Is it wrong to avoid paying tax?

durhamjen

It's like hitting a brick wall .

If you make partisan comments then don't get pithy when you are challenged with an opposite view.

I am not defending any party, I am relating honest reporting and no more. Hell I agreed with your links but I was obviously going to make the point that at some point in the link it affirmed what I have been saying, this whistleblower said he reported this to the UK in 2008.. No doubt a lot more will come out in the wash as this story gains momentum.

I don't make things up I watch very carefully at what is being said, reported and spoken.

What are you actually objecting to? I have said I believe this to be an issue with HMRC

I think you just don't like to hear anything that says it as it is when it comes to Labour.

Eloethan, I have just been reading an article on www.taxresearch.org.uk blog.

I copied this paragraph to put on here, than saw your comment.

The conflation of morality and legality is corrosive to society and leads to a form of quasi-libertarianism bereft of true morality. When the ‘State’ is defined as the ‘Economy’ and contract law is allowed to displace the indefinable concepts entailed in Common Law we will lose many things. Not the least of these are democracy and the protective umbrella of law that aspires to moral validity and which is equally available and equally applied to all.

You are not the only one who thinks as you do.

www.sumofus.org has an epetition to ask HSBC to come clean about its tax schemes.
I do not know if it will make any difference, but it will be interesting to see how many sign up to it.

Nearly 59000 signatures now.

Eloethan I don't think anyone has said that it's distasteful for hairdressers not to disclose any tips they are given - only that HMRC assume that certain workers receive them, and they are taxed as if they have received them. Personally I think that's very unfair.
I also think that the complicated schemes that some very wealthy people adopt at the behest of their accountants are more distasteful than say, someone with a small business who works very hard but uses devices to avoid VAT and so on.
BUT it is essentially the same offence, just at different ends of a spectrum, and there's a lot of hypocrisy from people who condemn the big players but are happy to avoid tax when they get work done on their house.
And as someone else pointed out, firms which offer cheap prices because they are avoiding tax are making it much harder for honest firms to compete.

How can hairdressers 'be taxed as if they have received them' Jane?

Postmen are deemed to have received £150 tips pa. Anya and their PAYE codes adjusted.
Apparently other workers have to declare tips.

This is an extract from a PDF on the Revenue's website:,"If customers give cash tips directly to employees or
leave them on the table and individual employees keep
them without any involvement from the employer,
then PAYE does not apply.
It is the responsibility of the individual employee to
advise HMRC of the amounts of money received. The
tax will usually be recovered by an adjustment to the
employee’s PAYE tax code."

There are different rules when tips are pooled and then shared out.

Here's the whole lot if you're interested.
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/297556/E24-2012-2013.pdf

I think getting into hairdressers tips gets away from the point. Yes, everyone should declare whatever income they receive but the people with the accounts in question are trying to hide capital not income.

In the email that comes from Paul Lewis on Friday about the Saturday programme had some interesting points:

... But in a surprise intervention HM Revenue & Customs weighed in on my side. Into my email inbox this morning headed ‘hope this helps’ popped these paragraphs.

“Tax avoidance is bending the rules of the tax system to gain a tax advantage that Parliament never intended. It often involves contrived, artificial transactions that serve little or no purpose other than to produce a tax advantage. It involves operating within the letter – but not the spirit – of the law.”

So there is a moral dimension. It is the spirit as well as the letter of the law that matters.

HMRC also challenged the many tweeps who defended all avoidance by saying that putting cash into an ISA or paying into a pension were examples of tax avoidance so we do indeed all do it and thus all avoidance is OK. But again HMRC disagrees.

“saving in a tax-exempt ISA or saving for retirement by making contributions to a pension scheme are all legitimate forms of tax planning. While such actions may reduce the total amount of tax paid, they are not tax avoidance, because they involve using tax reliefs in the way that Parliament intended when it passed the relevant legislation.”

There seemed to have been comments from those who are aggressively "avoiding" tax that any avoidance is OK; it is only evasion that is illegal. These comments seem to counter this view.

When my Sil was a hairdresser, her wages were taxed as though she had received tips to a certain value. As most of her clients were pensioners, she actually received very few tips so was out of pocket!

Similar to Jen, we don't bank any cash but do record it! Our bank charges for each transaction are ridiculous. We have thought about changing banks but, having done it once, wouldn't contemplate it again - especially for business accounts!

Obviously I meant comments on the media not on here.

