[LiveFastDieYoung]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2...ily-tax-havens

This is on the front page of the guardian, and they have linked directly to Ian Cameron's will on their website.

They are not suggesting that David Cameron himself has been avoiding his taxes, that he HIMSELF has done anything wrong, instead they are looking at a bloke who made his money in the 80s and trawling over his will and pointing out who got what in the Cameron family.

I always get a little annoyed when people talk about "tax avoidance" and say that it is morally wrong, because it is a simple fact NO ONE pays more tax than they HAVE TO. If you feel a company isn't paying enough tax, then change the tax law, simply put.

The reason poor people don't "tax avoid" is because they do not A) have enough money to make it worth it, and B) do not have the leeway with regards their assets.

I guarantee you that a small business owner "tax avoids" in the same way as a huge corporation simply on a smaller scale. He will pay an accountant who will say "you can minimise you tax bill by putting that asset there, offsetting that loss against that and not claiming this particular benefit"

Its fairly black and white, there is no such thing as a "Moral Tax Bill" in law and if there was it would be up to the politicians to implement, to fix the BAD LAW they created. Show me one person who has on principle chosen to pay more tax than they are legally obliged to do so?

But that is a side note. What I do not like the idea of is trawling through a dead man's will, poring over his assets in a fit of jealousy to see his older NON-POLITICIAN son kept the 2.5m mansion where-ever etc. It seems distasteful to me, a vague sense of invasion of privacy.

The purpose of probate was not so everybody could nose into your business, but to ensure no heirs were defrauded because the testator was dead and could not gainsay the word of dishonest family members.

I feel there are much more cogent attacks to be made on Cameron's policies, his approach to the NHS, his lack of addressing the tax loopholes we feel are morally unacceptable, his approach to the banks etc.

Trawling through a dead mans last will and testimony is not the way of going about this in my view.

[jesusandtequila]

Bravo. Nail, head, hit.

[LiveFastDieYoung]

I read the guardian alot, but sometimes it really gets up my nose, and this was one of them. The other one recently was the "don't vote for Boris BECAUSE he went to Eton" article and the one about the guy who jumped in the river being entitled to do so.

[Martyn*]

because it is a simple fact NO ONE pays more tax than they HAVE TO

I do not think that this is a fact, but merely an assumption based upon the notion of the existence of equality between wage-earners, entrepeneurs, and the idle rich. Tax avoidance is advantageous to the rich, but the poor cannot avoid paying it.

[LiveFastDieYoung]

(Original post by Martyn*)
because it is a simple fact NO ONE pays more tax than they HAVE TO

I do not think that this is a fact, but merely an assumption based upon the notion of the existence of equality between wage-earners, entrepeneurs, and the idle rich. Tax avoidance is advantageous to the rich, but the poor cannot avoid paying it.

can you expand on that? I do not assume any such equality, the rich by definition have such tools at their disposal because they are rich, the poor pay a fixed and definite tax bill because they do not have the breadth of assets available to them.

The more assets you have the less fixed the tax requirements are. My parents own a small holiday cottage on the coast, we are comfortably lower middle class (they are both teachers at local comps), however we minimise our tax bill by "running the cottage as a business" despite all we do is rent it out for the statutory minimum required time to qualify for the tax break.

Is that morally wrong? What was the intention of the statue? Is it only for people running hard core rental businesses? Says who, where?

The government decided to crack down on people doing what my parents are doing, and raised the requirement for the number of days you must rent the property out, thus we are advertising it more to again meet the tax break.

In all of this it would seem morally neutral, we do what is required, no more. The government changed the requirements to meet a political need as is their prerogative.

[chrisawhitmore]

(Original post by Martyn*)
because it is a simple fact NO ONE pays more tax than they HAVE TO

I do not think that this is a fact, but merely an assumption based upon the notion of the existence of equality between wage-earners, entrepeneurs, and the idle rich. Tax avoidance is advantageous to the rich, but the poor cannot avoid paying it.

Well, they used to have a 10p tax rate which helped the working poor, but Labour got rid of it to help those on the dole.

By comparison, Cameron has repeatedly raised the personal allowance, lifting thousands of working poor out of tax and saving hundreds of pounds for those earning less than £100,000.

His inheriting £300,000 on which tax may or may not have been paid fully (I honestly thought he had inherited way more than this, though given the way the left describe him, you'd think he was descended from Croesus) is rather irrelevant to his political career and ability to govern.

[Aj12]

They mention completely legal enough in the first three lines. I don't see the point of the article?

[LiveFastDieYoung]

(Original post by Aj12)
They mention completely legal enough in the first three lines. I don't see the point of the article?

That was my main grievance with the article, I expect better from the guardian. If I was wanted base class war envy articles I would read the mirror.

There are genuine strong arguments to be made against inequality in the UK, but this article is not one of them. The fact that it made front page at the very top of their website does not make me happy.

[Norton1]

Coming from the Guardian: the Guardian Media Group holds investments through subsidiaries in the Caymans to avoid tax, in 2008 GMG paid no corporation tax on £300 million profits and saved £60 million by switching assets from a trust into a corporation simply for taxation reasons.

Something about removing the beam from your own eye?

[Hobo389]

The Guardian has always been and forever will be ever so slightly sickening at times. This article is highly disrespectful however much money is involved. I make a point of reading a range of newspapers but recently the Guardian is leading me to drop it.

[Martyn*]

(Original post by LiveFastDieYoung)
can you expand on that? I do not assume any such equality, the rich by definition have such tools at their disposal because they are rich, the poor pay a fixed and definite tax bill because they do not have the breadth of assets available to them.

