Quote ="Bullseye"Sorting this out would help: https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/new ... axman.html'" And Labour think increasing the rate of corporation tax will increase the take - bonkers. Unless tax is a universally changed you will never stop companies finding lower tax regimes - it is the duty of directors to protect shareholder funds however unpalatable that is.

Quote ="Bullseye"Sorting this out would help: https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/new ... axman.html'" And Labour think increasing the rate of corporation tax will increase the take - bonkers. Unless tax is a universally changed you will never stop companies finding lower tax regimes - it is the duty of directors to protect shareholder funds however unpalatable that is.

You know the answer.

Ah the good old chestnut. Under the Companies Act it is also a director's duty to act fairly between members, employees, suppliers, the environment, the general community. Let's not bother with that pinko stuff though when we can screw all of them & let the lower paid cover those costs.

Could change legislation so that interest and royalties paid offshore are non-deductible. Likewise management charges and rents in respect of UK situated property paid to outside UK. That may better reflect commercial reality.

These numbers are not my personal opinion on what poverty is they are official government statistics. Although without a permanent roof over your head is homeless, struggling to feed your family (hence using a food bank) and pay essential bills is living in poverty. I’m not sure what your point is, are you saying the 14M officially living in poverty are actually well off.

The increase in homelessness has nothing to do with immigration. We had immigration before the tories came to power in 2010 and we still have immigration now at similar levels.

Immigrants are scapegoated by our right wing press, which is owned by billionaire non domicile tax dodgers, despite the fact immigrants are less likely to be unemployed than British born people, less likely to claim benefits and contribute more than they take out of the system.

Big companies are far too clever - it needs a change internationally and there are countries with a vested interest in not letting that happen - some are even in the seas just of the UK mainland.

They’re not clever - it is just easy.

Do you have any suggestions?

Because it increasingly feels like your original question was:

How do we make our optimal economic system work better without changing it?

In any society there will those who earn less, have less etc. even in your Socialist utopia there are the haves and have nots. As I have pointed out the officials of Unite - the leftist of unions - have a final salary pension scheme paid for by the members - go figure?

We don't have 14m living in poverty as you well know yes they may earn less but they are entitled to benefits to top up their earnings the numbers using food banks is >2m that says c12m of you 14m can afford to buy food - is that true poverty? How many people in this country are really in poverty?

The Times has suggested 20% of all homeless in London are EU migrants - I suppose that is just Murdoch looking after himself?

There will always be people who earn less and have less than others, but we can choose to make things better and more equal rather than worse and less equal. We do have 14M living in poverty, that is a fact. Some of those people can feed themselves without using a food bank, but they are still living in poverty. It’s pointless debating how poor they are, everybody’s situation will be different, but the fact is they are officially living in poverty, and the number of people living in poverty has risen significantly. The only conclusion anyone can draw from that is the government has failed the people it’s supposed to represent on a massive scale. https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.bbc. ... k-42218682

There will always be people who earn less and have less than others, but we can choose to make things better and more equal rather than worse and less equal. We do have 14M living in poverty, that is a fact. Some of those people can feed themselves without using a food bank, but they are still living in poverty. It’s pointless debating how poor they are, everybody’s situation will be different, but the fact is they are officially living in poverty, and the number of people living in poverty has risen significantly. The only conclusion anyone can draw from that is the government has failed the people it’s supposed to represent on a massive scale. https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.bbc. ... k-42218682

Quote ="Sal Paradise" We don't have 14m living in poverty as you well know yes they may earn less but they are entitled to benefits to top up their earnings the numbers using food banks is >2m that says c12m of you 14m can afford to buy food - is that true poverty? How many people in this country are really in poverty? '" https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-42223497 If those definitions don’t work for you, how would you define poverty? Quote ="Sal Paradise" I am concerned about the inequality of wealth in this country. Surely something needs to be done to provide a fairer society in terms of wealth distribution. '" Do you stand by that? How would you define fairness, in this context? What level of equality would you like to see? What proportion of wealth being held by the the top 1% or 5%, nationally or globally, would you deem equitable? What would you regard as being the maximum acceptable Gini co-efficient in the UK?

Quote ="Sal Paradise" We don't have 14m living in poverty as you well know yes they may earn less but they are entitled to benefits to top up their earnings the numbers using food banks is >2m that says c12m of you 14m can afford to buy food - is that true poverty? How many people in this country are really in poverty? '" https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-42223497 If those definitions don’t work for you, how would you define poverty? Quote ="Sal Paradise" I am concerned about the inequality of wealth in this country. Surely something needs to be done to provide a fairer society in terms of wealth distribution. '" Do you stand by that? How would you define fairness, in this context? What level of equality would you like to see? What proportion of wealth being held by the the top 1% or 5%, nationally or globally, would you deem equitable? What would you regard as being the maximum acceptable Gini co-efficient in the UK?

The taxation system is very complex and requires highly intelligent people to understand it - we need to close down the rules on transfer pricing and as mentioned before management/franchising charges. Corporation tax needs to be an international cooperation or there will always be legal ways of avoidance.

