tax dodging, and not contributing to the country that they are leeching from then they should just be removed, assets seized, and taken over by someone else internal to that country, whom wish to contribute to that country.
Soldato
That would be a good way to ruin the economy Calabi.
That idea is rank stupidity, on a par with some of the leftist nonsense you see in South America.
It would be tragic for the economy and result in disaster for London and tax receipts and would see the UK lose our AAA rating, and shortly after default due to the level of debt that we have which is only sustainable if we run our economy with more nous than a 7 year old.
We would very quickly become as poor as eastern Europe - no, really we would.
Our economies already ruined. We are already going the way of stagnation and to the poor of Eastern Europe.
Surely its worth a shot, I cant see how external companies benefit countries(yes I understand that they bring some benefits but they bring more downsides than up).
They havent in the East, and Africa. Opening up countries through deregulation and whatever at the behest of the IMF hasnt benefited those countries, that were victims to it. They make it harder for internal industries to build up, that would be more equitable for that country.
We just end up with a few Global Hegomonic companies that have massive power and weight(they suck up all the smaller companies, its obvious where its going to end).
Yeah, erm. Well. Yeah, let's set fire to it and see if that fixes it. Smrts!
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This is true, we need the business and we need the tax money, what do we do?
It is a very difficult circle to square.