Tax avoidance and a morally wrong system

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Tax avoidance and a morally wrong system

June 23rd, 2012

FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda

By
Daily Mail Comment

PUBLISHED:

17:11 EST, 22 June 2012

|

UPDATED:

17:18 EST, 22 June 2012

Outspoken: David Cameron singled out Jimmy Carr for criticism this week over his tax arrangements

Poor decision? David Cameron singled out Jimmy Carr for criticism this week over his tax arrangements

History will decide whether the Prime Minister was strategically wise to condemn Jimmy Carr as ‘morally wrong’ for paying negligible tax through a deeply dubious, but entirely legal, tax avoidance scheme.

Inevitably, the fiscal affairs of his party’s donors and ministers will now come under intense scrutiny.

But one thing is certain: while the Mail holds no torch for Mr Carr, it’s Britain’s tax system that is the most morally offensive.

The tax code handbook is currently 11,500 pages – the longest in the world – and is so riddled with complexity that accountants find increasingly ingenious ways of finding loopholes for their wealthy clients to exploit.

Thus we have armies of highly-paid civil servants spending their lives trying to create ever more stealthy ways of taxing us, while other armies of brilliant tax accountants dedicate their lives to thwarting them.

It’s a crazy way of running a country.

Unsurprisingly, though reprehensibly, the wealthy try to avoid paying taxes (and the knighthood for the tax-avoiding retailer Philip Green was one of the better jokes of the Labour years) because that is precisely what our diabolically complicated and punitive system encourages them to do.

Meanwhile the resentment of ordinary workers – who do pay their taxes in full through the PAYE system – continues to grow.

Tinkering will not fix this mess. Nor will lectures on morality from politicians.

Confusion: The tax code handbook is currently 11,500 pages - the longest in the world

Confusion: The tax code handbook is currently 11,500 pages – the longest in the world

No, the way to tackle tax avoidance is to throw the current, incomprehensible system on a giant bonfire and introduce a lower, flatter rate of taxation across the board.

This is the kind of radical reform that George Osborne promised when he was shadow chancellor.

There is ample empirical evidence that the rich will pay taxes if they are not pitched at too onerous a level. And that, of course, goes to the nub of this issue.

For the really ‘morally wrong’ thing about Britain’s tax system is that it is
destroying aspiration. The average salaryearner has to work half a year for the state before earning money for themselves or their family.

That family, incidentally, will spend its money far more wisely than the state.

If Britain is to flourish again, it is going to have to reduce the tax burden that so weighs down ALL citizens – not just the wealthy.

Immigration legacy

After a decade of shamefully crying ‘racist’ at anybody who dared to question its deliberate policy of mass migration, the increasingly opportunistic Labour Party yesterday announced it’s not ‘bigoted’ to want stricter border controls after all.

Ed Miliband, while cynically ignoring the huge wave of migration from outside the EU, also finally conceded that the last government had got it ‘wrong’ by giving eastern European workers unfettered access to the jobs market.

The biggest joke of the last decade (apart from Philip Green’s knighthood)
was Labour’s prediction that only 13,000 Poles would arrive. In the end a million did so. The results have been all too inevitable with one million young Britons unemployed and hospitals and schools under greater strain than ever.

Get behind Mr Gove

Business leaders, tired of having to spend millions on remedial training for school leavers, yesterday gave their full backing to Michael Gove’s bold plan to restore rigour to the country’s discredited exam system by scrapping GCSEs.

Yet Mr Cameron is still to deliver his own personal statement of support for the Education Secretary, presumably out of fear of further upsetting his posturing Coalition partners.

We urge the PM not to prevaricate a moment longer. If the Lib Dems don’t like it, then they know where the door is.

Here’s what other readers have said. Why not add your thoughts,
or debate this issue live on our message boards.

The comments below have not been moderated.

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Cameron is a hypocrite. Anyone who comes from inherited wealth (like Cameron) is a tax avoider. Does he expect us to believe that every time wealth passes between generations in the Cameron family they pay 55% of it to the taxman? Not a chance. Dave and Sam will already have trust funds set up for their children. So what is the difference between Cameron and Carr? Not a lot really. Only one difference, Carr isn’t “one of the chaps”.

