The Panama Papers.

No GF – VAT is levied on expenditure not income. It’s is a different form of tax.

Kimbers, is dave turning into Gavin Henson or are the colours on my screen distorted?

No GF – VAT is levied on expenditure not income. It’s is a different form of tax.

Yes I know that but I’m still trying to get my head around the maths that comes to the conclusion that the average indirect tax rate paid by an individual is HIGHER than the rate that is applied to the vast majority of goods and services.

booze, fags, fuel

booze, fags, fuel

See my earlier point on those. First two are discretionary, and for the third I’m amazed that anyone in that bracket can run a car (Fuel for domestic use is taxed at a lower rate)

Sky News. Tony Benn left £5m and used offshire funds to reduce tax liability.

Andrew Marr: Have you asked your shadow cabinet whether they have offshore investments
Corbyn: No

Well there you go, clearly a not regarded as a critical issue if Corbyn hasn’t even asked

Awful picture JHJ but I lack the mental agility to link that to the agitation over the delay in Dave publishing his tax return summary

Maybe you’re a selective reader?

What links Honeywell to Mossack Fonseca?

And in the bigger picture, can you name any Prime Ministers in the last 50 years who haven’t had extensive ties to the Arms industry?

1. You have told me the link, thanks. They invested in AIG as well (you told me that too), so did my pension at one point. Should I sack my pension fund managers and then burn them?

2. No

now, back to the issue at hand….

Have you lot all been up all weekend taking hallucinagenics?

Anyway….whatevs…. Back on topic….A great (very very sweary) rant by Russel Kane

I do like his description of Dave as a planet-faced **** 😆

See my earlier point on those. First two are discretionary, and for the third I’m amazed that anyone in that bracket can run a car (Fuel for domestic use is taxed at a lower rate)

How exactly do you think people get to their minimum wage jobs then?

And actually it fit’s the gist of the graph nicely, the rich can afford the latest Blu-Motion VAG doing 60mpg and paying zero road tax Vehicle Excise duty, the poor are driving round in a 1.8 Focus doing 30mpg paying £200/year.

They there hobble on their rag wrapped stumps of course

now, back to the issue at hand….

The Panama Papers you mean…

or your unrelenting bollocks on how there is no tax avoidance and Dave is a stand up guy, which by association means that all of the dodgy dealings within the Panama Papers and the network of offshore tax havens in general have no impact in the real world and are just a matter of politics of envy?

Yep, well jel I can’t afford to do shit like this with money that has been handled by the City of London and offshore Tax Havens under jurisdiction of the British Crown:

or your unrelenting bollocks on how there is no tax avoidance

What’s the expression? sauce?

and Dave is a stand up guy

Ditto, I am waiting for the real stuff to come out first before making any conclusions. There must be some..otherwise as ^ I struggle to fathom what Dave stands for or what kind of guy he is.

which by association

Funny you should mention that. Guilt by association seems very relevant here doesn’t it?

means that all of the dodgy dealings within the Panama Papers and the network of offshore tax havens in general have no impact in the real world and are just a matter of politics of envy?

If you say so, I wouldn’t agree personally but hey ho.

How much has money in offshore tax havens contributed to this?

Greenland and Antarctic melt isn’t just raising seas — it’s changing the Earth’s rotation[/url]

And what are the 1%, with their wealth, power, influence and taste for environmentally damaging war and the profits of resource plunder, doing to counter such issues?

How exactly do you think people get to their minimum wage jobs then?

Walking, cycling, public transport to name but three. To be fair though I could have been clearer that I wasn’t trying to treat petrol/diesel in the same way as fags and booze.

I’ve always wanted to dig into that calculation though to see how it is done. I’ve seen the outputs but never the detailed calculation or even the methodology behind them.

Dividing the population into fifths doesn’t tell the full story. Its the top 2% who are getting away with it.

HMRC’s brand new chief exec is in trouble this morning; seems he was a tax partner at law firm Simmons & Simmons in the City at the time the firm was acting as advisors to Blairmore Holdings. Previously quoted as writing that tax is ‘legalised extortion’ by the state.
Seems the perfect person to get to grips with unacceptable avoidance.

GF – sorry not sure I have got your question.

Are you asking why indirect taxes expressed as a % of income are higher than the rate of VAT itself?

