UK 2015 General Election - Competition

[Pat Riley]

As germane as the issue of taxation is to a general discussion on the UK election, it's hardly the most pressing issue, is it?

Even if Labour managed ta grab all of the £7.5bn they're promising from fleecing the rich and preventing avoidance/evasion (and if they''re goin ta target avoidance - which currently isn't illegal, why not just make it all illegal and call it evasion then we'd all know where we stood wouldn't we) what exactly the difference would that make to anything else. That's £7.5bn on a GDP of around £1,700bn, It's not about the money is it, it's about revenge on those who are doin better than average.

My focus would be on attracting businesses and entrepreneurs to the UK.

 

[Atilla]

Topical read

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...al-battered-banks-paralyzed-as-election-looms

 

[Pat Riley]

Serious, bank bashing, again?

Whatever you hold dear; NHS, defence, education, even benefits and housing etc, they ALL depend upon money coming into the exchequer. You don't get more money by threatening to screw people and corporations on their taxers or their earnings. You increase their ability to earn. You reduce restrictions on their ability to grow.

To get more money into the economy to fund whatever your pet project is, you need more people coming in and making money. Increasing GDP.

If there was a new company, MakeAFastBuck that ended up paying NO tax on its profits of £10bn year and had directors earning £10m a piece, but provided jobs to 100,000 people who did pay tax, who then spent on things which provided tax revenue - would you really complain if it helped rescue the NHS, provide sufficient revenue to fund a proper defence budget and provided education facilities to enable the next generation to continue to enrich and underpin the UK, would you really complain?

 

[Atilla]

Serious, bank bashing, again?

Whatever you hold dear; NHS, defence, education, even benefits and housing etc, they ALL depend upon money coming into the exchequer. You don't get more money by threatening to screw people and corporations on their taxers or their earnings. You increase their ability to earn. You reduce restrictions on their ability to grow.

To get more money into the economy to fund whatever your pet project is, you need more people coming in and making money. Increasing GDP.

If there was a new company, MakeAFastBuck that ended up paying NO tax on its profits of £10bn year and had directors earning £10m a piece, but provided jobs to 100,000 people who did pay tax, who then spent on things which provided tax revenue - would you really complain if it helped rescue the NHS, provide sufficient revenue to fund a proper defence budget and provided education facilities to enable the next generation to continue to enrich and underpin the UK, would you really complain?

You are flying off the handle here and not looking at issues but coming up with silly emotive terms such as revenge which has no bearing on the issues???

Consider what you are suggesting for a minute or justifying if I understand you correctly.

If as a limited company I have to pay corporation tax on my £250K then I'd expect the same companies to be paying corporation tax on their earnings of £250m or 2.5bn or 250bn.

But not based on your interpretation company earning £10bn lets say should be exempt from taxes that are borne by smaller businesses???

What has all the other stuff about employing people and how much they earn have to do with anything?


Also, if I am the director of a company registered in the Bahamas and serve invoices from such company for work in the UK and then subsequently receive income as loans from the paper company registered in the Bahamas but I am unable to pay back the loans and the company in the Bahamas decides to write off my debt and hey presto no tax paid.

Well is this legal or not? Yes it is. Because for some reason HM government deems this to be perfectly reasonable.


IS IT REALLY????

 

[Pat Riley]

I'm sayin, me dear Atilla, that the same facilities are available ta all. You, are just as welcome to start and run a £10bn turnover company and minimise yer tax burden as anyone else. But there are economies of scale in every endeavour. If your company turnover is one tenth that of ComapnyB, your expenses - on all fronts, not just taxation - are goin to represent a higher proportion of that turnover. If a £1bn company needs 10 accountant at HQ, a £10bn company doesn't need a hundred - possibly more than 10, but not 100, and so on, economies of scale.

If I understand ya correctly, you want everyone and every company to have the same amount of taxes, percentage wise, deducted. So everyone for instance gets the same 20% nicked off them by the revenue. A level playin field. The problem with that is that there's no incentive to excel or to do better, it all gets very flat and average. Ya only need to look at Sweden in the 70s and 80s to see how that great Socialist ideal turned out.

That people and companies at the bottom of the heap have less facility to be creative with their accounting and cannot afford the quality of consultation that those further up the Ziggurat can, should, in my mind anyway, be a motivation to do more and do better, rather than become an opportunity to join the massed ranks of victims and call the discrepancy an injustice.