– wibble, No taxation without representation!, 23/6/2012 08:29

No government, be it Conservative, Labour or Liberal will do anything about tax loopholes or tax avoidance. These are the tools the MPs and their mates in the Lords use to increase their own bank accounts and will never, ever be scrapped. Jim New, Lewisham is correct, even as a PAYE employee, certain things are claimable (though not as much as NOT being a PAYE employee), however, not many people do because of the effort and awkward HMRC questions involved.

– Trevor, Ammanford, Wales, 23/6/2012 08:24

Like most people on PAYE, I could legally avoid some tax, by asking for a form from HMRC and claiming for things I buy and use for work, such as my SatNav over half my mobile phone bills and things like pens, stationery, and certain clothing items, it would maybe save me about £200 a year. When I buy my Remembrance Day Poppy, I could ask for a receipt and claim tax back on that. If you work as a Temp for an employment agency and work in different locations from week to week, you can claim back tax for fares or car mileage, I believe. Many of us use our own laptops and phones at work, workers use their own tools etc. but like me, most don’t bother to claim. If we all asked for a tax claim form every year and sent off our little claim with our receipts, we would drive The Revenue Service and The Government to a total nervous breakdown. In theory we could all send an e-mail to our local MP, saying, if you people don’t act on Tax Avoidance/Evasion, I will start avoiding tax myself.

– Jim New, Lewisham, 23/6/2012 07:44

If politicians don’t like these currently perfectly legal schemes, they should legislate to make them illegal instead of moaning about some people taking advantage of them. Why should anyone pay more tax than they are legally obliged to do so?

– retired grumpy, norwich uk, 23/6/2012 07:03

When call me Dave was asked about a Tory multi millionares tax dodging he replied ‘ It is not for me to talk on air about an individuals personal tax payments’………….Is Jimmy Carr not an individual then? Cameron is a hypocrite and a liar.

– Les, Thailand, 23/6/2012 06:15

oh what have you done dave you have opened pandoras box

– henry speck, sihanoukville, 23/6/2012 04:24

All tax avoidance schemes are dubious. Jimmy’s scheme is no different to any other such scheme.
The Prime Minister was , as usual, talking through his backside. But then there is no change there.
I HOPE THAT OUT OF HIS STUPIDITY , COMES A WHIRLWIND AND EVERY . AND I MEAN EVERY, PERSON EARNING MONEY FROM THE LAND KNOWN AS THE UK WILL BE CAUGHT AT SOURCE.
THE NEXT DISGRACEFUL THING TO BE UPGRADED MUST BE TAX ON DIVIDENDS. THERE ARE TOO MANY COMPANIES AROUND SOLELY TO GET
DIVIDENDS A T A LOWER RATE OF TAX THAN WOULD BE PAID ON NORMAL
PERSONAL EARNINGS.

– Bill Green, London uk., 23/6/2012 03:17

It is much more difficult to avoid / evade paying tax when you spend your money as opposed to paying tax as you earn your money. The wealthy among us will still pay more tax because they spend more, true a millionaire will pay the same price for necessities as a benefit claimer, but benefits can be adjusted. With a very low income tax rate we may even find that some of those who are “trapped” in the welfare system might find it worth going to work after all. VAT or a similar purchase tax need not be the same rate across the board they can vary high rate for luxury items low rate for necessities, the individual will obviously retain more of their salary and have more control to spend it how they wish.

– Juan de Fuca, Saanichton B.C., 23/6/2012 03:13

funny how he manages to ignore his chancellors tax avoidance

– Badger, Expatland, 23/6/2012 01:51

It’s not a ‘deeply dubious scheme’, it’s an entirely legal scheme. Morals don’t come into it. The amount of tax we pay isn’t calculated on how righteous other people think we should be. We all pay only what we are legally obliged to pay and not a penny more. That is exactly what Jimmy Carr did. He didn’t try to ‘avoid’ paying tax. He paid what was asked of him under the current rules. If Cameron thinks the method Carr used is wrong then he should shut up and move to make that method illegal. Otherwise, he should keep his nose out of other people’s private and entirely legal financial affairs.

– King Malcolm II, London, 23/6/2012 01:27

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