Theres always been a revolving door between HMRC and the big accountancy firms. They write the rules, complete with loopholes, then make a fortune advising those with deep enough pockets how to exploit said loopholes to pay no tax

The accountancy firms right the rules?? Another scandal brewing….or is it HRMC advising Dave and his dodgy mates?

(Here’s a thought since its all so complicated – how about a nice simple flat rate of tax with a punchy threshold??? )

Theres always been a revolving door between HMRC and the big accountancy firms. They write the rules, complete with loopholes, then make a fortune advising those with deep enough pockets how to exploit said loopholes to pay no tax

Exactly, but it’s all legal, so everything is hunky dory and issues like this can be swept to one side…

How much has money in offshore tax havens contributed to this?

Greenland and Antarctic melt isn’t just raising seas — it’s changing the Earth’s rotation[/url]

And what are the 1%, with their wealth, power, influence and taste for environmentally damaging war and the profits of resource plunder, doing to counter such issues?

HMRC’s brand new chief exec is in trouble this morning

I posted this on the other thread.

This is again completely unfair as he was arguing the case for simplification as the best way to reduce avoidance and was just explaining the legal framework which allows governments to tax. Likewise, his GAAR point was simply that a GAAR completely in the power of HMRC was unfair. At the time most professionals were in favour of a pre-clearance system, but HMRC have always resisted this because of its cost. Now the concern is met by requiring HMRC to go to an independent panel before trying to apply it.

He was a tax partner at a medium sized City firm though, but everyone is entitled to advice, his reputation was a very straight adviser.

The accountancy firms right the rules?? Another scandal brewing….or is it HRMC advising Dave and his dodgy mates?

Pretty much, yes.

The Big Four accountancy firms – EY, Deloitte, KPMG and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) – have been slammed for their role in tax avoidance. But their response is instructive. “We don’t ever condone tax avoidance or support tax avoidance,” pledges EY’s Steve Varley. “Fundamentally, parliament has to legislate what parliament wants to happen … And people like us can follow the legislation and provide advice to our clients.”

But what Varley conveniently fails to mention is that firms such as EY help design the law in the first place, and then go off and help advise their clients on how to get around it. “We have seen what look like cases of poacher, turned gamekeeper, turned poacher again,” declared the Public Accounts Committee in April 2013, “whereby individuals who advise government go back to their firms and advise their clients on how they can use those laws to reduce the amount of tax they pay.” This is an astonishing finding. Senior MPs have concluded that accountants were not simply offering governments their expertise: they were advising governments on tax law, and then telling their clients how to get around the laws they had themselves helped to draw up.

Are you asking why indirect taxes expressed as a % of income are higher than the rate of VAT itself?

Pretty much yes. Looking at it fairly simplistically VAT can only be paid out on Net earnings so if VAT was paid at the same rate on everything (say 20% as it currently is) the most anyone could pay would be 20% of their Net pay. When expressed as a percentage of Gross pay however, this would be less than 20% as Gross pay is greater than Net pay. So the situation where those with lower incomes pay a percentage that is higher than this doesn’t make any sense.

Now this does get a bit complicated when you look in more detail as there are some things that liable for higher rates of tax (fags, booze, petrol) and it’s further complicated by Council tax, but there are also many that are subject to lower or zero tax (food, fuel, rent/mortgage). There is also the way that benefits (which the poorer would be more likely to be in receipt of) are treated. Are they treated like income and added to the gross income figure or are they included in expenditure but omitted from the gross income figure?

Great,

Cameron doesn’t like the pressure so “finds” £10 million pounds for a government department to help him get out of a political fix. (and we thought the cupboard was bare).

But it’ll all come to nothing because the head of HMRC is himself a notorious tax avoider. So they’ll probably fritter away a bit of public money (although the £10 million probably doesn’t exist), and then admit there’s probably nothing to be done about avoidance and conveniently ignore the evasion and money laundering because that’s far too hard to prove.

Why indirect taxes expressed as a % of income are higher than the rate of VAT itself?

That’s easy… the VAT has no relation to someone’s income, only the value of the item.

Taxes are cumulative… income tax, council tax, VAT, Fuel Duty etc, so even accounting for the increase in income tax for higher earners, a higher overall proportion of lower earners income goes on taxes that are not necessarily immediately obvious.

What is immediately obvious is that if we don’t do something about the several crises that the current management of the planet are inflicting through their foolish actions, we’re all dry bummed.

