Tax returns – should they all be public?

My tax situation isn’t any of your business, and there is absolutely no good reason why you need to know about it either.

That’s an opinion rather than an absolute.

In a fair and democratic society one could argue that there is a need for transparency to encourage people to pay their fair dues and to reduce corruption.

It is interesting how Norway manages without their society imploding, yet it would seem to be like the end of the world to some people here.

I’m personally not convinced by the need for everyone to share public tax returns for the following reasons:

– Only a minority of the current working population currently complete a tax return. Despite having 10 x as many tax payers, the IRS in the USA costs less to administer in absolute terms than HMRC does. So if everyone has to complete a tax return we’re likely looking at £Bs in extra costs.

– When we all know what everyone else earns behaviours of some individuals would change. From recent experience I know that an elderly neighbour was targeted for quite a sophisticated fraud by a gang who were using public data to target elderly people living alone in large houses. When anyone can see anyone else’s wealth that will put some people at immediate risk and in other cases where people have limited will suffer the indignity of all and sundry making value judgements about them.

I’d like to see some different rules – very vigorously enforced and underpinned by new criminal offences:

1. All shops, traders and tradespeople to clearly display the legal entity through which they transact. All transactions to be invoiced / receipts given and all shops to use cash tills to record all purchases.

2. All income over £1K a year not earned through PAYE or regulated channels like bank interest etc. to be reported via a simplified Self Assessment process with the current SA process used where the person has income to declare and PAYE.

My personal experience is that a significant number of the people I know routinely evade tax:

– friends who have family members who haven’t reported cash in hand work and then get caught out claiming benefits
– an army of tradespeople who work cash in hand often at a day rate that requires them to be registered for VAT let alone using a Ltd company. Some of these are also signing on.
– contractors who keep receipts for family meals / travel and stick them through the books
– a significant number of people doing Buy to Let without ever declaring the income or the capital gain.
– Shops that don’t ring things through the till – if they even have a till that is. Where they are selling a mix of VATable and non VATable products there is no way they can accurately report income without recording what is sold and at what price.

There’s been a lot said about politicians this week but should we care to admit it there’s fairly systemic tax evasion happening on a daily basis in homes / businesses across the country.

Seems like liberty is the first casualty of transparency and fairness (sic) It’s all about morals isn’t it?!? Or perhaps not….

It would be a complete waste of time with the only outcomes being,
A huge increase in paperwork for HMRC due to disgruntled armchair experts demanding strangers be investigated because it seems like they should be paying more.
A boon for criminal activity, particularly burglary and the hacking of online banking systems.
Pretty much any very wealthy, high tax paying but private individuals being hounded endlessly.
Online dating sites being able to add the ability to filter by wealth.

All income over £1K a year not earned through PAYE or regulated channels like bank interest etc. to be reported via a simplified Self Assessment process

I file a tax return every year due to having a rental property. The process of filling in a SA return online is already pretty easy, but knowing what numbers need to be filled in where and how to be more efficient with my tax affairs is a case of research and experience. As long as we have an ever-changing set of rules determining what qualifies for tax relief and what doesn’t, self assessment will always be difficult for most. A simplified self assessment process is – in other words – playing by simpler rules. Not necessarily fair.

Online dating sites being able to add the ability to filter by wealth.

There already are plenty of dating services which filter by wealth – you can’t join them unless you are wealthy!

It is interesting how Norway manages without their society imploding,

It may have been interesting if anyone had claimed otherwise. But nobody did.

yet it would seem to be like the end of the world to some people here.

Not at all. That’s just a contrary view you have imagined so you can disagree with it.

It’s just pointless, and as mentioned, none of your business.

My tax situation isn’t any of your business

It is if you are part of a society reliant on taxation to work for the good of all (including those at the top)

Can we have lapel badgers that show how much we earn and then little stars or devils to show how much tax we pay – like Macdonalds and their gold stars. Then we can all see the despicable members of society.

It is interesting how Norway manages without their society imploding, yet it would seem to be like the end of the world to some people here.

Many Norwegians think it is tantamount to a police state, albeit a relatively benign one because of the oil wealth.

