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The 'Take it Outside' thread This thread will no longer be moderated ***
Will wrote: "Writers all sell themselves..."I thought we gave it away.
Part of the problem is actually a moral one too.There is a basic principle that is quite sound: Everyone has the right to arrange their tax affairs to pay the minimum sum due under the law.
It's where you take it from there, isn't it? The reason Jim is always complaining how HUGE our tax law code is (he's right by the way: just to buy copies of the statutes every year will cost you the thick end of two or three hundred quid for an updated set) is because most of the content is not tax law per se: but rules to close loopholes and get arounds and dodges. That part just keeps on growing.
Really our tax code needs to go back to first principles.How often do we tax money and where do we tax it?
One principle was that we taxed earnings. So that's wages. It's also interest on capital and investment.
With pensions they complicated things because to encourage people to have them they gave tax advantages to having them, but of course they then still wanted the money so they then tax the pensions.
The problem seems to come when politicians use the tax system for social engineering. An example of this is the 40% or 50% rate.
50% sends out a signal. 45% probably collects more money.
Gordon Brown was a beggar for this sort of thing, although to be fair he was only worse than some of the others, he wasn't uniquely bad. Osborne is actually cut from the same cloth, he introduces endless tweaks.
This may be because they've got to the place where they cannot actually do anything real because if they take much more they start doing real economic damage?
There's all sorts of stupid things we could scrap. One is using the tax system to pay out benefits. It's so overloaded and incompetent it cannot even collect tax properly, so it is never going to manage the other side of the business.
But every time a politician decides to introduce a tweak to send out a message or punish a certain sort of behaviour, all that happens is that he's a muppet and doesn't understand what he's doing. The people who actually write the rules don't understand the implications of the rules they're writing, and a handful of people who do understand the rules just sit and weep (if they work for the tax system) or tell their clients how to legitimately avoid the new rule if they're in the private sector.
One beautiful example of this is apparently buy to let landlords, discovering they're about to be screwed, are all becoming companies because companies get different tax arrangements.
So Jim,:wages: how do you define 'wages'? Easy for the person in a job. But what are your wages, as a self employed person? Is it your turnover? Because you have essential expenses don't you, like animal feeds, fencing repairs etc. A retailer has stock to buy, which should be tax deductible, as the costs of his/her shop to pay... and what are the 'wages' for an incorporated business? The same rule has to cover the lad down the road running a small electrical business as a FTSE 100 company. who would not be happy if their turnover was the tax point for income tax. It all gets complicated in practice, you see.
Gordon Brown was very keen to see the Tax Code simplified. he set up a Working Group to see how it could be achieved: and guess what - they found that in practice it was impossible. Chancellors with a long tenure try to do something about Tax; those who only last a few years don't bother, that's why you single out Osborne & Brown, the longest serving Office Holders we've had recently. Mad Thatcher used to change hers when the weather changed, and none of them were of an intellectual calibre to actually think about tax. Lamont was just a joke in a suit. Healey reacted to crises with no long term thinking.
The BTL guys are in for a shock: capital gains Tax rules are different for companies than for individuals, and when they come to sell the properties, they will find that the tax benefits of incorporation don't extend to CGT, and next year - if not before, during committee stage on the Finance Act - the Corporation Tax rules will quietly adjust on BTL properties to standardise the playing field.
Never rush is a golden rule in taxation planning - whatever you think of doing today, there will be a good reason to do something else next year.
The self employed and business are always difficult. Politicians and the civil service never seem to understand them.I've seen an article which suggested you needn't tax business. First you tax the employees. Then you tax the money paid to the shareholders at the same rate as the employees.
Then a company that is reinvesting and growing should be encouraged and one that is being screwed by the shareholders gets taxed.
You might have to do something about transfers abroad to other shareholders. But then I haven't a clue whether it would work, but would it work better or worse than what we've got.
The self employed and small businesses are more difficult. A profit and loss account can be largely meaningless. Whether it would make sense to have the self employed to become companies and they pay themselves a salary, pay money to share holders, and then negotiate with the tax people about what proportion of your telephone use is business?
I don't know anybody round here who has 'bought to let', more people who've not sold their last house when they're buying this one. Often people working for companies who pay London wages to staff who actually live in the Northwest :-)
The problem with the self employed is that most people do not know the difference between profit and turnover. That includes those that are self employed.Add in that the government doesn't understand the difference either, just makes it worse.