From the Bandits horses mouth,

Because indirect taxes are taxes that are paid on items of expenditure, the amount of indirect tax each household pays is determined by their expenditure rather than their income. While the payment of indirect taxes can be expressed as a percentage of gross income, in the same way as for direct taxes shown in Table B, this can be potentially misleading. This is because some households have an annual expenditure that exceeds their annual income, particularly those towards the bottom of the income distribution. For these households, their expenditure is not being funded entirely from income. It is possible that, for these households, expenditure is a better indicator of standard of living than income. Therefore, payment of indirect taxes is also presented as a percentage of expenditure to give a more complete picture of the impact of indirect taxes.

Source

http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20160105160709/http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/dcp171766_268392.pdf

But be careful, apparently they are dodgy RW folk rather than a reputable and independent source

That’s easy… the VAT has no relation to someone’s income, only the value of the item.

Not quite. The amount of VAT that someone can pay, assuming that they spend all their money but don’t run up any debts, is limited by their income.

Income tax is treated separately as a direct tax rather than an indirect one.

This is because some households have an annual expenditure that exceeds their annual income, particularly those towards the bottom of the income distribution.

So probably linked to my second point that they are determining the tax based on a combination of income plus benefits but then recalculating it as a percentage of income.

Dodgy politics and economics I can just about handle but dodgy maths is unforgivable.

The amount of VAT that someone can pay, assuming that they spend all their money but don’t run up any debts, is limited by their income.

You’d have to be in a pretty special position to spend all of your money where VAT is the only tax

Do we get any graphs where something like a Brimstone Missile or per hour costs of a Tornado Jet are broken down into percentage paid for by different income brackets of the population (and the financial benefits bestowed by such equipment on different income brackets of the population)?

It’s not dodgy Maths

Expenditure taxes should be assessed in relation to the base ie expenditure

But people like to see how they relate to income – despite the caveats expressed ^ and by the ONS about being misleading – so they do that too.

It’s a stat – IMO more misleading than useful – but it’s not dodgy Maths just an odd choice of numerator and denominator

They don’t determine the tax in income. The ONS do show tables, however, in which they express direct and indirect taxes as a percentage of income for (odd) illustrative purposes but with the caveat that I quoted

So the HRMC takes advice from experts in the field – (subtlety different from whose writing the rules, but lets pass on that) – how odd???

Fortunately the FSA appears to avoid such a crazy situation hence the various rules that seem so divorced from the reality of the world that the mind boggles, but phew, no CoI. And guess what, the banks still run rings round them.

Reminds me of the expression, “if you think hiring professionals is expensive (or dodgy in this case), wait until you see the cost of hiring amateurs”

Handy timing…

Obama Under Pressure to Declassify the 9/11 Report’s Secret 28 Pages

Ten days before Obama heads to Saudi Arabia, a new report explores the making of the 28 pages that reveal Saudi support for the 9/11 hijackers—and shows why they should be made public.

An exchange between Kroft and Graham goes to the heart of the dispute. “You believe that support came from Saudi Arabia?” Kroft asks. “Substantially,” Graham replies. “And when we say, ‘The Saudis,’ you mean the government…rich people in the country? Charities?”

“All of the above,” Graham replies.

There are real-life implications for the 9/11 families in these 28 pages and their potential impact on a lawsuit being heard in New York. The U.S. government holds the position that a sovereign government cannot be sued, and that has so far shielded the Saudi government. Lehman told 60 Minutes that he has no doubt some high Saudi officials knew assistance was being provided to al Qaeda, but he doesn’t think it was ever official policy. He also doesn’t think it absolves the Saudis of responsibility, Kroft said in his commentary.

“It was no accident that 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudis. They all went to Saudi schools. They learned from the time they were first able to go to school—of this intolerant brand of Islam,” Lehman said, referring to the ultra-conservative form of Islam known as Wahhabism. After oil, Kroft says, Wahhabism is one of the kingdom’s biggest exports. Saudi clerics have billions of dollars to spread the faith, and the mosques and religious schools that the Saudi government builds all over the world are recruiting grounds for violent extremists.