So would you be in favour of international economic harmonisation, with the pooling of sovereignty needed to achieve that?

For taxation you need international agreement or the current loopholes will still exist i.e. Apple being based in Ireland, Amazon in Luxembourg etc. whilst ever you have countries with very low rates of CT large companies will migrate their - altruism is not high up on their priority list.

What a pity they can't put their collective genius to building a better world.

As I mentioned before the human condition is not naturally altruistic - its no surprise that we think about others once we are in comfortable position.

If its feed your family or they go hungry so others can eat then I doubt you would be quite so considerate of others?

Your right about the complexities within tax law and the biggest problem is that the larger comglomerates have brighter people helping them avoid paying tax than HMRC have "collecting" it.

The villians are always one (or two) steps ahead.

If the whole thing was simplified, then the exchequer would benefit.
Unfortunately, the fundamental flw here is that those making our laws (MP's) would be hit in their own pocket so, we have the ultimate contradiction of MP saying that "everyone should pay their share", whilst at the same time, avoiding paying tax in any way possible.
How many MP's have offshore accounts for their personal or private affairs ??

For me poverty suggests you don't have a roof over your head, you can't cloth yourself, your don't have access to clean water and you can't feed yourself. On that basis how many people do we have in real poverty - very very few.

There needs to be the trickle down how do you make that happen whilst still rewarding the risk and encouraging investment. Interesting that Sweden a country lauds as a model society has the 2nd highest Gini co-efficient of any country!! So if you had a Gini index you would say 65 which is roughly what the world co-efficient is.

How do you re-distribute wealth - increase the minimum wage, introduce a relationship between the CEO salary and that of the average earnings in the firm. Create a tax system that encourages/forces firms to pay CT etc.

You will never stop entrepreneurs making huge piles of cash - how do stop Bill Gates building Microsoft into the firm it is and the riches that come with it. How many on here complain about big business yet use Amazon!!

There is plenty of evidence to the contrary, especially amongst children. Selfishness is taught or learned.


I am quite content in my family's demonstrations of altruism. Irrespective, we are talking about very rich people making very rich people even richer. Or selfish, greedy people richer.

It’d be worth it to see the faces of Rees-Mogg and Farage, if nowt else.

A global approach will likely see requests/demands for measures to reduce global inequality.



To me, that is a definition of extreme poverty.

Sweden has a relatively low Gini co-efficient, and certainly not the second highest in the world! The UK’s, while higher than Sweden, is lower than most.

What is you definition of poverty?

If you believe Maslow - survival + security are basic needs in built in humans - thinking about others is well up the scale once you have achieved stages 1 & 2.

You may well be altruistic now because you will not be in poverty whatever your description of that is. Bill Gates is currently in the process of divesting a large chunk of his fortune - unfortunately he is acquiring it quicker than he gives it away. I think you would be very surprised at how much the very wealthy give away to causes they believe in.

Quote ="Sal Paradise"What is you definition of poverty?'" In terms of relative of poverty, I think there’s a case for using mean rather than median values, and including wealth as well as income. I don’t have the expertise to come up with a technical definition though. In terms of what life is like, in the UK something like this seems about right to me, on a quick read: www.poverty.ac.uk/pse-research/w ... nk-we-need www.poverty.ac.uk/pse-research/g ... -1983-2012

Quote ="Sal Paradise"What is you definition of poverty?'" In terms of relative of poverty, I think there’s a case for using mean rather than median values, and including wealth as well as income. I don’t have the expertise to come up with a technical definition though. In terms of what life is like, in the UK something like this seems about right to me, on a quick read: www.poverty.ac.uk/pse-research/w ... nk-we-need www.poverty.ac.uk/pse-research/g ... -1983-2012

And here is the nub of the issue.
Striking a balance to allow entrepreneurs to fulfil their potential but not allowing them to escape their tax responsibilities, which of coures applies to Amazon as well.

Regardless of how bright someone is or how innovative their products may be, is it right that someone should earn £1000's per hour, while paying another person £9.00 per hour ?? and having to subsidise them with "handouts", which are in place to allow the top earners to pay their staff less money ??

If ALL full time employees were paid a proper living wage, there would be far less need for benefits to be paid out but, there would be issues around inflation and our (the UK's) competitiveness overseas.

Happy Fat Cat Friday, everyone. Keep grafting. https://news.sky.com/story/fat-cat-frid ... y-11598353

Happy Fat Cat Friday, everyone. Keep grafting. https://news.sky.com/story/fat-cat-frid ... y-11598353

The issue about a living wage is an interesting one - its then a balance between staff pay and profits. Shareholders - predominantly pension funds - want share price growth and dividends if the minimum wage is increased at say Sainsburys/Asda either profits fall and everyone's pension suffers, unlikely or prices increase so are the lower paid going to be any better off?

What price do you place on risk and innovation - if through their hard work, risk taking and skill levels they build a business that is very profitable and employs hundreds of people what should they earn? These are people making the critical decisions/managing the risk/raising the finance in that business - are you suggesting a cap on earnings?