Waldo Posted June 21, 2012 Share Posted June 21, 2012 In the context you present (i.e. 'morality' of paying tax vs 'morality' of the uses made out of tax revenue), it cannot ever be a consideration, since the tax payer has no choice in the matter (of paying taxes), nor much at all in the way of a say (about how they are spent - short of using the ballot box, for all the good this will do in this specific context). The tax payer does have a choice; he can choose pay tax in full, in part, or not at all. Of course, the government will say that's 'illegal', and threaten with fines and imprisonment; but that doesn't take away from the fact that the tax payer does have a choice. Most likely, he chooses to pay tax, in fear of the repercussions of not doing so. I agree we don't have much say in the way of how the money is spent. After that, you could debate about the morality of using tax avoidance schemes - but all these do is fine-tune the amount to be paid. So, er...no: the State is not 'moral' or 'amoral' towards me when imposing how much tax is due and how tax revenue is spent, so why should I burden myself with non-reciprocal notions of morality? I'm not sure 'not 'moral' or 'amoral'' is possible. Surely the state is amoral, it does not consider morality at all when it comes to tax matters, either the collecting of tax, or the spending of it? So why should we consider the morality of minimising tax due through use of legal schemes; when the government is not taking morality in to account, when it comes to working out how much tax we owe, and more importantly, how it will spend the money. The State will tell me "you owe this", I will check and triple-check whether I need to pay all of it under State-enacted legislation or not, and pay what is actually due, whether it's the same, less or more - end of: that's about the extent of the 'social bargain' at hand. So you don't think morality comes in to it at all? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alchresearch Posted June 21, 2012 Share Posted June 21, 2012 Credit to Jimmy Carr he has apologised and decided to put it right....how often can that be said of politicians? Only because he was caught out and it was doing him harm! He wasn't so quick to apologise yesterday when he was interviewed going into his house. Its only after he got heckled and national abuse he backed down. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Waldo Posted June 21, 2012 Share Posted June 21, 2012 Seems the moderation team have just merged my thread with the Jimmy Carr one. Thus making it wholly impracticable for me to interact on my own thread (it's all mixed in with the Jimmy Carr one). As a result, I don't feel I can continue to contribute to the thread. That'll teach me to get too involved on here! My 'BEEF' is essentially, that Sheffield Forum, does not provide a stable environment in which to debate. At any moment, the rug can be pulled from under ones' feet, without notice or reason. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrSmith Posted June 21, 2012 Share Posted June 21, 2012 I suspect it is a considerable amount of tax he is dodging. When you are rich then the need to justify paying less tax seems obsurd to me, there is a lack of morality in such a practice. Greece is in a fix in part because its rich haven't payed their way. The problem is that they are asked to pay substantially more than their fair share which I guess is the reason they do everything possible to avoid paying it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jim Graham Posted June 21, 2012 Share Posted June 21, 2012 No one has had a pop at offshore companies who trade here & pay no corporation tax yet......will DC be consistent & start singling them out next? I winced when I heard his comments because he is very unwise to call Jimmy Carr immoral when you look at who funds the Tories and Lib Dems. Their tax arrangements aren't going to stand up to any scrutiny at all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alchresearch Posted June 21, 2012 Share Posted June 21, 2012 I find it amusing that when I was moved from PAYE to Self Assessment I was grilled constantly by HMRC because they were convinced I was doing it to avoid paying tax (even though it was they who moved me, and subsequently moved me back). Yet, schemes like K2 being used by higher earners are allowed to flourish. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anna B Posted June 21, 2012 Share Posted June 21, 2012 What surprises me is that this seems to have come as a surprise to some people. Of course the rich avoid paying tax. Always have, always will. That's an issue groups like Occupy (sorry, dirty word on here) have been trying to raise. Instead, we're being encouraged by the media to pick on the unemployed, immigrants, public sector workers, in fact anyone to divert attention away from that fact. Meanwhile the rich smugly continue to count their ill-gotten gains, secure in the knowledge that no one's pointing the finger at them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr Prime Posted June 21, 2012 Share Posted June 21, 2012 Correct. Ive made this same point on the Jimmy Carr thread. people slagging him off for using a tax avoidance scheme make me laugh. Every single one of them would use the exact same scheme to avoid paying tax if they could. I know full well id use this K2 scheme today if i could. Maybe you're right. I find that a deeply disturbing prospect. It is the selfish tax avoiding "I can do what I like attitude" that is partially responsible for Greece becoming a basket case and to a lesser extent Italy. My Greek friend who lives in the UK said "North European countries like here and Germany are relatively un corrupt and people pay their dues on the whole, that's why they're so successful and stable in the long term". I couldn't agree more and generally see Sweden and Germany as the top nations for quality of life and being well run. The ultimate no tax state is Somalia at the other end of the spectrum. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr Prime Posted June 21, 2012 Share Posted June 21, 2012 What surprises me is that this seems to have come as a surprise to some people. Of course the rich avoid paying tax. Always have, always will. That's an issue groups like Occupy (sorry, dirty word on here) have been trying to raise. Instead, we're being encouraged by the media to pick on the unemployed, immigrants, public sector workers, in fact anyone to divert attention away from that fact. Meanwhile the rich smugly continue to count their ill-gotten gains, secure in the knowledge that no one's pointing the finger at them. Was it not the case that post recession the G20 co-operated in closing a lot of tax loopholes and threatening to cut out nations that allowed this? I'm probably being naive but I remember a lot of news about it in 2009/10. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jim Graham Posted June 21, 2012 Share Posted June 21, 2012 What surprises me is that this seems to have come as a surprise to some people. Of course the rich avoid paying tax. Always have, always will. That's not strictly true. Tax avoidance wasn't much of an issue before the 1960s until Labour hiked up the top rate of tax to 98%. That's when the tax avoidance industry really got going with pop stars setting themselves up as limited companies and offshore accounts blossoming. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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