Eleven million tax avoiding documents..

[RonJeremy]

I'd take a look back through the thread as I recall you've called people daft, and then accused them of trolling. Sounds personal by your standards.

 

I note also - as expected - that you were not satisfied with Cameron's return. What a surprise.

 

Stop bullying the poor little love with facts.

[I1L2T3]

I'd take a look back through the thread as I recall you've called people daft, and then accused them of trolling. Sounds personal by your standards.

 

I note also - as expected - that you were not satisfied with Cameron's return. What a surprise.

 

There's a difference between saying something somebody posted is daft, and outright personal attacks. I've been experiencing the latter.

 

Anyway, back to Cameron's tax returns? When are we going to see the HMRC documents?

[Bob Arctor]

It's just you lot shouting at each other now.

 

To me, the leak is a good reminder that so much of what goes on, goes on in secret. Leaks like this and the Snowden leaks give us tiny little glimpses of the reality that goes on behind the day-to-day; the industrial scale hiding and transferring of vast amounts of money between the ultra-rich to help maintain their positions. The endless revolving door between business and politics where the politicians and business men and women all wind up with serious stashed wealth while their employees/electorates have to compete between each other for the scraps let fall from the top table.

 

Imagine what our societies and our politics would look like if we knew everything. I doubt any of the existing politicians and the "great and good" would still be in their positions, lots of them would be in prison or dead.

 

That's why they can tolerate the version of "democracy" they permit us to have, because they feel safe that we can never know enough to make really informed decisions about who we went representing us, or whether we want anyone representing us at all.

 

More leaks please!

[petemcewan]

He seems to be the only one who has actually broken the law. :hihi::hihi:

 

The fine is the clue.

 

There's probably scores of small business and self-employed self-assessors who file late and are fined. That is much less interesting than the Panama Papers, which has the dirt on real life spivs and crooks (See The Economist ,10th April ).

[Phanerothyme]

Zucman, an assistant professor of economics at the University of California Berkeley, argues that this tax avoidance worsens the vast global gap in wealth and income between the rich and the poor. Hiding vast sums of wealth from taxation makes it easier for the rich to stay rich and avoid tax policies meant to help the poor." (Vox. Policy and Politics ).

 

What a load subversive pinko nonsense. Tax avoidance, on any scale, is simply what hardworking parents do as part of looking after their family and exercising their god-given right to aspire to something greater than assets of a just a few million pounds and only one measly old yacht.

[petemcewan]

I think it was during P M question time today that aggressive tax avoidance came up. If I didn't mishear, I think the government is going to look into it.

 

The Russian connection in the Panama Papers is going to prove interesting.

Edited April 11, 2016 by petemcewan

[I1L2T3]

Times Front Page: George Osborne's firm hand him £45,000 in dividends but give taxman not a penny in Corporation Tax https://t.co/aHuvEfp5Ra

 

Osborne family firm uses tax haven:

http://www.channel4.com/news/george-osborne-family-business-6m-deal-with-offshore-firm

 

Oh dear!

 

How much more of this is going on in the Tory party?

[the_bloke]

Times Front Page: George Osborne's firm hand him £45,000 in dividends but give taxman not a penny in Corporation Tax https://t.co/aHuvEfp5Ra

 

Osborne family firm uses tax haven:

http://www.channel4.com/news/george-osborne-family-business-6m-deal-with-offshore-firm

 

Oh dear!

 

How much more of this is going on in the Tory party?

 

Still all legal.

 

It's just been revealed that the Parliamentary Pension Scheme (the MPs pension scheme, for all MPs) is managed, amongst others, by Blackrock UK Property Fund which is HQ'd in Jersey.

 

So indirectly, no MP is clean from profiting from tax havens. I wouldn't be surprised if virtually every public sector pension scheme in the UK had some sort of off shore dealings to reduce tax overheads.

 

Edit: Following in from that last point, it seems the BBC pension fund has at least £84m off shore in Bermuda.

 

Maybe we should all be looking at our pension funds and any other savings funds to see how and where they are managed before being so critical of MPs, else we're also running the risk of being hypocrites.

Edited April 11, 2016 by the_bloke

[Obelix]

There's a difference between saying something somebody posted is daft, and outright personal attacks. I've been experiencing the latter.

 

Anyway, back to Cameron's tax returns? When are we going to see the HMRC documents?

 

You've been given the details. You don't need any more. Now you are just muckraking for the sake of it.

 

---------- Post added 12-04-2016 at 00:28 ----------

 

Times Front Page: George Osborne's firm hand him £45,000 in dividends but give taxman not a penny in Corporation Tax https://t.co/aHuvEfp5Ra

 

Osborne family firm uses tax haven:

http://www.channel4.com/news/george-osborne-family-business-6m-deal-with-offshore-firm

 

Oh dear!

 

How much more of this is going on in the Tory party?

 

How much of what?

 

"There is no suggestion the Chancellor, or Osborne & Little avoided any tax in the deal, or that they or offshore property developer Nightingale Mews Inc. did anything illegal."

 

So nothing untoward then. More muckraking from you. Move along.

[Phanerothyme]

The best thing about this whole affair is that nothing has implicated the upper echelons of the tory party in any wrongdoing whatsoever, yet Tory High Command is scrambling to contain a rapidly deteriorating situation. What they've managed to create is a slo-mo PR trainwreck that has given traction to the nasty party tag all over again. Now, whatever the Tory party does, like publishing key tax returns in a big hurry, they look like they're hiding something. Like how fabulously wealthy some of them are. Why they would want to hide this is beyond me - surely a Tory should be proud of their wealth, whether it's earned, collected or inherited?

 

Boris Johnson is pretty open about it, and pays nigh on a million quid in tax. In my opinion he can be justfiably proud of that single fact. Doesn't really cancel out any of the egregious folderol he visits upon us the rest of the time though.

 

David Cameron knows a thing or two about PR, and is going to find this a major distraction. If that means he trips, and falls flat on his face on some other issue, the hope is that it will pancake into an omni-shambles. The danger is that he resigns and we get Osborne, May or Johnson.

 

Generally, be careful what you wish for.