So, back to Al Yamamah and the cash made from oil for weapons being invested in a complex offshore network of shell companies, allegedly used to support Al-Qaeda in the run up to 9/11:

Admittedly, some of this article should be taken with a pinch of salt, but it does contain significant truth:

“In 1979 Usama Bin Ladin went to Prince Turki for advice after he became infuriated by the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Following Prince Turki’s suggestion that Bin Ladin use his financial assets to aid the Afghan resistance, Usama traveled to neighboring Pakistan to wage jihad on the Soviet Union.”

In an interview in 2002, Prince Turki stated, “In 1980, when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan, we in the Kingdom, with the United States, initiated a program of countering the Soviet invasion and helping the Mujahideen to repel the Soviets. I was directly involved in that situation.”

An article in the March 1, 2003 Observer reported that lawyers for 11 relatives of 9/11 victims served legal papers on Prince Turki, which state, according to the Observer: “Based on sworn testimony from a Taliban intelligence chief called Mullah Kakshar, they allege that Turki arranged for donations to be made directly to al-Qaeda and bin Laden by a group of wealthy Saudi businessmen.”

While Turki, as head of Saudi Intelligence and Osama bin Laden’s handler, is suspected of playing a commanding role in 9/11, Prince Bandar played the critical role inside the United States itself, as Ambassador from 1983-2005. It was Turki and Prince Sultan (Bandar’s father and Defense Minister), who, in 1978, helped bring Bandar into a position of power in Washington. At that time, they were negotiating Saudi Arabia’s purchase of 50 F-15 fighters from the United States. William Simpson, Bandar’s biographer, writes: “Assisting Prince Turki bin Faisal, Bandar quickly made his mark in Washington. He quickly became very close to the Bush family, to the point of being called Bandar Bush by the Bush family itself.”

In the late 1970s, when George H.W. Bush was head of the CIA, Bandar worked with Turki in support of what later became al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. Then, as the architect of the 1985 Al-Yamamah arms-for-oil barter deal between Britain and Saudi Arabia, Bandar gained control of a huge offshore slush fund for covert operations. During the 1980s, when the U.S. Congress cut off funding for the Contra operation in Nicaragua, it was Prince Bandar who supplied the funding, at the request of then-Vice President George H.W. Bush.

Evidence of Bandar’s involvement in 9/11 is further reinforced by the disclosure that his wife, Princess Haifa, the sister of Prince Turki, passed between $51,000 and $73,000 to Saudi intelligence operative Omar al-Bayoumi, which money in turn was used to help establish the first two 9/11 Saudi hijackers to arrive in the U.S., Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar, in San Diego, Calif.

Also worth reading the part of the Article which goes into extensive details of the long relationship between Prince Charles and Bandar Bin Sultan, from their time at RAF Cranwell.

Also note that Turki Bin Faisal went on to become the Saudi Ambassador to the Court of St James, after resigning his post as head of Saudi Intelligence 10 days before 9/11:

That Tony Blair shut down the Serious Fraud Office investigation into the Al-Yamamah deal (Prince Andrew also got involved), then several documents went missing, further muddies the waters:

The UK agency said it lost 32,000 pages of data and 81 audio tapes linked to a bribery probe into BAE’s al-Yamamah deal with Saudi Arabia.

The investigation into the huge arms deal was discontinued in 2006 after intervention from then-Prime Minister Tony Blair.

The SFO said the lost material comprised 3% of data about the deal. [/quote]

What if we were to add into the mix that one of the Saudi Princes involved appears to have financed and supported Barack Obama from the earliest stages of his career?

So, the man who wants to be PM cannot:

i) use the right form
ii) fill it in online
Iii) return it on time
iv) find where he put it

Doddery old fool!

Bet he can’t even eat a bacon sarnie properly.
🙄

@ninfan, careful I described his oerformace st pmq’s once as flacid. Those here don’t like that at all -‘apparently age-ist despite me pointing to US politicans much older and much more energetic

@ernie I really struggle with those studies to explain their results – a low paid person gets 10k tax free, no taxes on rent or food and low taxes on heating etc plus any welfare/income support is tax free. See the other thread on Boris taxes/total income and compare it to someone on £25k. Throughout this discussion people repeatedly use examples of what are the super rich and then infer someone on say £100k is in the same “rich” bracket

And there you betray your complete and utter ignorance of reality, not to mention your underlying hatred of the poor.

