Stupid stupid; as long as it's legal - do it. If government doesn't like certain schemes, make them illegal; then they become evasion and you can prosecute. But you know as well as anyone - clever and decent executives will always find legal ways to avoid tax - and should be doing it.

Huge waste of time trying to make avoidance "immoral".

And again I blame the media - the BBC just captioned that his speech said we must tackle tax evasion; when he clearly said he wants to tackle tax avoidance; I do sometimes despair; do neither media nor viewers nor politicians understand; he's saying it should be illegal to AVOID tax. That's not only impossible but a waste of time, expense and effort.

Make some avoidance illegal; fine; they will (100% certain) find other loopholes (or go and base themselves elsewhere).

JK2006 wrote:
(or go and base themselves elsewhere).

no no no no no...you are channeling ITK !!!!

they won't go anywhere else..this is the threat corporations use..like as if New Corp could sell their trashy tabloids elsewhere or Vodafone would give up their billions in profit from the UK.

This problem is solvable and the USA proved it by threatening tax havens over channeling money to Al Qaeda.

The fact is Cameron doesn't want to 'solve it'..that's his job- to protect corporate profits.

hedda wrote:
JK2006 wrote:
(or go and base themselves elsewhere).

no no no no no...you are channeling ITK !!!!

Remind me again, Hedda ... was it Starbucks that was offered a "deal" by the Dutch government (lower taxes)?

If what you say is true why have so many firms (Amazon etc) ALREADY moved their Corporate HQs overseas?

If we did them a deal, they would stay here ... like I've said many many times before -
a bit of tax is far better than no tax at all !

In The Know wrote:
hedda wrote:
JK2006 wrote:
(or go and base themselves elsewhere).

no no no no no...you are channeling ITK !!!!

Remind me again, Hedda ... was it Starbucks that was offered a "deal" by the Dutch government (lower taxes)?

If what you say is true why have so many firms (Amazon etc) ALREADY moved their Corporate HQs overseas?

If we did them a deal, they would stay here ... like I've said many many times before -
a bit of tax is far better than no tax at all !

the usual bollox.

hedda wrote:
the usual bollox.

I'm right then (again !) .... obviously !

Time for a name change (again) ?

In The Know wrote:
hedda wrote:
the usual bollox.

I'm right then (again !) .... obviously !

Time for a name change (again) ?

yes you right..you talk bollox.

But they don't move abroad do they ?- it's a sham. They move their HQ abroad in name only as Murdoch has done (Caymans & Delaware) etc etc.

With the brilliance of my clear thinking and forensic style investigations : I announced on this very board that the day would come when workers organised and moved their labour off shore and LO & BEHOLD : we now see that half the BBC staff have done just that and have declared themselves to be corporations.

I see a future where staff , super market workers and so on, will organise into limited companies based in Litchenstein and sell their labour back to UK corps and pay limited tax.

Then who will pay for Charles & Camilla's Rolls Royce?

## repeat for the cloth eared : the US after 9/11 threatened all those tax havens with dire results if they kept laundering funds for so-called terrorists- so it can be done if there is a will but all talk from Cameron et all..is just that...

hedda wrote:
they won't go anywhere else..this is the threat corporations use..like as if New Corp could sell their trashy tabloids elsewhere or Vodafone would give up their billions in profit from the UK.

You were saying. Hedda-tas ?

Starbucks threatens Cameron after unfair tax attacks

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/982910...air-tax-attacks.html

The deals the UK governments did with the banks & other industries are the root of all evil (or at least of the global financial crisis).

"The “race to the weakest supervisor” did not occur only within the U.S. Brooksley Born and a former senior SEC official have confirmed to me that UK regulators directly pitched U.S. financial firms to relocate operations to the City of London in order to obtain weaker supervision. “Fed lite” supervision was a competitive response to the FSA’s “reg lite” system of deliberately weak supervision. The City of London became the most criminogenic environment in the world for financial fraud, which is why so many UK banks and units of foreign banks located in the City have caused the major scandals in the UK and globally."

Why the World Economic Forum and Goldman Sachs are Capitalism’s Worst Enemies

DJones wrote:
The deals the UK governments did with the banks & other industries are the root of all evil (or at least of the global financial crisis).

The deals that loony Labour did with the banks & other industries are the root of all evil (or at least of the global financial crisis).

In The Know wrote:


The deals that loony Labour did with the banks & other industries are the root of all evil (or at least of the global financial crisis).

Eh? So now Labour are responsible for the global financial crisis are they? Bonkers.

david wrote:
Eh? So now Labour are responsible for the global financial crisis are they?

The financial crisis hit in 2008 (do you remember, when "banks" like Northern Rock started going bust !).

