In the wake of the Panama stuff, we get the mantra trotted out ad nauseam by the Guardianista:
Some things need to be said now, and said clearly. Not paying tax may not be illegal, but it is immoral. It is a form of theft. The acceptance of a caste system whereby the likes of David Cameron and George Osborne rule us, and we are not allowed to question the finances of this elite has to stop. We all pay tax to train doctors and maintain the roads they are driven on. The idea that this elite does not use the services that are provided is simply not true.
Poppycock! Bollocks! Bullshit! Fuckwittery! Lies!
Not paying tax that is not required by law is not immoral. There is no morality regarding tax. There is that due by law. That’s it. Tax avoidance is not only legal, it is a sacred duty to avoid taxes much as is humanly possible in order to keep money out of the hands of the thieving scum who will piss it up the wall on fake charities, quangos, a bloated public sector and propaganda. Fuck off already. Tax avoidance is not immoral, it is not theft. The only theft here is that carried out by the state every time it picks our pockets in ever-increasing amounts to line its own. If those wealthy enough are able to keep their money legally out of reach of these crooks, then good for them. More power to their elbows – because you can be damned sure I would do the same. In my own small way, as a self-employed individual, I do my bit. My tax avoidance is as aggressive as it possibly can be. Every penny that stays out of the reach of the state is a small victory to be celebrated.
The state is the enemy, not wealthy people seeking to keep hold of their own money. The state is little more than a legalised Mafia mob with a similar grasp of morality and a similar approach to other people’s money. Thieves, charlatans and liars, the lot of them.
Isn’t it odd that the Left love legal legislation to enforce their version of morality when it comes to social issues in society (ie demanding laws on racism, sexism, sexual conduct, ageism etc) but when it comes to taxes they wish to abandon strict legal rules and impose the rule of arbitrary personal morality? Just another example of the Left’s capability to hold two contradictory concepts at once I suppose.
“Being a tax dodger is antisocial…” But so is being a freeloader… As someone who has an offshore account, and declares them for tax, I find these sentiments abhorrent.
Makes you want to punch someone. Hard.
I can suggest about 650 “someones” if you like…
Can anyone (such as your wise self, LR??!) explain to me why these papers are “news” at all? Haven’t we all known that very wealthy people have utilised off-shore accounting to avoid paying exorbitant UK tax rates for years and years and years? I certainly knew about it – and I seem to remember there being something of a kerfuffle about it a few years ago (all that “domiciled in the UK” stuff), and another, even earlier one (possibly about 15-20 years ago?), about rich people with “offshore” accounts and how terrible it all was.
In fact, only very recently there was a documentary on television (called something like “how to not pay tax” or something similar), about an entire town whose small businesses were setting up offices abroad to use this very system and who didn’t pay the UK’s high company tax rates as a result. It seemed that the process was remarkably simple and lots of small businesses were using it.
So maybe that’s why this has only now been brought up as “an issue” – not because it’s only just become known (because it hasn’t), or because it’s illegal (because it isn’t) or immoral (because it isn’t that, either), but because the little man in the street is starting to do it, too, not just the uber-wealthy. And we can’t have that, now, can we?
They are not news, of course. One of the best things we could do regarding tax is to abolish PAYE and make every employee do as I do and write a cheque twice a year.That should make them good and angry with the right target.
They daren’t do that. They’d never get their money. Can you imagine some of the people one knows keeping records, and managing to put aside the money to pay the taxman months after they’ve actually had it? Huge amounts of people live hand to mouth – give them gross pay and they’d spend it, and worry about the tax man later. Then the State would face the prospect of trying to take millions of recalcitrant tax payers to court to dock wages or make them sell assets to pay their tax bills, ultimately having to jail them if they refuse to pay. Its just not viable. Self employed taxation is only viable because its a smaller number of taxpayers, and they are (by and large) the sort of people who keep records, and are responsible – you can’t run a business unless you are, if you’re totally disorganised you’ll go bust in short order. Throw in the tens of millions used to getting their salary payment to spend as they like and the system would collapse in short order. The only way the State can tax the broad mass of the public is via PAYE – nick the money before the worker gets his grubby mitts on it.
Yet, oddly, other countries manage perfectly well.
Which countries operate a gross pay system then?
The French system is based upon household income, so requires an annual tax return.
Something like this is already happening. There are a couple of programmes doing fly-on-the-wall documentaries following court bailiffs about their daily work, much of which is the enforcing of evictions from rented accommodation for non-payment of rent.
Ever wonder why this sort of thing is on the rise?
