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With the Lester Piggott thread in the main Horse Racing section at risk of veering off topic, I thought it may be prudent to open a thread dedicated to the topic of tax, tax evasion and the purpose of taxation in here.
Chezza makes the excellent point- one that I have raised many times- that tax is used to fund healthcare, education, transport and other essential services. So anybody who deliberately evades paying tax, even using perfectly legal loopholes to do so, is undermining the very fabric of society.
There is a more nefarious aspect to this, though; the way the Conservatives use the carrot of tax cuts just before every general election as a way to tempt wavering voters. Not only is this deeply cynical- and a sad indictment of the British electorate- but it is also the first step towards the long-term neoliberal goal of privatisation. Reduce the funding to public services; say they aren’t working; privatise.
Remember: tax is not a four-letter word.
The tax level is at its highest for 70 years and is set to go still higher to pay for the last two years.
When the government puts billions of pounds into the coffers of organised crime via fraudulent furlough claims (it has admitted to £5 billion but a study by Oxford University suggests it is five times higher), you can understand why some people get a bit miffed when their taxes are increased to pay for such incompetence.
A scheme which hands out free money without doing any checking to see if the claims are legitimate. Gosh, whoever thought organised crime would be all over that like a rash?
Worse still were the bounce back loans. Everyone in my sector saw that they were going to abused and we all know plenty of cases or outrageous abuse with the ever seedy insolvency profession helping it along
We all talk about what concerns us but I believe there should be a much higher personal allowance for t( self employed. Getting off the ground is hugely difficult and good people return to world of the corporate do nothing drones because they can’t make it pay. Would happily state The self employed generate wealth in the economy per person way above the rest of t( population
I’m doing just fine now but it takes years of investment and time and bouncing direct debits
The idea that public sector roles cannot be privatized on the basis of idealogy is absurd. Every good business outsources when a supplier can do it cheaper and better so why not the government? And competition for contracts drives quality.
Not every task should be outsourced of course but I think we could happily start with the grisly lazy scything incompetent dvla and passport offices for one
I know an awful lot of self employed building workers that fiddle their tax.
I've stumbled on the side of twelve misty mountains
I've walked and I crawled on six crooked highways‘Every good business outsources when a supplier can do it cheaper and better so why not the government?’
In theory that works. Very often however a lot of attention is paid to the ‘cheaper’ part and little if any to the ‘better’ part. If more consideration was given to ‘better’ then Capita would be out of business tomorrow.
Having given my views on tax on a Lester Piggott thread I would only be compounding the felony by giving my views on Lester Piggott on a tax thread.
I won’t deny it was tempting, though.
I am "The Horse Racing Punter" on Facebook
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It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"I remain amazed that they still haven’t gone after the low hanging fruit of a gambling tax in some form. Booze and fags are highly taxed, why not punting? It’s a difficult one to raise a moral objection to.
As an extreme example, that couple won £160 million or whatever it was and keep the lot. Obviously they’ll be taxed on what they buy with it (assuming they remain in the country of course, I sure as hell wouldn’t) but few would object to a direct tax on it.
I have two questions on this subject:
1) What evidence is there that the DVLA and Passport Office are “lazy” and “incompetent” beyond the lurid tabloid headlines. I’ve never encountered any problems with either of them, anyone care to share their personal experiences to the contrary? If they were privatised why would their service suddenly improve? I’m sure we can all think of organisations that are privately owned that provide a sub-standard service (home delivery firms, broadband providers are two that I personally have been on the wrong side of), what’s the difference?
I don’t seek to make this a political issue I just think that once any organisation gets to a certain size it becomes impossible for it to run efficiently from the customer’s perspective (which is why the NHS can never be fixed).
2) Why not abolish income tax to prevent evasion/avoidance and increase VAT on everything except essential items. Make the rate higher for luxury items. I’ve no idea if you could make the numbers stack up but it’s surely time to try something different.
