Please explain just how trhe fook you budget for not getting a pay rise in ten years, while the cost of most things has gone up exponentially?

Or how do you budget for divorce or illness etc?

Vodafone are avoiding tax by organising their business to do just that. The fact Barlow and Vodafone adopt different ways of doing it is completely irrelevant.

The general consensus is that avoiding tax is wrong. The legal view is if what is done is simply a mechanism to avoid tax it is also illegal. So I so no reason why Vodafone's actions could not be viewed as nothing other than a tax avoidance measure and so be open to challenge in the courts.

The fact you don't see the problem is rather disturbing. The mantra of increasing shareholder wealth is the biggest excuse not to consider all stakeholders particularly a companies employees but especially the tax man.

You get a better job/more skills/more hours?

What does that have to do with companies paying/not paying tax?

Yes becausae it really is that simple isn't it?



You brought up the budgeting scenario. We have a welfare state that could be better funded if corporations and individuals paid the tax due without spending mega bucks on an army of lawyers to simply look for loopholes.

This, except that it's even easier since as I said HMRC could just ignore the scam,raise an appropriate assessment which Vodafone would have to pay, and if they wanted to persuade a court that this wasn't a scam, it would be their right.

More accountants really, from the big 4, who do the rounds of bigwig in tax department, cushy sinecure in a tax giant. You often have the crazy situation where tax accountants that set up taxes advice the government about them, and senior Whitehall tax figures ned up earning big bucks at iether the companies that benefited from the HMRC's largesse while they were in control, or the beancounters who came up with the wheeze. The circular connections are many and very worrying. Private Eye lists some of them every week.

No, life isn't simple, you have to work hard to get rewards, not sit on your arris taking handouts!


And if fewer people were fleecing the system, it would be better provisioned.

Except its not an excuse is it. What Vodafone are doing is not only legal, but also acceptable in the eyes of the tax man, UKGAAP, IASB and the companies act 2006. Is it right morally? Probably not, but morality never increased share prices. A company that doesn't consider all stakeholders will not perform very well, generally, but to put the needs of the tax man in front of the needs of its shareholders is suicide!

It's the same for wealthy individuals, who spend 6 months or more out of the country and become non resident, purely to pay their tax at a lower rate in another country. All they are doing are taking advantage of the system and looking after number one.

Why was there no uproar about individuals, creating limited companies, and getting their money out by way of a small weekly wage of , topped up by dividends? that way they pay less tax than they would if they were a sole trader or in a partnership? Whilst its not as lucrative as it once was,they were still exploiting the system, meaning the UK received less tax.

We can argue about this all day long, but at the end of the day, every single person would pay less tax if they had the opportunity to do so. Vodafone are no exception.

Regards

King James

Amen - big companies most definitely included. Not heard it for a while, but we are all still in it together, aren't we?

Very true.

No personal responsibility.