Labour had been in charge of UK finances (and regulation !) since 1997.

Shall we blame the French ?

In The Know wrote:
david wrote:
Eh? So now Labour are responsible for the global financial crisis are they?

The financial crisis hit in 2008 (do you remember, when "banks" like Northern Rock started going bust !).

Labour had been in charge of UK finances (and regulation !) since 1997.

Shall we blame the French ?

Look at your post above. You said global financial crisis, i.s. that Labour were responsible for the crisis all over the world.

"The deals that loony Labour did with the banks & other industries are the root of all evil (or at least of the global financial crisis)."

It wasn't loony Labour, it was New Labour. And New Labour was copying the LOONY politics of Thatcher & Reagan.




"How did American and British policymakers become so enamored with free markets, deregulation, and limited government? This book--the first comprehensive transatlantic history of the rise of neoliberal politics--presents a surprising answer. Based on archival research and interviews with leading participants in the movement, Masters of the Universe traces the ascendancy of neoliberalism from the academy of interwar Europe to supremacy under Reagan and Thatcher and in the decades since. Daniel Stedman Jones argues that there was nothing inevitable about the victory of free-market politics. Far from being the story of the simple triumph of right-wing ideas, the neoliberal breakthrough was contingent on the economic crises of the 1970s and the acceptance of the need for new policies by the political left.

Masters of the Universe describes neoliberalism's road to power, beginning in interwar Europe but shifting its center of gravity after 1945 to the United States, especially to Chicago and Virginia, where it acquired a simple clarity that was developed into an uncompromising political message. Neoliberalism was communicated through a transatlantic network of think tanks, businessmen, politicians, and journalists that was held together by Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman. After the collapse of Bretton Woods in 1971, and the "stagflation" that followed, their ideas finally began to take hold as Keynesianism appeared to self-destruct. Later, after the elections of Reagan and Thatcher, a guileless faith in free markets came to dominate politics.

Fascinating, important, and timely, this is a book for anyone who wants to understand the history behind the Anglo-American love affair with the free market, as well as the origins of the current economic crisis."

www.amazon.co.uk/Masters-Universe-Friedm...359411965&sr=1-1

DJones wrote:
It wasn't loony Labour, it was New Labour.

Glad that you agree with me.
Just because everyone else was throwing themselves off cliffs like lemmings there was no need for us to follow suit !

The LOONIES were in charge of regulation ... and forgot to regulate (or rather opened the flood-doors for their "friends")

Lots of people became rich under Thatcher ... who (apart from Blair !!!) became rich under Labour (new / old / loony)? - but we ALL inherited the debt (just as we always do everytime there is a Labour government)?

In The Know wrote:
DJones wrote:
It wasn't loony Labour, it was New Labour.

Glad that you agree with me.
Just because everyone else was throwing themselves off cliffs like lemmings there was no need for us to follow suit !

The LOONIES were in charge of regulation ... and forgot to regulate (or rather opened the flood-doors for their "friends")

Lots of people became rich under Thatcher ... who (apart from Blair !!!) became rich under Labour (new / old / loony)? - but we ALL inherited the debt (just as we always do everytime there is a Labour government)?

AND as we always do everytime there is a Tory (led) government:

It's all part of the social conditioning going on.

Convince the masses - who of course used to have a much more "laissez-faire" attitude to tax avoidance before thinking became illegal - that it is a bad thing, and reduce the amount of people who are legally reducing their tax burden by virtue of self-employment, contracting etc - and setting themselves up as "Ltd Co"s etc, and in a few years it will be "socially unacceptable" as by then we will be almost completely a nation of imbeciles. That is the idea, and people are becoming so bovine it may well work out.

Which means laws won't be changed for those in power and with money already - the loopholes exist and will quietly be used by those "in the know"
Those drones with their head just above water will no longer complain about being bum-raped by PAYE etc - it is "their duty" to pay taxes. They will no longer aspire to having a "good accountant" and the gap between 'real wealth' will widen - people will "know their place" and be kept in check by their nearest & dearest, and woe betide anyone trying to break free!

DJones wrote:




Oh dear ... you really dont understand economics, do you?

Its the DEFICIT that we are paying off !

The overall debt will continue to rise (because interest is added to Labour's debt - each and every year - until it is paid off, silly !)

ITK wrote:
"Oh dear ... you really dont understand economics, do you?"

That's something I have in common with George "triple-dip" Osborne!

the introduction to Masters of The Universe says it all very succinctly.

The scary part is that ITK may be quite intelligent (but not as much as me of course) and yet he still believes all this voodoo economics stuff.

There are millions like him though and some are in power