*nods in agreement*
Private sector good providers... Public sector bad providers...http://www.theguardian.com/society/20...
Or maybe not.
Poor contract management. We've seen it up here in Cumbria with a couple of things. Firstly the contracts were badly written, they should have had penalty clauses in them. Something like the company would have to cover the cost of running the service until an alternative provider could take over, if they lost the service due to inadequate performance.Secondly the oversight itself can be pathetic. In one case up here there was public dissatisfaction about one contract.
The council put it out to tender, reawarded it, and then when they tried to call it in again called it in for the wrong reasons so it had to stay awarded.
It's like the fiasco we have with schools in Edinburgh. If your contract management is rubbish, you'll get a rubbish result.
In theory it should be easier to do competent contract management than it should be to provide a service. However competent contract management demands that the people doing the management monitor carefully, know how the job should be done,and aren't afraid to kick off and call the contract in
I'm quite surprised that the Edinburgh schools disaster doesn't seem to have any comeback on the PFI providers who built the damn things. You'd expect a competent civil service lawyer to build in such a thing, wouldn't you?
Will wrote: "I'm quite surprised that the Edinburgh schools disaster doesn't seem to have any comeback on the PFI providers who built the damn things. You'd expect a competent civil service lawyer to build in s..."That was how the whole sorry mess was "sold" in the first place Will - apparently to transfer risk! And will the PFI consortium be paying for this? Not after a long and expensive fight through the courts I fear. Although there is another (important) point here, which is who exactly was responsible for site inspections during the build? Build quality must have been signed off by someone.
In other news, residents of Miller built homes in the capital fearful to change wallpaper on grounds it may only thing holding walls up...
Anybody had their EU leaflet through the letterbox yet? I read it on line, and my only conclusion is that they're not serious about staying in, because those 'facts' could make anybody switch sides!
In one example, they cite that 44% of our trade is with Europe.
But surely that means that the other 56% of trade is with the rest of the world, and thus, an argument for leaving the EU, as we could grow our global trade. :)
I don't think that they have sent any out yet, have they?I've read a report saying that those businesses that mostly trade with Europe are advocating 'In' and those businesses that trade with the rest of the world are advocating 'out'.
I'm not sure quite how useful that is in terms of making a decision though.
"I'm not sure quite how useful that is in terms of making a decision though. "It's helped me make up my mind. I look at the IN side, and see the usual suspects of big banks, corporate interests, Tony Blair, etc etc
and I think to myself that these people are no friend to an ordinary working person like myself.
If they want to stay IN, then I need to vote out! :)
That's a fair point: until you look at the people lined up on the OUT side, most of whom (IDS, Grayling, Gove, Redwood etc) are equally unsavoury and no friend to ordinary people either.
Jim wrote: "we got oursI've posted it back :-)"
Well done that man!
Business post at their expense I trust?
Will wrote: "That's a fair point: until you look at the people lined up on the OUT side, most of whom (IDS, Grayling, Gove, Redwood etc) are equally unsavoury and no friend to ordinary people either."Agreed, and the fact that I'm on the same side as these shysters rankles with me, but I'm still seeing the bigger picture, and I'm still voting to leave.
Jim wrote: "we got oursI've posted it back :-)"
Insult to injury. You pay for this with you tax money, and then you have to pay again to send it back to the buggers!
Marc wrote: "Business post at their expense I trust?"there was a freepost address on the web, so I sent it to that. Haven't a clue whether it works
But it cost me nowt :-)
(Second hand envelope without my address :-))
R.M.F wrote: "Jim wrote: "we got oursI've posted it back :-)"
Insult to injury. You pay for this with you tax money, and then you have to pay again to send it back to the buggers!"
I refer the right honourable gentleman to the answer to my previous question.
To paraphrase, cost me nowt :-)
Will wrote: "I don't think that they have sent any out yet, have they?I've read a report saying that those businesses that mostly trade with Europe are advocating 'In' and those businesses that trade with the..."
Got mine this morning. It confused me because it said 'No other country has managed to secure significant access to the Single Market, without having to:
follow EU rules over which they have no real say
pay into the EU
accept EU citizens living and working in their country
Well, we do pay in, isn't that what half the 'out' campaign complains about, there is loads of moaning about EU regs lumbered onto us, and only this morning there was a radio report about how most EU migrants come here because of the depressed job market in their own country, feeling jobs are easier come by and better paid in UK, and giving information about which EU countries they come from - BBC article - so I don't understand a statement like that in a 'factual' pamphlet.
