£13trillion: hoard hidden from taxman by global elite

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Reply 20

NietzschanGuy

Original post by james22

What they are doing isn't illegal....

Oh sorry, I meant, 'legal avoidance'. Of course, hiding from tax using clever lawyers is not strictly illegal.

Reply 21

t0ffee

Original post by ThisIsTheLife

... and then the new name for it would be "country avoidance".

Ultimately the state has more power than individuals or corporations. In a battle of wills the governments will win.

Reply 22

SnoochToTheBooch

Original post by G56

People expect rich people to be constantly dishing out money so some 'underprivileged' family in Liverpool can buy their kid the latest PS3 game.
Exactly the type of thing that children should do less of to avoid falling in the welfare trap.

If I was rich I would do everything in my power to avoid paying tax.

I expect them to provide clean drinking water, enough food, safe shelter and quality free education for every man woman and child on the planet. That could be sorted out tomorrow and they'd still have enough left over to live like gods.

(edited 11 years ago)

Reply 23

t0ffee

Original post by thegodofgod

Tbh, it's not necessarily about these tax avoiders as much as it's about the government not closing these tax loopholes.

If that were done, tax avoidance could potentially be reduced to nothing.

The government tries as hard as they can to close them lol, they are just at a very advanced stage. The one law that would work, e.g. 'it is illegal to do anything that we consider tax avoidance' would cause a massive liberal backlash.

Reply 24

ESPORTIVA

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/jul/21/offshore-wealth-global-economy-tax-havens?mobile-redirect=false

Reply 25

Left Hand Drive

Original post by G56

I bet most of would be happy to be so rich that, that was the tax level we were on.

Reply 26

ThisIsTheLife

Original post by t0ffee

Ultimately the state has more power than individuals or corporations. In a battle of wills the governments will win.

Not really... it's not a case of governments vs the wealthy. Governments NEED the wealthy to sustain their power.

Wealth creators are highly sought after - everybody wants them. So if it comes to the point when governments start legislating to close tax loopholes to take an ever-increasing share of their incomes, then they're going to look elsewhere... and as these people are in demand, there will be countries who will happily accept them by giving them a tax deal they're more comfortable with.

If all governments closed all loopholes, then yes, there'd be no reason to prefer one country to another in terms of tax, and more would stay in the UK. But governments will realise that if they go their own way, provide more tax relief than others, then they'll see thousands of wealth creators flocking to their country, and leaving behind places like the UK.

Anyway, governments don't care about the poor. They like the rich and only the rich. It's all about money. They pretend to care about the poor and society at large only to garner votes. In reality, they know, I know and the rich know, that governments need the rich.

Reply 27

ThisIsTheLife

Original post by SnoochToTheBooch

Yes, but what moral right and authority do YOU or any government have to force that responsibility upon someone?

None whatsoever. Get your own water, your own food, your own shelter and your own education and stop going about your life like the world owes you something.

The world owes you NOTHING.

It's your sense of entitlement that is wrong with the society.

(edited 11 years ago)

Reply 28

fudgesundae

Original post by The Dark Lord

paying 0.1% tax.... paying 0% tax. However low tax is, I'm pretty sure people would prefer to pay nothing. A low rate of tax would still be an insane amount when applied to £13t...

It gets to a point where it isn't worth avoiding tax. You forget that it still costs money to avoid tax (the people running the schemes don't do it for free), if the tax you're paying is so low that it is cheaper to pay it than to avoid it then people will pay tax. Equally if there is only a small benefit gained by avoiding tax then people would not bother going to the lengths they do to do it.

As is stands you can save a hell of a lot of money by avoiding tax due to the extortionate tax rates.

Reply 29

ESPORTIVA

Original post by ThisIsTheLife

Good. Those trillians are far better off in the hands of those who earned it than in the hands of incompetent governments and welfare parasites.

I am only disappointed that the number is not as high as it could be.

Lol those rich people arent your friends, no amount of sucking up to them will give you abit of their wealth

Reply 30

ThisIsTheLife

Original post by ESPORTIVA

Lol those rich people arent your friends, no amount of sucking up to them will give you abit of their wealth

I'm quite aware of that. But unlike most cretins in our society, I'm not a parasite with an inflated sense of entitlement.