The more assets you have the less fixed the tax requirements are. My parents own a small holiday cottage on the coast, we are comfortably lower middle class (they are both teachers at local comps), however we minimise our tax bill by "running the cottage as a business" despite all we do is rent it out for the statutory minimum required time to qualify for the tax break.

Is that morally wrong? What was the intention of the statue? Is it only for people running hard core rental businesses? Says who, where?

The government decided to crack down on people doing what my parents are doing, and raised the requirement for the number of days you must rent the property out, thus we are advertising it more to again meet the tax break.

In all of this it would seem morally neutral, we do what is required, no more. The government changed the requirements to meet a political need as is their prerogative.

Aren't we talking about tax avoidance rather than tax rates?

[Time Tourist]

Then stop being such a pansy leftie-liberal

There's something very emasculating and unmanly about such leftie-liberals.

[LiveFastDieYoung]

(Original post by Martyn*)
Aren't we talking about tax avoidance rather than tax rates?

what is the distinction? If we did not take advantage of the tax break for businesses we would be paying more tax. Our tax rate is reduced by ticking certain boxes.

If poor people had more boxes to tick there would be a greater grey area between what they had to pay, and what they could pay on top of that with a different arrangement.

If we had a tax on people wearing red hats, if someone chose to wear a green hat instead would that be tax avoidance? would there be a moral obligation to wear red hats?

tax rates are a purely political question, we are talking about the definition of what is and is not tax avoidance.

[Martyn*]

(Original post by chrisawhitmore)
Well, they used to have a 10p tax rate which helped the working poor, but Labour got rid of it to help those on the dole.

By comparison, Cameron has repeatedly raised the personal allowance, lifting thousands of working poor out of tax and saving hundreds of pounds for those earning less than £100,000.

His inheriting £300,000 on which tax may or may not have been paid fully (I honestly thought he had inherited way more than this, though given the way the left describe him, you'd think he was descended from Croesus) is rather irrelevant to his political career and ability to govern.

The working-poor were probably more comfortably well-off compared to the poor and those not in employment. So the change brought about by Labour may have been a moral adjustment, since those on the dole would come the worse off, in what Labour perceived, as the approaching economic austerity conditions.

Whilst Cameron might have helped to lift the working poor out of paying unfair tax (and there is many working poor who have to resort to food banks still!), he hasn't done much, if anything at all, to address the balance of social and economic justice, nay, has made it worse by exacerbating class division, and by giving a helping hand to the city bankers and the rich elite in a time of austerity.

[bananaterracottapie]

(Original post by Time Tourist)
Then stop being such a pansy leftie-liberal

There's something very emasculating and unmanly about such leftie-liberals.

such a good reason for basing your political opinions on.....

[bananaterracottapie]

tbh, i dont like the guardian, although the times and telegraph arent that much better either :/ poor journalism sells.

[prog2djent]

(Original post by Time Tourist)
Then stop being such a pansy leftie-liberal

There's something very emasculating and unmanly about such leftie-liberals.

I tend to find they are devious, hypocritical, sceaming people, as most of the time, I find they don't really believe in all the stuff they say.

At least with vulgar rightists, you know what you get with them, they know their opinions are unsavoury, but atleast they stick to them.

[L i b]

(Original post by Martyn*)
because it is a simple fact NO ONE pays more tax than they HAVE TO

I do not think that this is a fact, but merely an assumption based upon the notion of the existence of equality between wage-earners, entrepeneurs, and the idle rich. Tax avoidance is advantageous to the rich, but the poor cannot avoid paying it.

Of course the poor avoid tax. If you take cost considerations into buying, say, unheated food (VAT exempt) instead of ready-to-eat food (which has VAT applied), then you're avoiding tax. If you buy beer under a certain percentage limit where duty becomes higher, then you're avoiding tax. Businesses thrive on tax avoidance, and the poor are the beneficiaries.

[Martyn*]

(Original post by LiveFastDieYoung)
what is the distinction? If we did not take advantage of the tax break for businesses we would be paying more tax. Our tax rate is reduced by ticking certain boxes.

If poor people had more boxes to tick there would be a greater grey area between what they had to pay, and what they could pay on top of that with a different arrangement.

If we had a tax on people wearing red hats, if someone chose to wear a green hat instead would that be tax avoidance? would there be a moral obligation to wear red hats?

tax rates are a purely political question, we are talking about the definition of what is and is not tax avoidance.

Right. But we are also taking about who pays tax and who avoids it, that is, does tax avoidance go-on amongst those for whom paying tax, under economic justice and the rule of law also, should not be avoidable? It certainly does. Osborne himself as admitted as such, and the Treasury have reported on it stating that out of the 200 taxpayers earning more than £10m a year, 12 of them are paying less than 10% in tax. But does the rich (the super-rich, in this case) pay more or less tax than they have to? They should, based upon economic justice and the rule of law, pay more (because they have the resources and knowledge), or they should put more of their money into free and worthwhile enterprise that will benefit everyone (i.e., so that living standards are raised), and not just the few. At the moment it seems that the super-rich are not totally willing to put their big monies into either tax or free and worthwhile enterpise.

[Like a BAWS]

(Original post by prog2djent)
I tend to find they are devious, hypocritical, sceaming people, as most of the time, I find they don't really believe in all the stuff they say.

At least with vulgar rightists, you know what you get with them, they know their opinions are unsavoury, but atleast they stick to them.

I'm a 'vulgar rightist', so should be offended I guess, but couldn't help but smile reading that. So true !