@daz normally I just let this sort of garbage pass but not on this occasion. The poor in this country get a geat deal of support and would get even more if 1) everyone was preared fo pay more tax – but they are not and 2) less money was wasted on benefits/welfare/housing to those who are not poor. To help the poor we need anstrong economy and sustainable debt levels – this biggest crime of the Labour party was to impose on the poor an economy heading downwards whilst debt spiraled. If this isn’t sorted soon the poor will be very dramatically and negatively impacted by the impending slowdown in Europe

when one adds the word old to an insults it pretty hard to defend a claim of ageism – though you did try – you were ageist
Here let me give you an example you will get

How about stupid Jewish fool – thankfully no antisemitism there eh – Few lucky me.
That is how poor your argument and logic is here.

I really struggle

Finally I agree with something you say 😉

Good result for you boys at the weekend – LVG was surely trolling with Young up front 😯

@jambayla…sorry to say but you haven’t a clue what the ‘poor’ need…I wonder what exposure you have to the ‘poor’ besides what you read in the newspaper etc? Judging by the comments you make, i have to guess very little.

Not knocking you for it…you just need to realise you’re talking about something you haven’t got a clue about…you’re just repeating political rhetoric..

I won’t say my family was ever poor but we lived in a council house before we emigrated to Austalian as £10 POMs in fhe 60’s. I personally think the welfare budget is large enough to help the poor and the needy if it was better allocated. What worries me greatly is a deep recession in Europe with central bankers “out of aummunition” and national debt levels which preclude further borrowing. That will be a real disaster for fhe poor.

I saw Corbyn was right on message with the key politics of all of this – if the rich paid their taxes there woukd be no budget cuts. Nonsense of course as the tax returns of Boris/Cameron/Osbourne clearly demonstrate the wealthy are paying a lot of tax, the real issue is corporate tax avoidance.

Here a cartoon on seeking refuge. Panama papers where akways about government corruption (or donations for musical instruments if you are Russian)

The majority of people in that boat are depicted as women when in fact the majority are men. The women being left behind with the kids in camps in Jordan and Turkey.

You are perhaps my long lost cousin, Jamby, half my family got on a boat in 69 leaving a council house in Birmingham. I met a couple from down under on the way of St James last week with the same not-uncommon surname as me which caused the husband much excitement.

Compare the treatment of Jérôme Kerviel who whilst doing his job to the best of his ability lost a few euros for a corrupt bank that has been fined several times for not respecting the rules and lied about who knew what according to the police. Kerviel got prison time and disproportionate fine to the guy’s earning ability. And Cahuzac, still walking free despite defrauding the government for personal gain and lying about it to the national assembly.

Cameron was obliged to declare stuff but didn’t but it isn’t illegal because it was only some kind of professional obligation rather than a law. Will let’s tear up all the rules concerning the behaviour of MPs because if there are no laws to back them up they are pointless.

I won’t say my family was ever poor but we lived in a council house before we emigrated to Austalian as £10 POMs in fhe 60’s

So you were a beneficiary of the post-war consensus that was the welfare state? The same welfare state that the Tories are systematically dismantling. Their present housing bill will probably finish the entire concept of social housing for ever. Even their own councillors are asking them to think again about forcing housing associations to sell off houses at huge discounts, and councils to sell their properties. Even they can see that Its madness!

I saw Corbyn was right on message with the key politics of all of this – if the rich paid their taxes there woukd be no budget cuts. Nonsense of course as the tax returns of Boris/Cameron/Osbourne clearly demonstrate the wealthy are paying a lot of tax, the real issue is corporate tax avoidance.

No, the issue is both. The fact that the rich pay a large amount of tax is due to the large amounts they ‘earn’*. And this reflects the massive growth in income inequality, which has accelerated since the crash. The richest have seen their ‘earnings’* skyrocket while everyone else’s income stagnates. So proportionally they should be paying more. Thats the most simple, basic arithmetic, surely?

The question is whether they are paying the taxes they should be paying? And it would appear that they’re not. By using a selection of maybe-legal but certainly morally dubious methods. Methods unavailable to the rest of us, who have no option but to pay our full tax bill.

Just saying ‘I pay a lot of tax’ is disingenuous, to say the least. In fact its just plain evasive whataboutery, put out there as smoke screen to disguise flagrant tax evasion/avoidance/whatever

In fact it might even be

😀

* If accumulating the benefits of owning assets is now classed as ‘earning’ an income?