Pandora Papers ! .

[Box11 28]

1 hour ago, Tony said:

Which is a damned sight more than their parents had. That's why they voted Tory. 

How about loyalty,kindness,neighbourhood   friendship and that we look after our own no matter what !!!!....

 

You state they have a lot more than there parents did yeah material items I agree but do they share neighbourhood spirit no they don’t because money can’t buy that and never will !!!!!.....

[cuttsie 1,090]

23 minutes ago, El Cid said:

Dont many preach about climate change, then get in their cars and travel 10,000+ miles per year?

Yes get a bike I have .

[Anna B 1,414]

21 minutes ago, Box11 said:

How about loyalty,kindness,neighbourhood   friendship and that we look after our own no matter what !!!!....

 

You state they have a lot more than there parents did yeah material items I agree but do they share neighbourhood spirit no they don’t because money can’t buy that and never will !!!!!.....

The working class used to stick together and there was strength in that.

The Elite/Conservaties have done a fine job in destroying that mentality and setting people against each other. 

Divide and conquer.

Works every time. 

[Tony 10]

2 hours ago, Box11 said:

How about loyalty,kindness,neighbourhood   friendship and that we look after our own no matter what !!!!....

 

You state they have a lot more than there parents did yeah material items I agree but do they share neighbourhood spirit no they don’t because money can’t buy that and never will !!!!!.....

 

What are you on about? You've never visited a pit village have you? 🤣 Give over with your horny handed honest working day for a day's fair pay guff, it's straight out of the Penguin Guide To The Working Classes. People are the same except they now have better life opportunities that don't involve working hunched over in the dark and dying early of terrible industrial diseases. 

1 hour ago, Anna B said:

The working class used to stick together and there was strength in that.

The Elite/Conservaties have done a fine job in destroying that mentality and setting people against each other. 

Divide and conquer.

Works every time. 

There's nothing more middle class than a teacher. Always have been, always will be. All rhetoric and no idea.

[trastrick 866]

4 hours ago, Anna B said:

The working class used to stick together and there was strength in that.

The Elite/Conservaties have done a fine job in destroying that mentality and setting people against each other. 

Divide and conquer.

Works every time. 

Lol

 

The "working class".

 

Haven't heard that term for a while. It reeks of condescention, like its cousin, the "proletariat"  designed to keep people in their place, to be manipulated for the political ends of "the powers that be". 

 

Having grown up in a slum, in a fatherless family, failing the "eleven plus",  leaving school at 15, my destiny in Sheffield was forodained. Digging coal, or building things that the elite could use.

 

Likewise the girls in my class were consigned to the factories, unless they aspired to being a sales clerk in a dress shop selling expensive clothes to elite ladies from Beauchief and Whirlow.

 

I said no to this class society,  and against the advice of almost everybody, left England and struck out to find a life where I got to enjoy the priveleges that the rich and middle class enjoyed.

 

In a capitalistic (merit based) society, where common sense and hard work is rewarded with upward mobility.  After a stint on a night shift in a magazine printing factory, I rather easily segued into a two year job in banking (thanks to Heeley Bank reading, writing and arithmetic). From then on no looking back.

 

I have been a management consultant to most of the main ultility companies in Canada, been hired as such by every level of government there, and now live in happy retirement on my dream Treasure Island in the Caribbean,  rather than a Sheffield government flat, waiting for my government cheque.

 

I was even invited to teach in a UK grammar school for a year.

 

Menial workers are needed in this world, but only eletists want to keep them there.

 

The best thing you can do for "the workers", is to educate them, and ecourage them to aspire to greater things, not work them til they die.

 

And teach them that his world belongs to everyone.

 

 

 

Edited October 8, 2021 by trastrick

[Carbuncle 0]

4 hours ago, trastrick said:

Lol

 

[Edited to remove non-thread related material.]

 

So @trastrick , What do you think of:

 

1. everybody paying their fair share of tax;

2. political figures who having previously talked about fairer taxation who are then found to have engaged in tax avoidance;

3. the uncovering of astronomical sums in the control of  foreign leaders, who would seem to have no legitimate excuse for having such sums;

4. the fact that British overseas territories (ie where the UK government's writ still runs) facilitate the secrecy these leaders need to hide their possibly ill-gotten gains.

