Paradise Papers

[pete-p]

Originally Posted by tintin

... It's about time that the trillions* stashed in offshore jurisdictions were reclaimed and used to support the people that governments are meant to represent, not those who lined their pockets.

* https://www.oxfamamerica.org/press/t...lion-offshore/

That sounds a little like communism to me and I'm not sure we would want to go there! Would it not be better if people didn't feel the need to take their wealth away from the country and could instead invest it locally? Perhaps the whole tax system should be changed rather than just adding new parts to try and cover loopholes and thereby creating new ones?

[tonupkid]

Originally Posted by pete-p

That sounds a little like communism to me and I'm not sure we would want to go there! Would it not be better if people didn't feel the need to take their wealth away from the country and could instead invest it locally? Perhaps the whole tax system should be changed rather than just adding new parts to try and cover loopholes and thereby creating new ones?

Well said. Taking money off people is what drives it offshore. Creating a less avaricious tax system will attract/keep it here, where it can work for us all.

[tonupkid]

Originally Posted by mattylondon

Governmental debt is quite different to a personal loan / mortgage / house hold budget as we know. Governments don’t really pay back the debt. They just roll it over. Economic growth should reduce the percentage of debt to GDP, making previous borrowings increasingly less significant. It's a tool used by Governments all over. The young and future generations are actually paying the price due to austerity. Austerity does not produce strong economic growth and we have a lost generation due to it. If you have falling private spending and wealth and falling government spending the recession is more serious and longer. Governmental debt is a way of employing under-employed resources in a recession and help the economy to recover.

National debt is not free. Approx £30 billion paid in interest by the UK in 2015. Austerity is part the result of the government trying (and failing) to reduce, not the debt, but the amount by which the national debt is growing year on year.
This debt is not a benign thing that will simply diminish. It is effectively another tax on every person in the UK. And it will increasingly be so for generations yet unborn.

[mattylondon]

Originally Posted by tonupkid

Well said. Taking money off people is what drives it offshore. Creating a less avaricious tax system will attract/keep it here, where it can work for us all.

LOL, you seriously think the UK tax system is greedy? The UK enjoys among the lowest personal tax rates of advanced countries, and high earners on £100k+ see less of their income taken in tax than almost anywhere else in Europe. Corporation tax is 19%, with the EU28 average at 22.5% and notably France 33% and Germany 29%. With comparability low tax people and corporations still feel the need to hide it offshore. Are you advocating we should become the tax haven Miss May suggests and threatens the EU with after we leave? Even after the Paradise Papers leaks our government is still trying to water down anti-tax haven measures...

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk...-a8043881.html

So our Government is cutting services left right and centre, while they can not be bothered to collect the tax on money hidden in offshore havens by closing these loophole. You have to ask yourself who the Government is serving.

[tonupkid]

Originally Posted by mattylondon

LOL, you seriously think the UK tax system is greedy? The UK enjoys among the lowest personal tax rates of advanced countries, and high earners on £100k+ see less of their income taken in tax than almost anywhere else in Europe. Corporation tax is 19%, with the EU28 average at 22.5% and notably France 33% and Germany 29%. With comparability low tax people and corporations still feel the need to hide it offshore. Are you advocating we should become the tax haven Miss May suggests and threatens the EU with after we leave? Even after the Paradise Papers leaks our government is still trying to water down anti-tax haven measures...

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk...-a8043881.html

So our Government is cutting services left right and centre, while they can not be bothered to collect the tax on money hidden in offshore havens by closing these loophole. You have to ask yourself who the Government is serving.

I don't think it, I know it. I remember super tax, selective employment tax and many other ultimately counter productive government grabs at peoples money.
It is easy to say this or that tax loophole should be blocked, but history tells us it is not that simple. Block one hole and another opens. It is worth remembering that people using these schemes to avoid tax are often not breaking the law.

If becoming a tax haven can achieve something like the standard of living the Swiss enjoy, then do it. I happen to like prosperity

[David's8]

Originally Posted by tonupkid

I don't think it, I know it. I remember super tax, selective employment tax and many other ultimately counter productive government grabs at peoples money.
It is easy to say this or that tax loophole should be blocked, but history tells us it is not that simple. Block one hole and another opens. It is worth remembering that people using these schemes to avoid tax are often not breaking the law.

If becoming a tax haven can achieve something like the standard of living the Swiss enjoy, then do it. I happen to like prosperity

Unfortunately, things are always more complicated than at first glance. The Swiss do not have a happy history when it comes to their banking sector and the "benefits" it offers as their conduct during WW2 shows.
What is the price of prosperity?

[notorious]

A brief explanation of Paradise Papers

https://youtu.be/8N7gljqsIKc

[Norretal]

I received a letter from HMRC last week stating that during the tax year of 2016/17 I'd underpaid....by 40p

Needless to say, I spoke with my accountants immediately

They're relentless on the common man but don't seem to pursue the privileged with the same enthusiasm, funny that.

[David's8]

Perhaps you should start taking the Head of HMRC to dinner at the Ivy as do influential tax avoiders and their accountancy firms!

[tintin]

Originally Posted by David's8

Perhaps you should start taking the Head of HMRC to dinner at the Ivy as do influential tax avoiders and their accountancy firms!

..or any one of the senior execs seconded to HMRC from the accountancy firms who create the schemes that help those avoiders. A truly rotten and dysfunctional system.