Of course given a legal opportunity most people would take the not-pay-tax route. That's not the main issue. As for Cameron, sure the family may be avoiding some tax on some trust income but I was frankly surprised at the percentage of tax on "normal" earnings that the disclosed tax return show.



What I think pis=#FFFFFF[size=5.[/sizeses people off most is the scams perpetrated by multi billion pound companies (Vodafone, Starbucks, Amazon & co.) whereby they artificially wipe out profits made in the UK by dodgy agreements to pay licencing fees etc to some Luxembourg counterpart, so the latter is taxed at 1% and the UK company never pays any, or any substantial, corporation tax whatsoever.



I directly blame the government for this. I'm no tax expert but they could do for these companies exactly the same as they could do for any company or taxpayer, look at their figures, and raise an assessment. Then, the taxpayer has to pay. Within 7 days. yes, they can appeal and go through the courts if they want, but they still have to immediately pay up.



If they tok it to court, what you'd then need is a judge who agreed with HMRC that "selling" the rights to your business name for $1 and then paying a $1bn (or whatever) annual licence fee for use of name is entirely a matter for you, and perfectly legal, but it's just that it's plainly an internal transaction between group companies and so we disallow the licence fee payment as a taxable expense. Job done.



It would be a laugh to read some justification as to why any commercial company would ever enter into such risibly uneconomic arrangements, save to wipe out a tax liability, and wiping out tax liabilities doesn't cut it as a qualifying ground to qualify as a legitimate expense.



Instead, we have situations like where Harnett the ex-boss in HMRC has cosy meetings and does sweetheart deals for past and future tax dodges, not even running them past government lawyers, and so Vodafone are sorted for years with little or no tax to pay, and the government has no appetite to set the dodgy deals aside.



Hartnett btw was the guy who agreed a tax deal with HSBC that gave immunity from prosecution for any crimes they might have committed relating to tax fraud in Switzerland. And then retired from HMRC and got a job advising on honesty and standards at ... HSBC.

Wasn't income tax introduced to fund war? Not sure therefore of the morality of tax!

Certainly in the US. Unknown before WW2. There's a very good book on this called The War State by Mike Swanson. Enjoyable too.

Not my words - the words of Dodgy Dave when he condemned people (using the comedian Jimmy Carr as an example) for using an off-shore vehicle to avoid tax.



Whatever the historical justification, or the practical implementation of the system as it stands - it is what it is; and it seems fairly clear that for the super-rich 1% and large companies, it's optional. That can't be right.

Sure, let's just do away with any sense of realism and continue discussing the matter within the safe confines of a fantasy paradigm. I guess the issue is just too big for you. Although since 99% of the guff I've seen written or spoken on this topic demonstrates similar levels of unsophistication and naivete I suppose you are in excellent company.



I'm probably wasting my time but here goes ... regardless of what you or I believe the determining factor of what is "right" in any civilization is Might. Whilst there have been moments in history when the super-rich (corporations are modern concept) have contributed more to the pot - such as under the administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt, they have never truly bore their full share of the tax burden stretching all the way back into antiquity.



Politicians have ALWAYS talked tough on tax whilst treading very softly because to do otherwise is to court disaster. Just look at the political fallout which tore apart the Roman Republic in the wake of what were some very modest reforms proposed by the Gracchi brothers.



Presidents and prime ministers have been KILLED for merely suggesting tax reforms so what makes you think a little snot like Cameron is going to bully Real Power into coughing up more money when the trend has been in the opposite direction for decades?



These people are [uNOT[/u going to pay their taxes and there's [uNOTHING[/u the Prime Minister can do to change this situation without setting in motion events which will result in him not being Prime Minister any more. Period. Whining about him being unable to achieve the unachievable whilst attaching significance to his criticisms of some comedic non-entity is just symptomatic of the bubbles of self-delusion most people prefer to live within these days.



Before I'd read so much as a word written on what have now come to be known as the "Panama Papers" I said this was a pre-planned operation, Vladimir Putin would be the first individual targeted and there would be very few Westerners implicated which aren't expendable or susceptible to being squeezed (as Cameron clearly is in the run up to key decisions on our relationship with the EU).



This is a media-driven story from start to finish and few if anyone would give a if it weren't for them bombarding us with the idea that we do. Whilst the sums talked about are new (and if you believe them more fool you) Cameron's "dodgy" tax-avoidance has been in the public domain for years without anyone raising so much as a pitchfork.



The real story here is NOT how much Cameron and his old man managed to fleece HMRC out of - it's WHY has he suddenly become a target NOW when any journalist worth his salt could have pursued the question to some satisfactory resolution years ago but didn't.

Ahh, so it's all yet another conspiracy theory...?



