Eleven million tax avoiding documents..

[ECCOnoob]

You know it doesn't work like that

 

But, you show me yours and I'll show you mine.

 

Yes I do know it does not work like that which is why I am commenting against all these people who are seemingly celebrating that a leak of said documentation has been put out there for all and sundry to see, despite the fact that none of the people involved have YET been found guilty of any wrong doing.

Edited April 3, 2016 by ECCOnoob

[Obelix]

 

If nothing illegal has happened then there is nothing to hide.

 

The oft trotted and easily discredited soundbite.

 

Most everyone has something to hide, even if it's not illegal. The reason being that there are plenty of people in the world who will judge and condemn you for it even if it's not illegal.

[the_bloke]

From here: https://www.gov.uk/topic/dealing-with-hmrc/tax-avoidance

 

Care to elaborate? I'm not going to wade through the entirety of the tax office's documentation when I've just given you a link explaining what the spirit of the law is. Help me out here

[Quik]

Not sure where you are getting your information from. The concept of 'the spirit of the law' is basically the law saying 'do A and the end result is B' when in reality someone is 'doing A, via C and the end result is B'. The law doesn't explicitly state you can't do C, so it's not illegal to do so. The idea of C wasn't even thought of when the law was made. In HMRC's case, they can investigate the person doing C all they want but they have to go to court and fight their case if they think doing C is wrong even though it's not written in law. They can lose too.

 

http://www.taxadvisermagazine.com/article/spirit-law

 

My understanding is that your quoted source, who as an aside looks like a nonce, though I'm sure probably isn't, was put back in his box as a leading shiester tax avoider.

 

New rules are rightly show you are paying the taxes due without avoidance and if not we will assess what tax you need to pay.

[ECCOnoob]

Let me try another scenario.

 

Lets just imagine that some civil servant leaked thousands of documents with personal information of ordinary citizens suspected of false benefit claims or undeclared earnings.

 

Would the papers be celebrating? Would they be naming and shaming these individuals and smearing them all over the pages?

 

OR would they be screaming hell about incompetent government departments?

[Quik]

Let me try another scenario.

 

Lets just imagine that some civil servant leaked thousands of documents with personal information of ordinary citizens suspected of false benefit claims or undeclared earnings.

 

Would the papers be celebrating? Would they be naming and shaming these individuals and smearing them all over the pages?

 

OR would they be screaming hell about incompetent government departments?

 

The prole papers have Barry Cashinhand doley claimant with his 'bad back' playing footy plastered all over them regularly. How is this different other than the fraudulent sums are significantly more?

[ECCOnoob]

Because Barry Cashinhand was CHARGED with an offence.

[tzijlstra]

Been reading quite a lot of the stuff coming out, seems to me that the trouble for a lot of these people comes from morality, not legality. The Icelandic PM got elected on an anti-corruption ticket, so why does he have a slush fund he never diclosed? Same for the Fifa guy. Focussing on Putin, Assad and co is not going to change their positions, everybody knows they are corrupt, but who was dealing with them? Some interesting lines already...

[I1L2T3]

Care to elaborate? I'm not going to wade through the entirety of the tax office's documentation when I've just given you a link explaining what the spirit of the law is. Help me out here

 

The process is that:

1. An avoidance scheme is devised

2. It is registered with HMRC

3. An initial assessment is made. At this point glaringly obvious issues will be detected. This may prevent the scheme from continuing

4. People start using the scheme.

5. At some point the scheme is assessed and tested against the GAAR

6. If all is good then hunky dory.

7. If something is bad then HMRC can have the scheme retrospectively declared illegal, can request changes to the law, and can chase repayment from users of the scheme

 

The validity of the scheme is basically tested against the GAAR. You can start by reading up on the GAAR although enforcement is not restricted to interpretation of the GAAR

[Quik]

Because Barry Cashinhand was CHARGED with an offence.

 

And maybe these people will actually be charged now their criminality is out there.

 

I don't hold a candle for dole scum cheating the system but I sure as hell loath them less than those who use power and priveledge to screw the system.

 

Innocent until proven guilty is the thing we need to stick to, not 'don't put evidence of guilt in the public domain'. Most of these corrupt barstools would never be brought to justice without the evidence being out there.