More accountants really, from the big 4, who do the rounds of bigwig in tax department, cushy sinecure in a tax giant. You often have the crazy situation where tax accountants that set up taxes advice the government about them, and senior Whitehall tax figures ned up earning big bucks at iether the companies that benefited from the HMRC's largesse while they were in control, or the beancounters who came up with the wheeze. The circular connections are many and very worrying. Private Eye lists some of them every week.

No, life isn't simple, you have to work hard to get rewards, not sit on your arris taking handouts!


And if fewer people were fleecing the system, it would be better provisioned.

Except its not an excuse is it. What Vodafone are doing is not only legal, but also acceptable in the eyes of the tax man, UKGAAP, IASB and the companies act 2006. Is it right morally? Probably not, but morality never increased share prices. A company that doesn't consider all stakeholders will not perform very well, generally, but to put the needs of the tax man in front of the needs of its shareholders is suicide!

It's the same for wealthy individuals, who spend 6 months or more out of the country and become non resident, purely to pay their tax at a lower rate in another country. All they are doing are taking advantage of the system and looking after number one.

Why was there no uproar about individuals, creating limited companies, and getting their money out by way of a small weekly wage of , topped up by dividends? that way they pay less tax than they would if they were a sole trader or in a partnership? Whilst its not as lucrative as it once was,they were still exploiting the system, meaning the UK received less tax.

We can argue about this all day long, but at the end of the day, every single person would pay less tax if they had the opportunity to do so. Vodafone are no exception.

Regards

King James

Amen - big companies most definitely included. Not heard it for a while, but we are all still in it together, aren't we?

Very true.

No personal responsibility.

If individuals could opt out of any taxes they would. And if millions of people did that the country would collapse. The government would rightly stop that from happening.

Massive corporations are opting out of paying billions of pounds of taxes and the government are cutting back on public services as a consequence.

Trolls on her claim that the corporations are merely acting sensibly. Don't know why people are feeding the trolls.

I think it's difficult for HMG and the IR to counter big business and their crooked accountants. But they could at least try. But it's far easier for the government to make the individual taxpayer pay even more for a great deal less.

38 Degrees have a new campaign against the Transatlantic Trade & Investment Partnership. I confess I have never heard of it but according to them the USA and EU are considering signing it and they say that one ramification is that companies will be able to sue governments who introduce new laws that can impact company profits. This would perhaps seem a way of the USA protecting the interests of all those companies that prefer not to pay tax over here? Seems if it goes ahead it'll be anther assault on democracy - with people through their governments having little say over what happens in their country and instead being at the mercy of potentially rapacious and immoral businesses. So, if say, a new law was brought in against the equivalent of tobacco advertising a foreign company could sue our government (ie us) for loss of profits, even if most of us wanted a ban. The USA and EU have totally destroyed democracy in recent years.

Members of Parliament being lobbied and pressurised and often paid (sponsored) to introduce binding laws, rules and regulations that will suit large businesses or private investors with no regard to how this will effect individual citizens ?

Whatever next.

The Australian government is being sued by Philip Morris the tobacco company because the government has introduced a law to force cigarettes to be sold in plain packaging.

The basis of the case is that it infringes a bi-lateral investment agreement with Hong Kong.

So the government decided cigarette packaging was one of the last major marketing tools for an industry that it views as having a direct negative impact on public health so chose to legislate in this way and the response from the company is to try and use a trade agreement to overturn it. It is also citing loss of profit as a valid reason to challenge the law, so profit comes before public health and iof they win the Australian government won't be allowed to act in the public interest on health issues if doing so reduced a companies profits.

This is where we are headed if the TTIP agreement mentioned by Dally goes through as is.

As to this being the EU who will be responsible if it does, don't kid yourselves. Our own corporation friendly government isn't exactly kicking up a fuss in opposition to it.

Crooked? I'm sorry, please can you explain why someone is "crooked" for staying within the boundaries of the law? It's not the accountants or the corporations who are are fault here, its the tax system within the UK and until things are changed (which won't happen) it will carry on being exploited.

Regards

King James

No one is saying that.



It's been explained to you already.

Schemes set up purely to avoid tax are already illegal. So if the accountants or the corporations come up with schemes designed solely to avoid tax they[i are [/iacting illegally already.

The problem is lack of enforcement, not staying within the boundaries of the law and lack of enforcement has never been an excuse for behaving in illegal activities.

It seems we have got to the stage where we can no longer expect mega-corporations to behave with probity yet because they get away with it, you seem to think it is OK. Just how stupid is that?

If you knew you could dip your hand in the till of the local corner shop because the shopkeeper left the till unattended you would not do it. You would know it was illegal and equally know it would be morally wrong.