You're clearly very bright, but when you start a post with an assertion that I'm too stupid to understand what you're about to say, the rest of your ramblings just take on the form of white noise; which they largely are, albeit with a veneer of coherence, however sneering.



On the subject of fantasy paradigms - is it possible for any discussion about current affairs to take place, without your dismissing their value because a secret world order controls everything, and everyone but you is too brainwashed or stupid to see the truth? I thought you had your own protected platform for this nonsense, which no one else is allowed to post in, other than to agree with your monological ranting?

What exactly do you want me to say? If you don't already know that the super-rich wield more power than David Cameron can even comprehend then it would seem I'm right and if you do why make the comment in the first place? I see such schizophrenia all the time (Facebook is just full of it) and to say that it is F-R-U-S-T-R-A-T-I-N-G is an understatement.







If I'm living in a fantasy paradigm then it would seem it offered me some pretty accurate foreknowledge of who would be targeted in the wake of the Panama Papers release. If your paradigm yielded deeper insights then maybe I'll start thinking about changing mine...

The fact that Putin has confirmed the details in the Panama papers are correct suggests to me they are correct.



Being correct, they implicate who they implicate. I don't readily see why the Süddeutsche Zeitung would have it in for Putin, but if I were them, and I did, then I'd just release those bits of info that related to the Russians.



And i don't think there's much chance of the Panama papers destabilising Rssia, any more than they destabilised the UK. What would surprise me would be if there were any people who would be surprised at revelations about offshore money concealment and/or tax dodging by the super-rich. They may have been good at hiding it, but surely we all knew they all do it?

Whether the contents of the Panama Papers are accurate or not really isn't relevant to my point. The contents of the Pentagon Papers (note the phraseology) were largely accurate. I expect much of the stuff published by Wikileaks & Ed Snowden is similarly accurate.



This doesn't change the fact that ALL OF THEM were operations designed to achieve certain aims. Whether Daniel Ellsberg, Julian Assange & Ed Snowden were active participants or unwitting dupes in these operations I really can't say. The truth is such participation isn't necessary for operational success.

panamapapers.sueddeutsche.de/en/

panamapapers.sueddeutsche.de/en/

One point of clarification: When I said Vladimir Putin was the "primary target" of certainly the Guardian's first hit piece I'm saying so within the context of intelligence operations - which must always be considered on multiple levels.



The goal here is not to "destabilise Russia" (at least not directly but I won't pursue this line of reasoning because it gets very complicated very quickly). I certainly don't think Putin lost a wink of sleep over the release of the Panama Papers and I doubt the Russian people learned anything they didn't already know.



You have to separate the primary target of the story (Putin) from the primary target of the operation - YOU.

Your completely misplaced sense of intellectual superiority has blinded you to what was being said. I didn't express any naivety about the existence of tax-dodging, nor did I suggest that David Cameron should crusade against it now that the Panama Papers have created a dialogue; I merely commented on the hypocrisy of the situation, in that the very people who benefit most from such inequity are the people charged with creating the rules and systems that allow it to happen. That outside forces are at work when those decisions are made is patently obvious - but since I don't feel the need to demonstrate a superior understanding of every issue (even when I don't have one) it felt like unnecessary clutter; you could learn from that.



Unlike your nihilistic approach, in which everything is pointless and everyone (except you) is stupid - I think it's positive that people who might not have any real insight into what a beneficiary trust or an off-shore holding might do, are actually having a dialogue about it and asking questions; isn't that how change is created, rather than sitting in front of your computer in your underpants, shaking your first at Facebook posts and spotting patterns and conspiracies in all the events that happen around the world? I'll give you that there might even be a little naïveté in that, but what the heck, I'm an idealist; knowledge is power - but it helps if the knowledge is based on facts, as opposed to paranoid delusions.

So to be clear, you do not accept that the newspaper's stated explanation/reasons are true? Or are you referring to the "target" of someone other than the newspaper?



I'd say it was obvious that whoever was responsible for the leak must have had motives/targets/call them what you like, but isn't that stating the obvious?



If the primary target of whoever exposed the documents was indeed me, so what? You learn something new every day.

A newspaper is not a self-aware individual. It's an organised hierarchy of people managed from the top down. If we were talking about a Murdoch paper I don't think you'd quibble if I said the newspaper's opinion is the owner's opinion. After all, Rupert Murdoch has repeatedly stated that he maintains "total" editorial control over all of his papers. It's completely counter-intuitive to think he would buy up so many media outlets if he didn't.



So who do you mean? Not that it really matters once you realise the sponsors of the Panama Papers happen to be [url=http://www.pravdareport.com/world/americas/04-04-2016/134052-panama_papers-0/USAID[/url - a known CIA front.