A few years ago, Housing Benefit used to be paid direct to the landlord of any property from the council, without the tenant ever seeing a penny of the money. This worked quite well, save for when incompetent council housing departments and crooked landlords met; in quite a few cases the tenant did a midnight flit, and the landlord then carried on claiming HB for a while whilst re-letting the property.
Then the system as changed so that the tenant was paid the Housing Benefit, to pass on to the landlord. Hence all the recent fuss regarding evictions; quite a few tenants get paid their Housing Benefit, and simply go hog-crazy spending it without a thought as to what it is for, then pass this problem on to the landlord by not paying rent.
I see this is a good thing. If people never see the money, they are absolved of fiscal responsibility. Make them have the money and then give it up, forces them to value it – and see for themselves just how little the state does likewise.
Yes, there will be chaos. This is a good thing, too.
Good one! I read it and Suzanne Moore’s article. She’s got Stockholm’s syndrome. Tax is the mark of civilisation, she says. It’s certainly the mark of a civilisation which features involuntary transfer of wealth. She can call it taxation instead of theft if it makes her feel better, and make arguments ad absurdae(?) about private ambulances/roads/misreable drinkers but it is indeed Bollocks.
I’m sure that abolitionists heard tbe words “I’se happy heah on de ole plantation” often enough, from people who were taxed at a rate of 100%. Suzanne has been told she can keep and sell 50% of what she picks, so of course she’s one of the happy band who ignore the gun in the room.
Nobody but a fool would brew their own beer then, stricken with guilt, calculate the difference between their pint’s cost and that of a pint subjected to tax in order to write a cheque for that amount to post to the Government. The principle’s the same regardless of scale.
Perhaps she will write an article about how immoral the Gardian’s tax avoidance is?
“…and maintain the roads…”
I haven’t seen any evidence of that happening in my neck of the woods for years. It does make you wonder if these people live on another planet. I’m cycling to work again now after the winter. Since most of the cost of driving to work is fuel duty, and VAT on fuel duty, I’m now keeping about £50 a month out of the Government’s grasping hands. Every little helps.
I would add that the reason Cameron has egg on his face isn’t because his father did anything wrong, it’s because he jumped on the progressive bandwagon. Roll with pigs, you get covered in shit. He and Osborne have made the same nonsensical fuss about tax avoidance as the leftists. Had he been a true small state individualist, low tax conservative, he could have just responded with a “so what?” Because, there is nothing new here and no one has done anything illegal. So what?
Another delicious irony is seeing Corbyn and his simple-minded acolytes demanding that Britain become an imperialist country and impose direct rule over the dependencies. I’d love to see them demanding the same thing over those old African colonies… These people are vile hypocrites.
“Being a tax dodger is antisocial…”
I was not aware that being antisocial was a crime. Good to know. I shall have to be careful to avoid overt expressions of my natural misanthropy.
*
On a related note: offshore bank accounts are also used to handle issues like payments in foreign currencies. For example, any Swiss resident can open a current account that lets them accept payments in GBP, EUR and USD as standard. You can’t do that in the UK: ask any bank there for the same facility and they’ll charge you a good couple of limbs.
“empowering” tenants – fucking bollocks mate, when they changed the system to paying our (solitary – singlular – one) tenant they quickly jumped on the “empowerment” bandwagon and screwed my mother out of 3 months rent before doing a moonlight flit and leaving her single source of private income like a gone all tits-up episode of DIY SOS – so no it doesn’t work, and then they bemoan why private landlords (like she was) don’t provide for folks on benefit, you’re having a fucking laugh aren’t you?
This comment does tend to underline my overall point about people relying on the state, rather than exercising due diligence themselves. Tenants absconding without paying is an occupational risk, along with trashing the property. One that the landlord should manage rather than relying on the state to pick up the tab – i.e. us.
Oh, and I’m not your “mate”. Kindly desist.
Landlords have plenty of means to protect themselves from crap tenants. That they do it on the cheap, without proper contracts, deposits, insurances or bonds, is the problem. When you live in countries with barely functional legal systems, you have to have contracts with clauses you can exercise yourself. UK landlords should do the same, and not rely on the legal system. The courts are there to protect people from serious criminal offences, not from people who offer up temptations to be ripped off.
Well, quite. When I let a property, I engaged an agent. They set up the contract, did a credit check on the tenant, collected a deposit and rent payments and periodically inspected the property. I could have done this myself, but as I was living abroad, it made sense to have someone local looking after my interests. Also, the tenant had someone local to call on in the event of problems.
If people do not do these things, they are setting themselves up for a fall. I fail to see why we, the taxpayers, should insulate them from their own negligence.