Just heard JC's speech on the EU. 'Needs a lot of work but better in than out'. is a summary, apart from the excellent ripping up of the Tories abominable record.
Amazing, given how Euro-sceptical he has always been.
If I was one of his predecessors I think I'd keep the speech on CDThere cannot be many examples of Corbyn holding his nose to support party policy :-)
Geoff (G. Robbins) (The noisy passionfruit) wrote: "Amazing, given how Euro-sceptical he has always been."Spot on.
Corbyn comes across as the part-time socialist I always suspected him to be.
He caved in on Trident, now he u-turns on his long held EU opposition.
He knows who butters his bread.
Meanwhile, Tory Britain focusses on the real threat to the economy. Those who only work an average of 30 hours a week.http://www.theguardian.com/society/20...
The other week, Marc and Eastwood laughed at me for citing Ian Botham as an influence, but true to form, Beefy sticks two fingers up to the elites and declares his support for BREXIT.
Marc wrote: "so what?"So what?
It's heartening to see that at least one man from the Shires of England hasn't rolled up the white flag to big banks and corporate interest.
Beefy remembers his history: Magna Carta, the levellers, the suffragettes, the Chartists, Admiral Nelson and the Tolpuddle martyrs. Men and women who fought and died for freedom, the same freedom that has been surrendered to Brussels.
Freedom is in the DNA of every English man, woman and child.
Beefy hasn't forgotten that freedom.
1) He's from Scunthorpe, hardly a town associated with 'shires'2) Beefy sadly overlooks the exploitation & misery of british colonialism as he invokes the Commonwealth as an alternative community to Europe for the UK
3) Define what you mean by 'freedom':
is it a freedom of action 'freedom to'
or freedom from harm/disadvantage 'freedom from'?
I think you'll find that there was a shift from meaning 1 to meaning 2 around the late 19th and very early 20th century, which means it can hardly be etched into the very marrow of every Englishmen, unless all that generation had a bone marrow transplant...
The Commonwealth evokes such a picture of misery that Francophone countries are joining it :-)
well the Francophone colonial powers of Belgium and France have the worst record of how they treated their subjects, Indochina, Congo, Burundi/Rwanda, North Africa, Haiti, Mali, Chad, Niger, all of which has come home to roost in the post-colonial era
Not to mention Algeria, and the issues that still causes France.
Will wrote: "Not to mention Algeria, and the issues that still causes France."think Algeria was in North Africa last time I looked :-)
Report out tomorrow done by the Treasury to show the knock on effect of each of the alternate scenarios - the 'Norway' set up, the 'Canada' set up and another one, can't recall. Anyway, the big headline is how many thousands worse off each household has been projected to be 15 years after brexit.They've obviously been working on this for a while to rush it out so soon.
what has rather amused me in a rather bitter and cynical way is that we're so important that the IMF says that if we leave Europe the continent will collapse into the sea and civilisation as we know it will end.But we're so irrelevant we'll be offered the same deal as Norway
we may as well collapse continentally into the sea if the EU admits Turkey into its membership
Marc wrote: "1) He's from Scunthorpe, hardly a town associated with 'shires'2) Beefy sadly overlooks the exploitation & misery of british colonialism as he invokes the Commonwealth as an alternative community ..."
Never thought I'd live to see the day when a Scotsman cares more for the freedoms of England than the average Englishman.
We're in danger of sleepwalking into a United States of Europe - the nation needs to wake up.
the majority of jocks will vote to stay in, fact.
eastwood (do you feel lucky punk,well do ya) wrote: "the majority of jocks will vote to stay in, fact."That may be, but my personal preference is Scotland out of the UK and out of the EU, a MacSwitzerland of the north.
so you can't really back up the statement you made really can you , freedom my arse.
Post June 23rd, I'll sleep easy at nights knowing that I did my best to stop this country sliding into the clutches of faceless, conniving, Brussels pen pushers!
how ?
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The Beiderbecke Affair (other topics)The Grain Market in the Roman Empire: A Social, Political and Economic Study (other topics)
The Peasants Are Revolting (other topics)
How to Lie with Statistics (other topics)
That Old Ace in the Hole (other topics)
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Yeah. Ain't got that neither.
Got three packets of really good Vietnamese coffee left.