It is if you are part of a society reliant on taxation to work for the good of all (including those at the top)

No. It’s not.

Try and find out if you disagree ?

I pay my tax to HMRC, it’s their business. Not yours.

Try and find out if you disagree ?

I doubt it would be too hard. Just pay a PI and they would probably come back with a copy in a few days.

Then we can all see the despicable members of society.

They’re the ones without “P”s on this forum!

Just pay a PI and they would probably come back with a copy in a few days.

Not legally.

There already are plenty of dating services which filter by wealth – you can’t join them unless you are wealthy

Those cater to a very particular niche of wealthy but time poor people looking for relationships with likeminded people though. Very different to match.com, eharmony, zoosk etc publishing bank balance underneath each picture.

Not legally.

He didn’t specify.

Point being, if I really wanted to know (and I really don’t GAS) I reckon I could find out quite easily.

Very different to match.com, eharmony, zoosk etc publishing bank balance underneath each picture.

Would that really be so bad? People marry into the same social class / status already, always have and always will. One of the reasons why social mobility is so poor.

How about we take the figure for the tax collected each year and divide it by the number of people of tax paying age in the country. If you pay less than that amount, you shut up and be thankful that people subsidise your life 🙂

Does that not seem fair 🙂

A boon for criminal activity, particularly burglary and the hacking of online banking systems.

At least that would free the people trapped in wealth.

He didn’t specify.
Point being, if I really wanted to know (and I really don’t GAS) I reckon I could find out quite easily.

Point being, to find out you would need to break the law.

The reason being, it’s none of your business.

No. It’s not.

Yes it is.
I get to vote on the people who decide on the rules governing how much tax you pay [assuming you are in the UK]
I could bring to the attention of HMRC any information I had about a person or business avoiding or evading tax. HMRC may decide to do nothing about it, but I’d like to think they wouldn’t say it was none of my business.

And most people do tax avoidance. Cycle to work, Childcare vouchers, etc etc

as explained in another thread most people don’t do tax avoidance, they use government devised/backed schemes which waive tax in order to influence the public to do do something they want, normally something for the good of society.

Surely only once you have been publicly outed as tax avoiding should they be made public.

yours

Dave

George has done the decent thing (no, not *that* decent)

A bit thin, just the one year…..

yours

Dave

^^ Thats not THE Dave is it?? 😯

Corbyn’s gone for the photo copy of a biro’d form.

Corbyn’s gone for the photo copy of a biro’d form.

And at least it is a tax return, rather than a summary.

How about we take the figure for the tax collected each year and divide it by the number of people of tax paying age in the country. If you pay less than that amount, you shut up and be thankful that people subsidise your life

how about if I (via PAYE) pay the same tax as you do (SA) despite you earning 3 times what I do? Can I come round and collect the extra taxes you should have paid in cake chocolate biscuits or bike parts?

At least that would free the people trapped in wealth.

You jest, but it is a serious affliction…

https://www.theguardian.com/science/brain-flapping/2016/apr/11/david-cameron-dangers-trapped-in-wealth

Tax returns should definitely not be open to the public, it is very private information that could would be harvested by people not for the use that it is intended.

There is a government agency in place that is given the power to collect and enforce taxation and to provide appropriate penalties for those who evade the right level of taxation.

Tax avoidance is something completely different and is 100% legal. If HMRC does not want people to avoid tax in particular ways then they should close those channels.

If making tax returns public is a way to hold people publically to account for not breaking tax law then by the same vane everyone should have a black box in their car which logs and reports publically their speed to ensure we are not speeding, should provide a live feed into our daily lives to ensure we are not committing crime. Maybe an implant under the skin so everyone knows where everyone can be at all times. You can never be too sure.

Personal income is just that, personal. Having that information public to your friends, family, employer, co-workers, criminals…is just a very very naïve idea.

Tax avoidance is the use of legal methods to modify an individual’s financial situation in order to lower the amount of income tax owed. This is generally accomplished by claiming the permissible deductions and credits. This practice differs from tax evasion, which is illegal.