I think HMRC are playing with words. If you do something that reduces your taxes, because it reduces your taxes, it is tax avoidance.

The only reason I go through all the bother of opening and sustaining an ISA each year is because the interest is free of tax. Why on earth otherwise should I do it? I can and would save money much more easily without the ISA wrapper.

We had a Deed of Arrangement on my DF's will to transfer some of his estate directly to my DC, rather than through me. This meant that if I died within 7 years of his death there would be no inheritance tax due. In fact he died more than 7 years ago so the tax avoidance measure was unnecessary.

Tax avoidance is entirely legal. If tax accountants find ways of using it that didn't occur to Treasury Mandarins, well the Treasury should either, immediately close the loop hole or employ some of these tax accountants to stop the loopholes being there in the first place.

I think if people want to avoid paying tax then they should also be prepared to see the results of their tax avoidance. So if it isn't very much you might be cutting back the numbers of books available in your local school or increasing class numbers. For the real Tax avoiders who are depriving services of millions of pounds I would want them to meet terminally ill cancer patients who are denied life-prolonging drugs because the NHS can't afford it, have them explain to the families of severely disabled children why their respite care has been cut and be there when old people are forcibly moved from one care home to a cheaper one because there is no money available. And if anyone is convicted of tax evasion part of their punishment should be confronting the real effects their crime has had on peoples' lives.

The problem is when people move from HMRC with all the knowledge they have and start working for the banks or accountancy firms that break the rules.

This article shows the difference in the treatment of benefit and tax dodgers.

https://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.theguardian.com/news/2015/feb/14/tax-dodging-father-benefits-cheat-system&sa=U&ei=4EvfVMz8DsKwUcfkg8AN&ved=0CAYQFjAA&client=internal-uds-cse&usg=AFQjCNFeLq9x-zsdDDrVjHqWwTu6yttqmg

Why was the tax dodger not sent to prison as well?

I have just found this on www.taxresearch.org.uk

"This came into force on 1 January 2013

Declaration of the United Kingdom concerning the acquisition of customer data stolen from Swiss banks:-

The Government of the United Kingdom declares on the occasion of the signing of the Agreement between the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the Swiss Confederation on cooperation in the area of taxation that it will not actively seek to acquire customer data stolen from Swiss banks."

What I would like to know is who agreed to this and why?
It shows that HMRC and the government knew about stolen data.

But, note the word 'actively'. If a someone who stole data or who had access to stolen data went to the HMRC and offered it to them they can accept the data and act on it because they did nothing 'active' to acquire it.

That someone could who offers them the data could be an individual or another police force or tax authority in another jurisdiction. It is quite clever really.

So having been given the information, it was HMRC's choice whether or not they pursued it.

I think the next sentence on from the quote was "Who are HMRC working for?"

www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2015/02/14/ed-miliband-on-tax-avoidance-a-response/

This is also interesting.
I hope Miliband does not back down.
I listened to Richard Murphy on the radio arguing the point for morality in tax.
His opponent was saying there was nothing moral about it. He lived in Ireland for two years and never paid a penny tax because he was a nondom.
The interviewer was incandescent.

Lord Green left HSBC with a pension pot of £19 million.

In Norway, Sweden and Finland all income and tax details are public records. Seems like a good idea to me. Transparency for all.

"Lord Peter Levene, deputy chair of the advisory council, told the Financial Times on Saturday that Green’s predicament was “very unfortunate” and that he would be surprised if Green could remain in his role."

Sounds like Peter Levene should step down too, if he thinks it's just very unfortunate.

This is the rest of the article.

www.theguardian.com/business/2015/feb/14/hsbc-lord-green-quits-advisory-body-tax-dodging-claims

What really bugs me about window cleaners, cleaners and gardeners is that they don't accept cheques (but then who does?!) and don't give you a receipt (for obvious reasons).

Not that I want these bits of paper, but it does show you how much the black economy costs the country.

And before anyone gets all sad about these 'poorly paid folk', they're probably earning more than me (I'm a nurse) and I have to pay tax and NI which amounts to about a third of my income.

Remember, Dave says we're all in it together!

Not true. My gardener and window cleaner both accept cheques if I do not have cash, but as said previously, it costs them to pay cheques into business accounts.

Why do you assume that those who accept cash are working in the black economy? That is just insulting to those who are honest.

This man talks sense. What's the point of catching tax evaders, then saying don't do it again.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/feb/12/hsbc-pathetic-dealing-tax-dodgers-evaders-barely-punished

Shame he's not a politician.