Yet when accountants and corporations behave an in analogous way over tax its the victim who is at fault not the perpetrator.

Few large companies consider all stakeholders these days. The effect it has may well be detrimental but they still do it even in the face of evidence it makes no sense. M&S is a bit of basket case but was once a company that treated its employees well. They are now moving to the zero hours model believe it or not.

The suggestion from Private Eye is also that Vodafone are not behaving legally as the scheme mentioned has one purpose, the avoidance of tax. So it is not a legitimate claim against (for example) R&D expenses or whatever that may be covered by legistlation.



There is! It's been an issue for a long time. I know people who no only pay less tax by doing this but even manage to get fees paid for their children as students due to being classed as low income families. The fact only people who are on PAYE pay their full whack of tax has never been lost on me.

What is ironic is these people are often the first to complain if the likes of the NHS are underfunded.



That is just reductio ad absurdum. If that is true then everyone and every company would aim to pay no tax at all.

I am sure you aren't daft to enough to believe this is a workable situation and however big or small a state you want that some of it must be paid for by taxation.

It is therefore obviously the case that as tax must be collected taxation must be levied and collected fairly.

We already know some companies have achieved zero tax thus transferring the tax burden further toward the individual. So the fact Vodafone wants to pay zero tax is not justified just because that is what they want to do.

The Times have revealed a few famous names who have invested in the Liberty 'tax strategy'. Great name for a tax strategy that, Liberty.

What I find odd is that such companies moan about infrastructure holding them back and that government should pay for it. I am sorry but why? If their business needs road and rail links then they should pay for it if they don't wish to pay much tax. Why is it the responsibility of Joe Public to not just buy their products and services but to pay higher taxes to help their business be more profitable? Surely if they have a demand for infrastructure they will pay for it themselves or pay a private company to build it for them? Isn't that what free market capitalism dictates? Isn't that what was done in the Victorian era when private capital built railways to mines, etc?

Interestingly, in Germany (or at least in certain parts of it) if a company wants to open a big warehouse/factory/supermarket or build a big housing estate they are generally made to build/improve the infrastructure of the surrounding area in a significant way.
It seems to help them have more of a tie or relationship to the area when they've invested in more than just the building that they actually own.

That's neo-cons for you: privatise the profit and socialise any loss (as much cost as you can get away with)

Anne Robinson, Gary Barlow, Katie Melua, all of the Arctic Monkey's, Michael Caine and George Michael.

I wonder what possesses them to do it. Even if they pay their full whack they are still going to be worth literally millions. If someone said to me we are going t pay you £2m a year but you only get to take home £1m I'd be quite happy with that thank you very much.

This is an interesting article about the super rich wanting to hang onto every last penny:

[urlhttp://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jul/08/the-age-of-entitlement-how-wealth-breeds-narcissism[/url

And here's one of the mega-rich who seems to finally "get it"

[url=http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/06/the-pitchforks-are-coming-for-us-plutocrats-108014.html#.U76VSpRdWE4The Pitchforks are Coming[/url

Interesting point of view - pay more in wages to the low paid and create more spenders who in turn shop for the things that you build and sell - how any high street retailer who pays minimum wage doesn't see this glaringly obvious fact is beyond me, other than the excuse of shareholder short term greed.

Indeed. Especially when Henry Ford worked it out a century ago.

Which maybe begs the question as to what Ford the company might have done back then had shareholders been in charge rather than 1 person.
1 person might well think of these things compared to shareholders (many of whom are organisations rather than individuals) who don't think that far about the business.

So... The Stock Market - good or bad?

Generally stock markets are good things, when they operate within the rules and are investing in companies that either make things people want to buy or services they need or wish to avail themselves of. The problems occur when organisations or individuals operate outside the rules or money is invested in money as a means of making yet more money

Your last sentence is the main problem, too many people who believe that money makes more money all by some sort of magic rather than by having to do anything with it - the company I work for has one major investor who dictates from afar but at least he understands the industry we work in, has actually proved that he can run hands-on a similar previous company, and has a plan for us to move down, far too many would just sit back, cut costs and bleed the profit out of a business like ours.

An interesting read and I liked this quote which is the basis of his essay in many ways "These idiotic trickle-down policies are destroying my customer base."

I remember mentioning that effect years ago on here and getting shot down by the usual right-wingers. When the staff at Tesco can no longer afford to shop there, then there really is a problem that they "just don't get".

I wonder what would happen if a PLC was barred from giving shareholder dividends or management bonuses if any employees were reliant on tax credits or housing benefit?

They would simply dismiss or "lever out" anyone in such a position and replace them with agency staff thus building a firewall between themselves and the legislation.