Prime Minister David Cameron has said the tax arrangements of comedian Jimmy Carr are “morally wrong”.
On the contrary it is morally right and I salute Mr Carr. The more money he keeps in his pocket the less the greedy state has to piss up the wall on its insane and illiberal schemes. Cameron is wrong, Carr is right.
According to the Times, Carr told an audience on Tuesday: “I pay what I have to and not a penny more.”
Quite right, too. It is his money after all, not the state’s. As a self-employed cove, I do exactly the same thing on a smaller scale. Every penny that remains in my account is a penny the state is starved of. Every penny the state is starved of is one less penny spent on wasteful fake charities, quangos, foreign aid, surveillance and unnecessary IT schemes. The beast needs to be starved. Every little bit of tax avoidance is a step in the right direction.
HM Revenue and Customs has said it is taking “firm action to protect the Exchequer from unacceptable tax loss”.
Tax avoidance is legal. It is the morally right thing to do. Indeed it is a sacred duty. It’s why we self-employed types pay accountants. I intend to continue doing just that.
Labour leader Ed Miliband said: “I’m not in favour of tax avoidance obviously, but I don’t think it is for politicians to lecture people about morality.”
Fuck me! Red Ed talking sense? Damned right they have no place lecturing anyone about morality – the amoral bastards that they are. Actually, the self-serving scum have no place lecturing us on anything, let alone morality.
“I think what the politicians need to do is – if the wrong thing is happening – change the law to prevent that tax avoidance happening.”
Ah, right, as you were…
I’m in complete agreement that reducing the amount of tax you pay to the absolute minimum is moral.
But I think using a tax avoidance scheme while being a trendy, lefty comedian who’s attacked Barclays for doing the same doesn’t say much for Carr’s personal morals.
Is Carr a hypocritical leftie bastard? Yes. But then aren’t they all? “From each according to his abilty, to each according to their needs” has long since been re-written as… “What’s yours is mine, and what’s mine is my own.”
But I’d make the same tax arrangements in a millisecond if I could. I just wouldn’t make a living lying about it.
Time for a musical interlude…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZqK97av7I3s
I don’t like Jimmy Carr, but fair play to him, it wasn’t illegal
Who of us enjoys paying tax? That’s why they had to introduce PAYE and VAT
(VAT was invented by a Frenchman (spits) as nobody was paying tax at the end of the year, it was always supposed to be instead of PAYE for countries with high non payment, the UK in which 90% of people paid the correct tax, saw it as another way to grab more cash without increasing the Tax Rate )
I wouldn’t give the bastards a penny if I could avoid it
I quite agree that Carr has the right – indeed the responsiblity – to reduce his exposure to the taxman and to keep his considerable wealth circulating in the useful economy, rather than disappearing into some state mandated dustbin, but it is the rank hypocrisy of the man that I cannot abide. Were it not for his very public stance on tax avoiders who aren’t Jimmy Carr, I would say ‘good on him!’ However, I find myself thinking ‘pay up, you Socialist worm!’ and am not entirely comfortable with that thought…
I tend to look upon Carr’s hypocrisy as the lesser of two evils here. The really big evil is this tendency by politicians and the cretins at UK Uncut to conflate avoidance, which is legal and the right thing to do, and evasion which is illegal.
We have that mendacious twat Miliband telling us he doesn’t approve of avoidance. Really? Does he always pay over the odds for goods and services, then? Because that is what he is suggesting that we do with tax. Worse, we have a so-called Conservative PM making the same egregious noises. Avoidance is right, proper, moral and a sacred duty. Indeed, I intend to go over my affairs with a fine toothed comb just to see if there are any other possible tax savings I can make.
If this particular trendy lefty comedian has learned a lesson about tax from all of this, maybe there is some hope for him – but don’t expect me to hold my breath…
Or perhaps not.
A flat rate of tax always made logical sense to me. The newsagents don’t charge you ten times as much for a paper and a bottle of milk if you are rich. It would sort of make sense to charge rich people more if they were a bigger drain on the public purse. But surely rich people are more likely to pay for education and health care themselves and are hardly likely to be claiming welfare benefits. Even a hard working pleb like me must place a lighter burden on the public purse than many.
Wouldn’t it be cool if we had a tax form where you had to tick boxes for the things that you were prepared to pay for? We would soon find out how many genuine socialists there were if people were allowed to opt out of paying for it.
It occurred to me today in conversation with a colleague that any country gets the level of tax avoidance that it deserves. That is to say, if you make the tax code sufficiently complex with sufficient differentiation between high and low taxation then you incentivise the necessity to take avoiding measures.
As for my colleague he couldn’t understand why I was pleased that Jimmy Carr had taken steps to minimise his tax bill. His view was that I should have been angry that someone as wealth as JC should pay less tax than me. My reply was that I couldn’t condemn JC as I would do exactly the same if I had the money. The look on his face was priceless.
His view was that I should have been angry that someone as wealth as JC should pay less tax than me. My reply was that I couldn’t condemn JC as I would do exactly the same if I had the money. The look on his face was priceless
So you are happy to pay more tax so that Carr can dodge his. Yes, I can imagine the look you got. It is the same one I reserve for pathetic craven serfs.
No, he was being honest. I would do likewise and not apologise. Indeed, I would be perfectly happy for people to know that I had done my bit in reducing government waste by not letting the bastards get their hands on it.
The chicken-necked coward has caved:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2161852/Jimmy-Carr-apologises-pulls-shore-tax-avoidance-scheme.html
Absolutely about morally right but apologizing is morally wrong.
On the contrary it is morally right and I salute Mr Carr. The more money he keeps in his pocket the less the greedy state has to piss up the wall on its insane and illiberal schemes
Like education, health care, maintaining roads, police, etc, etc? I am as opposed to “illiberal schemes” as the next man. Actually, a fuck’s sight more than the next man, as I dedicated several years of my life to manning a No2ID stall. How may here can match that? Oppose illiberal schemes by all means but don’t use it as an intellectually dishonest excuse for dodging your taxes.
Of course, it isn’t for Cameron to pontificate on anyone’s tax affairs. It is for Cameron and his government to set the rules. Make such schemes illegal. Then no more need for ineffectual hand-wringing.
Around half our income is taken in tax. This is inexcusable and downright criminal. So, yes, the beast needs to be starved so that the state spends only that which is necessary for essential services and not a penny more.
Therefore I stand by my position – I will do all that I can to avoid letting this monster have a penny more than is absolutely necessary.