There's an excellent film about the activities of USAID called "State of Siege" by Costas Gavras. You really should watch it. Although I advise not viewing if you lack a strong stomach. It's certainly a sobering experience watching USAID employees (spooks) train South American death squads in the various arts of cold-blooded murder - not to mention where best to clamp the electrodes on men and women so that they and themselves.







I've seen no evidence that you've learned anything at all.

Not entirely fair. I have genuinely tried to see things from your point of view, but I can't seem to get my head that far up my arrse.

I thought the baying facebook mob claiming he was a tax dodger was funny, but this paled next to the BBC getting humiliated live on air by a tax expert . Even the female presenter thought he had done something wrong.



Regards



King James

So how do you suggest global companies distribute legitimate central costs? Or do you suggest they don't and move their HQ to a low tax cost country?



Are you suggesting the brand has no value and the marketing expertise to exploit that brand has also no value or the whole cost should be met by the HQ. To suggest Google in the UK doesn't materially benefit from the work done in algorithm development and marketing expertise sat in Google HQ is bonkers in my view.

WTF are you on about now?



The scam of selling your proprietary rights for nothing to an associated company and then paying gargantuan "licencing fees" is not what I would call a "legitimate central cost", but a device to pay tax at 1% in one country instead of 20% in another.



If you think that a global brand really makes zero profit in the UK, year after year after year, then you must be truly muddled in the head. Is that what you think? That they have their gargantuan operation over here, but for basically nothing? Can't make it pay? Really?







No, the UK company that sells the brand to a Luxembourg company for $1 is suggesting that. Wouldn't you agree?



Let me ask you -if you had an asset that could generate (say) £500m pa in licence fees - how much would you sell it for?





Very interesting straw man I'm sure, but nobody made any such suggestion.

I wish folk would invest as much energy in stressing the manifold injustices of [imy[/i taxation...

I never suggested a global brand doesn't make any profit in the UK - so get that notion out of your head!!



You would admit a brand has some value - so how would you suggest the value of that brand is financially recovered by those entities that benefit from using it?



If Apple in the UK wasn't called Apple but sold the same products do you think it would be as succesful - of course it wouldn't. It is the brand and the perception of what the brand delivers that generates the revenue. So do you think the UK firm should be immune from any costs that enhance that brand globally from which they directly benefit.



Are you suggesting that all these costs should be born by the HQ. Perhaps there needs to be a new IFRS that sets out a mechanism for calculating this brand licencing e.g. sales as a % of global turnover = % of licence fee to pay.

No I won't, the entire point is they make MAMMOTH profits, but pay zero tax on these profits. How did that escape you?





Why are you harping on about brands? The point is, if your brand is so valuable, why sell it? The answer is you don't "really" sell it, you pretend to sell it, to a group company in a minimal tax jurisdiction, and artificially make all your "profits" there instead of where they are actually earned.





Look, you aren't a stupid person, so why are you trying to construct straw man after straw man? Why not instead just deal with the actual point, which is paying tax to the UK on profits made in the UK?





No, we all know that a company would never really give away its brand only to licence the use back at astronomical annual rates in perpetuity. If they want to do that between group members for their internal accounts - fine! It just is not or never should be a tax deductable expense. Because it is not a payment made for genuine business purposes, it's a blatant tax scam and nothing else.



Your schoolboy error is in talking about "costs". If you don't GIVE AWAY your brand then you won't have ANY licence costs. These licence costs are just artificially created and for no other reason than avoid paying tax.

They pay zero tax on those profits in the UK - they do pay huge amounts of tax just not here.



You are not stupid - they are not selling their brand they are licencing the use of it - is that really such a difficult concept for you to grasp?



The straw man is what constitutes profits and what actually constitutes cost. In your mind its just COGS plus expenses - if only it were so simple even for UK only companies



I ask again how is the HQ meant to recover legitimate costs relating to investment in the name/brand that the overseas subsiduary will receive benefit from? Perhaps you would find it more palatable if they included it in higher HQ recharges - it amounts to the same cost.

You are dropping tons of mud into clear waters.



You somehow fail to grasp that owning the name rights is what an owner does. It costs them nothing. If I invent the name "Aardvark Koffee" and register it then that's it. I pay nothing ever. To anyone. It is mine. Free.



If I make loads of money, I pay tax on the profit.



I should not be allowed to wipe out that profit by artificially creating a situation where I now have huge "licence fees" to pay for what was entirely mine before I gave it away.



It is nothing at all to do with LEGITIMATE COSTS. I don't quite know what legitimate costs being called Aardvark Koffee could conceivably incur but if there were any then fine. But in the example I am using, the cost is NOT "legitimate", it is an unnecessary and artificial dodge to transfer taxable profits from where they are made to somewhere where the tax rate is minuscule.



And you think that's legitimate?

Bradfert 1 sintellins 0