I expect to earn my own way in life, taking as little from others as possible, and building my own wealth. And when I've done that, I'll be seeking to avoid as much tax as possible.

Governments and the people that vote for them have no moral authority to arrest the fruits of my labour.

Reply 31

t0ffee

Original post by ThisIsTheLife

Wealth creators is a silly term. More like wealth exploiters. These people want to take the money away from the country and have it all for themselves/ The banking crisis epitomizes this, the banks took the money for themselves, and left the governments to bail them out, while decreasing all the governments actual wealth.

Historically governments have not needed the rich - its only recently with certain capitalistic developments that this myth has been developed.

Reply 32

Intriguing Alias

Original post by silent ninja

Percentage-wise the rich pay less tax than the low paid and middle class. Is that fair? SOCIETY enabled them to make money, it's not a one man effort, so they should pay a fair tax. The rich have enjoyed the benefits of this country more than anybody else.

Isn't it the other way round (unless of course, you are avoiding tax)?

Reply 33

prog2djent

Yawn, given the opportunity, anybody and everybody tries whatever they can to pay as little tax or even avoid it, whenever possible. I would do it, you would do it, the rich do it, the middle class that can afford a private accountant now and then do it, and people who move up the ladder do it. This ostracization of people (only rich people BTW, why not the middle class, who avoid tax as much as possible and are perhaps the biggest beneficiaries of state welfare above anyone else)

Reply 34

Keckers

Original post by NietzschanGuy

Just saw this on the BBC. Normally I mitigate my criticism to avoid a negative backlash from the more extreme libertarians, but in this case, sod it.

I find it kind of cute that you expect libertarians to support an elite class. Especially when such an elite class exists because they are owners of corporations who are on the receiving end of countless special favours and corporate welfare from politicians, and are the result of the 'anything but free' market supported by western governments.

Reply 35

ThisIsTheLife

Original post by t0ffee

You're absolutely right. But it is well known that when individuals seek to optimise their own wealth, they often inadvertently create wealth and value for society.

Banking is a special case, but most people who make their millions do so by providing value for society, and do more to help the economy than to hinder it.

Historically governments have not needed the rich - its only recently with certain capitalistic developments that this myth has been developed.

That's because, historically, governments have been COMPOSED of the rich.

Reply 36

Keckers

Original post by t0ffee

You're looking at this all wrong. The state allowed the banks to keep any profits they made, and as soon as the banks started making a loss the state took on the losses. The banks were always in a win/win situation, because the government created the economic and social environment in which they were 'too big to fail'.

Reply 37

SnoochToTheBooch

Original post by ThisIsTheLife

No right whatsoever, but these people have it within their grasp to literally SAVE THE ****ING WORLD and they're too greedy and apathetic to bother. They could easily put an end to suffering on an unimaginable scale but they don't, that's a terrible thing, it's sick. Also, it's pure luck that they find themselves in such a privileged position and not in some godforsaken african **** hole.

I don't think there's a problem with recognising that and being angry about it. As for my "sense of entitlement", I'm just aware that none of us can do anything on our own. Anyone who gets anywhere in life has at some point been afforded opportunities completely through luck - whether that's the body they were born into, the mind the universe shaped for them, the country of their birth, the access to education/resources, whatever. They did none of that stuff on purpose. They find themselves in a position of massive, disproportionate privilege but they did not do that all by themselves, no ****ing way. They were helped by others and now they are in a position to repay the world that favour by helping people who never had the same luck as them, born into ****ty circumstances through no fault of their own, and who currently live in preventable misery.

PS. I'm not talking about giving handouts to the layabout parasites we have so many of in this country. I'm talking about the huge number of people in the world who have essentially nothing, who starve to death by their millions every year. Those people can't get themselves out of that situation on their own. They need a leg up first if they are ever going to be able to look after themselves.

(edited 11 years ago)

Reply 38

Mister Dead

Original post by ThisIsTheLife

So if you require hospital treatment in the interim that amounts to hundreds of thousands, even millions, presumably you wouldn't be seeking to avoid tax in the future?

Reply 39

tufc

Original post by NietzschanGuy

Well, if you're just going to create straw men arguments, I have nothing to say to you, and if you're going to be that supportive of such blatant criminality, I would lock the cell myself and do so with a smile.