Edited October 8, 2021 by Carbuncle

[Staunton 18]

22 hours ago, ECCOnoob said:

Nobody has pressed any legal charges no has anybody proven in a court of law they  committed  any crime.

A crude summation of neoliberalism would highlight hostility to taxation, resentment at the very existence of a public sector - which they wish abolished (with any potentially profitable services being privatised), and deregulation.

 

Well, here are each of these features manifest in ECCOnoob's claim. George Osborne hollowed out HMRC (effective deregulation by sacking the regulators), where there were thousands of redundancies (public sector cuts). Then private sector staff were seconded from the very City accountancy firms that had been gaming the tax system (privatisation). These personnel, remunerated by the taxpayer (that's us little people) then wrote tax law, complete with loopholes which, upon returning to their employers, they exploited (tax abuse).

 

Of course no one has been prosecuted, that is Tory policy, cheating the system in the interests of wealth and privilege.

 

See: 

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2013/apr/26/accountancy-firms-knowledge-treasury-avoid-tax

 

'Big four' accountants 'use knowledge of Treasury to help rich avoid tax'

Rajeev Syal, Simon Bowers and Patrick Wintour report, 26 Apr 2013
 

Experts offering advice on legislation they helped to create is a 'ridiculous conflict of interest', says select committee chair Margaret Hodge.

 

The so-called "big four" accountancy firms are using knowledge gained from staff seconded to the Treasury to help wealthy clients avoid paying UK taxes, a report by the influential Commons public accounts committee says.

 

Deloitte, Ernst & Young, KPMG and PricewaterhouseCoopers have provided the government with expert accountants to draw up tax laws. But the firms went on to advise multinationals and individuals on how to exploit loopholes around legislation they had helped to write, the public accounts committee (PAC) found.

 

The accountancy giants employed almost 9,000 staff and earned £2bn a year from their tax work in the UK, and £25bn globally, the report claims. MPs found that Revenue and Customs had far fewer resources, particularly in the area of transfer pricing: complex transactions deployed by multinational companies in order to shift taxable profits to low tax jurisdictions. "In the area of transfer pricing alone, there are four times as many staff working for the four firms than for HMRC," the report says.

 

The committee highlights the way the firms seconded staff to the Treasury to advise on issues in the drafting of legislation. "Through their work in advising government on changes to legislation they have a detailed knowledge of UK tax law, and the insight to identify loopholes in new legislation quickly," it said.

Edited October 8, 2021 by Staunton
Typos corrected.

[altus 540]

For those who don't think releasing things like the Panama/Panama papers has any effect, remember, it's really about pressuring governments to make taxation fairer. Just today Nations agree to 15% minimum corporate tax rate.

[trastrick 866]

2 hours ago, Carbuncle said:

So @trastrick , What do you think of:

 

1. everybody paying their fair share of tax;

2. political figures who having previously talked about fairer taxation who are then found to have engaged in tax avoidance;

3. the uncovering of astronomical sums in the control of  foreign leaders, who would seem to have no legitimate excuse for having such sums;

4. the fact that British overseas territories (ie where the UK government's writ still runs) facilitate the secrecy these leaders need to hide their possibly ill-gotten gains.

There's too much there to deal with in a forum such as this, but:

 

"Fair" is a subjective term, defined by the government of the day.

 

In a free society, there is a fine balance between taxation and the incentive to produce wealth. Too high taxes and government regulation and private investment and risk dries up. Productive jobs are shifted from wealth creation to government dependency. Factories lie empty and shops are bnoarded up. How much of one's day labour should be given to the government to spend?

 

A successful society requires the creation of wealth (properity) in order to garner the taxes it needs to support its societal safety net, and pay the bills the government runs up.

 

Like the farmers cow that provides the town with its milk, the wealth creators and enterpeneurs must be respected, treated well, and not run into the ground, or they will just give up producing.