This is the first result from searching for “tax avoidance” on Google. However, from Gov.uk:

But there is a big difference between using tax reliefs and allowances in the way in which they are intended to be used, and trying to bend the rules to avoid tax…If you use a scheme which relies on concealment, pretence, non-disclosure or misrepresentation of the true facts, you are breaking the law by evading tax.

It only takes one piece of bad tax advice to slip from “using tax reliefs and allowances” to “tax avoidance” and then to “tax evasion”. One is using the system as designed, the next is morally wrong and the latter is illegal.

My point is that too many of us are guilty of trying to make this a black and white issue and it simply isn’t.

Would that really be so bad? People marry into the same social class / status already, always have and always will. One of the reasons why social mobility is so poor.

I’m not saying that it would be bad, but that it would be one of the few outcomes of publicly available tax returns. Although now that I think about it, a publicly searchable list of the finances of people actively looking to meet strangers alone might not be the wisest idea in the world!

Tax avoidance is something completely different and is 100% legal

except when it’s not

by the same vane everyone should have a black box in their car which logs and reports publically their speed to ensure we are not speeding

ooh can I change my mind? Sod tax returns, black boxes for all!

Tax avoidance is something completely different and is 100% legal

except when it’s not[/quote]

But then it’s not tax avoidance, it’s tax evasion.

I would say not to make it public.

Social media is bad enough at the moment with hate mobs targeting Tory voters, the known rich, politicians who have a contrary view, politicians who merely voted in-line with party policy etc.

It would be a free for all against anyone who had a modicum of wealth – This is so and so from Sheffield. He / She earns £1m a year and pays x in tax – hate them.’

It would cause endless conflicts at work and between friends, families, neighbours, people who don’t even know each other.

Further, whilst I am strictly PAYE and am comfortably in the 20% band so not the most exciting of individuals I do not want world + dog knowing my financial affairs thank you very much.

And to those that think tax avoidance is the epitome of evil itself how many of you have paid cash to get a discount of somewhere between 15 & 20% depending on exactly when the transaction took place.

That’s aiding tax evasion that is, never mind mere avoidance.

You would also have armchair warriors (like most of us on here to be fair) with little or no knowledge of the tax code riffling through peoples’ affairs and coming to entirely the wrong conclusions about their taxes but sending out the pitchforks nonetheless.

We are not mature enough as a society to know what to do with such information and until we are it should be kept private.

I get to vote on the people who decide on the rules governing how much tax you pay [assuming you are in the UK]
I could bring to the attention of HMRC any information I had about a person or business avoiding or evading tax. HMRC may decide to do nothing about it, but I’d like to think they wouldn’t say it was none of my business.

That’s all very nice. But as I said earlier, the contents of my Tax Return are none of your business.

Even to the point that the information is protected by law from you gaining access to it.

How much more proof do you need that it’s none of your business.

We are not mature enough as a society to know what to do with such information and until we are it should be kept private.

Well put

Even the media are guilty of misrepresenting the facts and sharpening pitch forks where pitch forks should not be needed. It’s all a big smokescreen to distract us whilst something genuinely and hugely concerning is being passed through parliament.

“STW are having a field day with this tax story. Let’s push something objectionable through parliament whilst they’re not paying attention.” 😕

Quite interesting debate in HoC with usual panto villains – skinner given a red card – lots of misinformation too (you decide)

Despite not being a SNP fan, Robertson was one of the most sensible and measured contributors. Far better than most on that side of the house.

Well said above – the palpable desperation among journalists is very real!

Let’s push something objectionable through parliament whilst they’re not paying attention.

The only thing they seem to be talking about pushing through is more anti-tax avoidance legislation, which is probably a good thing.

How much more proof do you need that it’s none of your business.

Was it written in stone on Mount Sinai? No, well then it’s all up for grabs.

That’s all very nice. But as I said earlier, the contents of my Tax Return are none of your business.

Even to the point that the information is protected by law from you gaining access to it.

How much more proof do you need that it’s none of your business.

No proof has been provided.
The proposition that is someone else’s business and the fact that they cannot legally find out the contents of your tax return are not mutually exclusive.

I think discussing this very point was the intent of the thread.