People are bombarded by propaganda and outright lies and they eventually believe them. It’s a standard technique.
The vast majority of people think that even legal tax avoidance schemes are wrong, according to new polling.
A new survey by YouGov found that 59 per cent of people think it is “unacceptable” to legally avoid tax, compared to only 32 per cent who think it is reasonable.
59% of the people who answered this poll are morons, then. Oddly enough, when discussing my aggressive approach to avoiding tax legally with people I meet, they are approving. Most reasonable people are more than happy to keep money out of the thieving, avaricious hands of the state. So, who answered this poll? Or are Britons all idiots?
“As you may know, there is a difference between tax AVOIDANCE, whereby companies/people use artificial but legal methods to minimise the tax they pay, and tax EVASION, where companies/people act illegally to pay less tax, or no tax at all. In general, do you think it is acceptable or unacceptable to LEGALLY avoid paying tax?”
Simple answer – tax avoidance is not only acceptable, it is a sacred duty and I will do all that I can to keep as much of my money in my hands and away from the state and its agencies.
I strongly suspect that most people, despite the wording of the question, don’t actually understand the difference between tax avoidance and tax evasion. Not that it’s that complicated, but then most people are morons – as you rightly point out, LR.
But in any case, all these polls and Shock! Horror! stories are irrelevant. If the Government want to stop people avoiding tax legally, then it’s in their power – and their power alone – to stop them, by changing the tax laws. Simples. No-one else can do that but them, so why do they keep batting on about all those naughty accountants and equally naughty businesses avoiding tax as if paying tax is some sort of moral obligation where the law doesn’t actually count? Morals are an entirely subjective thing anyway, so trying to “shame” legal tax avoiders into paying more tax than they have to is doomed to failure, and rightly so. Because, let’s be honest, pretty much none of us would pay any tax these days if decision was left entirely up to us and our own consciences. I know I certainly wouldn’t pay any of our current crop of politicians a damned penny if I didn’t, legally, have to. If they changed the law and closed some of the existing loopholes there’d be no need for all this hand-wringing and finger-pointing about implied “immoral” behaviour, would there? Hmmm. Call me a cynic, if you will, but I suspect that the reason that they don’t enact such a perfectly simple solution is probably because – errr – many of them and their big, powerful friends and cronies are actually taking advantage of many of those loopholes themselves. And doing very nicely on it, thank you. To be quite frank, I can’t think of any other reason.
I suspect most of that 59% of people assume a slightly different question – do you think other people should be allowed to avoid tax?
That survey like many from the same source is littered with questions designed to get the right (lefty) answer, i was one of the 32%.
One of the reasons i run LPG cars is so the bastards don’t get any more of my money than they’ve already had away before i even saw it, sooner or later they’ll up the tax take on LPG, or load the VED, that’ll be the day they get sod all, for bicycle and me own two feet will be my answer.
Don’t feed the monster, it only encourages the thing.
I don’t bother reading the question when answering yougov surveys. I just click random buttons and I suspect many people do as well. You get paid regardless and they don’t have fake questions which you need to answer correctly in order to complete the survey.
I do a lot of cycling during the summer. Mainly I do it to keep fit but I also get a lot of satisfaction from contemplating all the fuel duty that I would otherwise be paying if I was using the car.
As a former Chartered Accountant (no, really I am!) I couldn’t agree more. Avoidance is avoidable by the government changing the laws. The moralists can fuck off. They’re just jealous…
I am at a loss to understand all the whining and bleating by the liars, murderers and thieves of the state.
Please correct me if I am wrong. The government of what ever hue write the rules of taxation, then employ thousands of HMRC employees to make sure that the ‘citizen’ pays the maximum taxation, according to those rules. If the government re-wrote the rules, demanding more tax, HMRC would again extract the maximum taxation.
There is no such thing as ‘avoidance’ according to the rules.
The only way to avoid taxation is to not buy stuff, as Mr Judd above rightly says.
Or buy second hand, thus avoiding VAT.
If you are self-employed, you arrange your affairs to minimise the tax take by claiming everything that you can. Last year, it was a motorcycle. Reduced my income tax bill by over £4k. If I hadn’t been self-employed and used the bike for business, I couldn’t have done it.
Exactly, the rules state that you being self-employed may claim for various expenses, vital to your job; it’s not avoiding tax, it’s operating within the rules.
Don’t know if you or your readers have ever come across TEAL, Total Economic Activity Levy. Those who are the most active pay the most Levy,less than 1% probably. Take a look http://www.tealtax.co.za/
“tax AVOIDANCE, whereby companies/people use artificial but legal methods to minimise the tax they pay,”
should, of course, read
“tax AVOIDANCE, whereby companies/people use legal methods to minimise the tax they pay,”
when you take out the parasites’ spin.
Interesting use of ‘artificial’ there, as if we’re supposed to regard tax as a natural phenomenon.
Set the populace up for the next set of tax hikes with a propaganda blitz on ‘contrarians’, ‘avoiders’, ‘deniers’ or whatever. It’s sickening to watch.
You will notice that the MSM (Especially the BBC) nether comment about the tax avoidance schemes used by senior Labour MPs.