There's nothing inherently 'fair' about taxation so I'm surprised to see the two words feature so prominent and so often in the same sentence. Just as, I presume, you trim your expenses in yer trading to get the optimum performance, so do you in all of life's other compartments, surely? People talk about having an edge in trading and if that's a good thing then why reserve it just for that endeavour?

 

[Pat Riley]

Taking me own thread even more off topic, but this is obviously a hot one.

Taxation in all its forms has been around so long its easy ta understand how some get so completely hypnotised that they see it as quite normal and for some it has almost become the primary point of earning and havin a company. Let’s be clear: It’s an overhead, pure and simple. An imposition placed on us all by ‘the state’. A legally enforceable imposition aka legal extortion. There are those that think taxes are fair and the government do a splendid job of using the revenue from taxation. I say ta those people, if that’s your view there’s nothing stopping you from wanging an additional lump of your net disposable their way, they won’t say no. If they’re doin such a grand job in your opinion, voluntarily hand over an additional 50% of your net disposable to them each month.

If on the other hand you think government, all governments are about as efficient as a bucket with a hole in the bottom and that the private sector can and does and could do their job even better where it comes to point of delivery or service, then surely it makes sense to invest your money into companies doing just that or at least provide them with a business environment where they are encouraged to flourish and grow? The more a government outsources its provision and infrastructure and function the more efficient the entire operation (UK Ltd) becomes. The ultimate good deal for everyone would be ta have as little government as is possible and virtually all of its current functions handled by a largely competitive private sector.

 

[Atilla]

I'm sayin, me dear Atilla, that the same facilities are available ta all. You, are just as welcome to start and run a £10bn turnover company and minimise yer tax burden as anyone else. But there are economies of scale in every endeavour. If your company turnover is one tenth that of ComapnyB, your expenses - on all fronts, not just taxation - are goin to represent a higher proportion of that turnover. If a £1bn company needs 10 accountant at HQ, a £10bn company doesn't need a hundred - possibly more than 10, but not 100, and so on, economies of scale.

If I understand ya correctly, you want everyone and every company to have the same amount of taxes, percentage wise, deducted. So everyone for instance gets the same 20% nicked off them by the revenue. A level playin field. The problem with that is that there's no incentive to excel or to do better, it all gets very flat and average. Ya only need to look at Sweden in the 70s and 80s to see how that great Socialist ideal turned out.

That people and companies at the bottom of the heap have less facility to be creative with their accounting and cannot afford the quality of consultation that those further up the Ziggurat can, should, in my mind anyway, be a motivation to do more and do better, rather than become an opportunity to join the massed ranks of victims and call the discrepancy an injustice.

There's nothing inherently 'fair' about taxation so I'm surprised to see the two words feature so prominent and so often in the same sentence. Just as, I presume, you trim your expenses in yer trading to get the optimum performance, so do you in all of life's other compartments, surely? People talk about having an edge in trading and if that's a good thing then why reserve it just for that endeavour?

This comes down to the usual crunch wrt taxation.

1. Does one opt for; regressive, flat or progressive taxation rate?

2. Tax avoidance is a duty and evasion a fraud/crime!


fwiw one of my friends did exaxtly what Jimmy Carr did and advised me to do the same few years back when I was freelance contracting. I declined on ethical grounds and didn't believe system was just. He went ahead.

I also support minimal government intervention. It's all about the system with equal opportunities and access for all.

However, it seldom is. Which party can deliver the best system?

Back to the elections then

 

[Trader333]

The asnwer to those companies that don't pay tax in the UK by questionnable means is to have an either / or facility separate to VAT that taxes them directly on turnover which is utterly unavoidable.

 

[tar]

Conservatives - 260
Labour - 251
Lib-Dem - 37
UKIP - 27
SNP - 39

Turnout 72%

 

[Pat Riley]

Duly noted sir.

Five of us in the fray now and five days ta go.

 

[Pat Riley]

The asnwer to those companies that don't pay tax in the UK by questionnable means is to have an either / or facility separate to VAT that taxes them directly on turnover which is utterly unavoidable.

Do ya really want the UK to end up like the US where nobody wants to deal with ya, work with ya or base their company there because life's too short and they're more than welcome elsewhere?