The evidence re the dvla was in the news and through investigations. Why not do a search? It was everywhere and it’s well known they are a shambles at present. Frankly all staff and management should be fired and the whole thing outsourced
Total direct taxation hits the poor and middle income far more. Would be crippling on food etc If it’s on non essentials only you would need a rate that’s through the roof to make it work but even then demand for such goods would plummet. It’s a non starter
This in the private sector?
I don’t think so….
Tax evasion is always wrong.
Everyone should pay the tax they are legally required to pay.
Yes, tax loopholes should be closed.There is no such thing as tax “avoidance”.
Otherwise…
I was told I could make a voluntary contribution.
As I understand it anyone can pay more tax in the way of a voluntary contribution.
So if someone not legally needed to pay anymore tax is “avoiding”, then anyone not paying a voluntary tax contribution is also “avoiding” paying more tax…
And anyone not paying much voluntary tax is also “avoiding” paying more voluntary tax.
Value Is EverythingWhy not abolish income tax to prevent evasion/avoidance and increase VAT on everything except essential items. Make the rate higher for luxury items. I’ve no idea if you could make the numbers stack up but it’s surely time to try something different
By abolishing Income Tax and extending VAT you’re essentially advocating the introduction of a Consumption Tax
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consumption_tax
A near-equivalent change for businesses would be the replacement of Corporation Tax by a Sales Tax: a strategy that none other than Nigel Lawson favoured
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sales_tax
Both have the theoretical advantage that it is more difficult for consumers to ‘evade’ or ‘avoid’ paying tax on expenditure than it is on gross income and for businesses on sales rather than gross profit
However, as the above articles detail these alternatives are hardly flawless or foolproof
Indirect taxation is regressive – favours the wealthy, hits the poor.
Direct taxation (ie income tax) can be either proportionate or progressive, the latter being the more left wing and hits the rich harder than the poor, who might not have to pay any tax at all if the tax-free personal allowance is high enough.
Anyone who tries to claim indirect taxation favours the poor is either a dishonest wealthy/affluent Tory, or a stupid wealthy/affluent Tory.
Either way, they’re wrong.
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It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"“Yes, tax loopholes should be closed.”
That is like playing whack a mole. As soon as you have got one, another one is there.
I had a nightmare of a time when I renewed my passport. I needed a new passport to renew my driving licence. I did everything online, sent my old passport back as requested and everything went through quite smoothly. The problem started when my passport was delivered to me by a delivery service that wasn’t fit for purpose. I spent day after day waiting at home for my passport to be delivered after receiving a message from them to say it would be delivered the following day. They then messaged me today to say it had been delivered but it hadn’t been so I spent the weekend thinking it had been lost or stolen. Trying to phone them up resulted in me waiting on the phone for an hour only to be cut off. Took weeks to get a reply to emails. Couldn’t get to speak to anyone at the delivery company until I found a phone number for one of their other departments and got a dialogue going with a helpful guy in their sales department (if I have problems contacting a company about anything I realised long ago that any contact number regarding you wanting to place an order got an instant response). The whole process of getting my new passport printed was quite straightforward but there was nothing in place to provide back up if something went wrong. Having finally had my passport delivered it was then weeks before my old passport was returned. I heard so many horror stories of people missing holidays because of their passports not being delivered. Once the passports had left the office no one seemed to know where they were and you couldn’t get to speak to anyone about it anyway. Thankfully my driving licence renewal went through without a hitch but that’s only because I was able to use my passport.
That’ll be the the ruthlessly efficient private sector that was responsible for the major delivery cock up then.
It’s not about private vs public, both are capable of being good or bad. It’s about competent vs incompetent. Unfortunately management is often incompetent.
As that article posted earlier states, it was a failure of management in the DVLA’s case. Doesn’t matter how good the staff on the ground are (same with delivery, the men and women driving around all day largely do a great job), if the system isn’t in place for them what can they do?
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