 

"Rich" is another term arbitarily applied. A young working family in the London area with a house can be considered "rich", but they may be struggling and even failing to pay their bills.

And after working hard all their lives, should they have the right to save and accumilate wealth for themselves and their family for the time when they are too old to work anymore? Wealth tax anyone?

 

A large corporation, such as Tesco receives a return on it's sales of around 2% That's hardly a corporate vulture.

 

Big Foods provides 100% of convenient access to foods from around the world in your neighborhood.

 

Big Pharm, another favorite target of the the left, came through with the COVID vaccines.

 

Big Oil supplies 76% of the UK's energy needs (Oil, gas, coal.) and the plastics that are indispensible to your appliances, food storage containers and wraps. Even your recycling bin.

 

Big Tech provides 100% of your TVs, appliances, computers and phones, at a reasonable price and puts you in instant touch with the World.

 

They are NOT all scheming to rob you of everything you own.

 

So be careful what you wish for.

 

But Government?
 

[Carbuncle 0]

Oh @trastrick you let me down there, falling at the first hurdle. This is a Pandora papers' thread, I wasn't asking you to think about what was fair but to consider whether you agreed fairness, however determined, should apply to everyone.

[trastrick 866]

It's your "however determined" qualification that renders your question moot.

 

So no, I don't believe it is "fair" to stone gays and women adulterers to death, and cut off the hands of petty thieves, even though some who subscribe to certain dogmas, determine it to be "fair ", even Godly!

 

I don't believe that kind of "fairness" should apply to everyone. Do you?

 

Lol

Edited October 8, 2021 by trastrick

[ECCOnoob 1,041]

4 hours ago, Staunton said:

A crude summation of neoliberalism would highlight hostility to taxation, resentment at the very existence of a public sector - which they wish abolished (with any potentially profitable services being privatised), and deregulation.

 

Well, here are each of these features manifest in ECCOnoob's claim. George Osborne hollowed out HMRC (effective deregulation by sacking the regulators), where there were thousands of redundancies (public sector cuts). Then private sector staff were seconded from the very City accountancy firms that had been gaming the tax system (privatisation). These personnel, remunerated by the taxpayer (that's us little people) then wrote tax law, complete with loopholes which, upon returning to their employers, they exploited (tax abuse).

 

Of course no one has been prosecuted, that is Tory policy, cheating the system in the interests of wealth and privilege.

 

See: 

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2013/apr/26/accountancy-firms-knowledge-treasury-avoid-tax

 

'Big four' accountants 'use knowledge of Treasury to help rich avoid tax'

Rajeev Syal, Simon Bowers and Patrick Wintour report, 26 Apr 2013
 

Experts offering advice on legislation they helped to create is a 'ridiculous conflict of interest', says select committee chair Margaret Hodge.

 

The so-called "big four" accountancy firms are using knowledge gained from staff seconded to the Treasury to help wealthy clients avoid paying UK taxes, a report by the influential Commons public accounts committee says.

 

Deloitte, Ernst & Young, KPMG and PricewaterhouseCoopers have provided the government with expert accountants to draw up tax laws. But the firms went on to advise multinationals and individuals on how to exploit loopholes around legislation they had helped to write, the public accounts committee (PAC) found.

 

The accountancy giants employed almost 9,000 staff and earned £2bn a year from their tax work in the UK, and £25bn globally, the report claims. MPs found that Revenue and Customs had far fewer resources, particularly in the area of transfer pricing: complex transactions deployed by multinational companies in order to shift taxable profits to low tax jurisdictions. "In the area of transfer pricing alone, there are four times as many staff working for the four firms than for HMRC," the report says.

 

The committee highlights the way the firms seconded staff to the Treasury to advise on issues in the drafting of legislation. "Through their work in advising government on changes to legislation they have a detailed knowledge of UK tax law, and the insight to identify loopholes in new legislation quickly," it said.

Wow. Absolutely astounding. A load of hysterical nonsense about neoliberalism followed by an eight-year-old opinion piece from The Guardian.

 

Couldn't be any more desperate.