 

[Pat Riley]

Goin way off topic and probably too gobby for me own good, but the reason we're closing down our NY operations is precisely because it no longer makes commercial sense ta be there. The days when you simply 'had' ta be in NY are no longer the case. You no longer need a physical presence in NY to remain a major player in the global markets. Having an operation in the US or even having US clients has become such a burden that the smart money has, and is, unloading US big time. I'd hate ta see the UK go the same way.

 

[Pat Riley]

Right. I'm off for a quick drink. See ya all on Monday.

 

[counter_violent]

Taking me own thread even more off topic, but this is obviously a hot one.

Taxation in all its forms has been around so long its easy ta understand how some get so completely hypnotised that they see it as quite normal and for some it has almost become the primary point of earning and havin a company. Let’s be clear: It’s an overhead, pure and simple. An imposition placed on us all by ‘the state’. A legally enforceable imposition aka legal extortion. There are those that think taxes are fair and the government do a splendid job of using the revenue from taxation. I say ta those people, if that’s your view there’s nothing stopping you from wanging an additional lump of your net disposable their way, they won’t say no. If they’re doin such a grand job in your opinion, voluntarily hand over an additional 50% of your net disposable to them each month.

If on the other hand you think government, all governments are about as efficient as a bucket with a hole in the bottom and that the private sector can and does and could do their job even better where it comes to point of delivery or service, then surely it makes sense to invest your money into companies doing just that or at least provide them with a business environment where they are encouraged to flourish and grow? The more a government outsources its provision and infrastructure and function the more efficient the entire operation (UK Ltd) becomes. The ultimate good deal for everyone would be ta have as little government as is possible and virtually all of its current functions handled by a largely competitive private sector.

We can't even call voters the uneducated masses these days as it appears that everyone and his uncle has a degree of some sorts.
However, they are unwittingly coerced into voting for "government" as a solution to all their problems. Perhaps then, we could call them the misinformed, indoctrinated masses, both the educated and uneducated groups.
Politicians are more desperate than ever in their quest for approval/turnout numbers. I suspect a great many of them secretly know that the power game is up !

 

[Trader333]

...We can't even call voters the uneducated masses these days

Are you sure as less than 2 weeks ago Blair was saying that the electorate cannot be trusted with a vote to decide whether to stay in the EU or not.

The daft thing is that he is also wants the same people who cannot be trusted to vote on an EU referendum to vote Labour in the general election.

 

[Pat Riley]

Ya know, there is on person I would really like to see on desert island discs - Tony Blair. 'Cos I'd find that island, and I'd bomb it.

Not really. I think he's one of the most under-appreciated politicians and humanitarians of our current era.

 

[Pat Riley]

I've got it in me bones that Mr. MiliBean has managed this weekend ta go so far off beam with the expose on his Obama speech rip-offs and 'set in stone' manifesto gimmicks that even heartland Labout voters are puking up. They may not vote for anyone else, but they're not voting for him. I’m also of the opinion that Ms. Sturgeon has rallied nationalistic pride in Scotland to the extent that Labour (Scotland) will be mortally wounded. I’ve also downgraded me turnout to reflect the increasingly comatose nature of the general electorate. So...

Conservatives - 280
Labour - 235
Lib-Dem - 35
UKIP - 2
SNP - 51

Turnout 62%

 

[Atilla]

I think the Tories are losing this election, Labour aren't winning it.

 

[Pat Riley]

Major update to me guesswork based on discoverin a whole wadge on non-poll based research data. In short, Tories possibly goin to get a workable majority (which surprises me greatly), the national and non-entity parties getting more than previously thought and the old turnout dial gettin moved even closer to the 'total apathy' end of the spectrum.

Conservatives - 305
Labour - 215
Lib-Dem - 25
UKIP - 3
SNP - 34

Turnout 43%

 

[Forexmospherian]

With a bit of luck - Joe Public is copying the Politician's stance when they are asked questions via Poll research data companies.

Yes - you have guessed it ....... - they LIE - or they have not got a clue yet and just say any party to shut the Pollsters up

PS

Pat R - I reckon the latest bunch of Politicians have all had formal training off Fat Cat Bankers - they are getting that good at it ;-)

PPS

I am certainly more Tory than any other party - but Banksters / Lawyers and even Fat Cat accountants ( and other parasites of the business world ) are making it more difficult for the normal man in the street to really accept that the Tories party can have any compassion and feelings for them - such a shame