Tax Havens

Just reading in the paper this morning about someone charged with non payment of taxes. Court reports are worth reading. No list of the guilty just case by case write ups.

I would be interested in listing all the cheats and tax shy that are caught and penalised by the government.

We know that it is done for perceived benefit cheats.

There is a report that a working woman from Widness was sanctioned because she had the temerity to take a holiday.

Anyone able to report on a tax cheat?

I certaintly didn't believe him and still do not after he dodge questions and lied in PMQ. He has always reminded me of a show room sales man . He has no intention of doing anything to stop tax avoidance

www.theguardian.com/business/2016/apr/14/uk-under-pressure-from-eu-states-over-beneficial-ownership-secrecy

Just what some of us thought all along. Cameron's transparency is nothing of the sort.

www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2016/04/14/tax-competition-2/

Just been reading this by Richard Murphy, a talk he gave in Luxembourg yesterday.
Luxembourg has the greatest GDP per capita in the world.

The talk could easily have been entitled what is the point of tax havens for anyone but the rich?

Personally I think IT is a red herring.

Jane10, I'm not disputing that the living should receive compensation if an employer (or somebody else) has been negligent. What I am disputing is that compensation should somehow be protected after the death of the person who has been compensated.

Many millions of people watch their loved ones die, sometimes painfully, and most of them don't receive any compensation for it.

Like ab, if I had inherited any money which I knew had been part of a compensation claim, I couldn't have spent it on myself. I would have given it to a charity. As it was, the NHS looked after my father reasonably well in his last few months and I would rather people paid their taxes to fund the NHS.

Actually this link is interesting and topical because it is another example of complicated tax laws are to assess. What chance do we have?

www.channel4.com/news/margaret-hodge-tax-affairs-stemcor-trusts

Anybody wiser?

durhamjen 00.03

No I do not ' appreciate ' nor do I unappreciate the work of either Richard Murphy nor Margaret Hodge . Murphy is a left wing commentator on economics and we have mentioned Margaret Hodge before on other threads if I am not mistaken. I still don't know what to make of her but she did Chair the Public Accounts Committee with an iron fist. I couldn't help but notice the tone in Parliament when she asked a question of Cameron during the Panama Papers Statement. Perhaps some have never heard of Margaret Hodge.

www.ibtimes.co.uk/anti-tax-avoidance-campaigner-margaret-hodge-given-1-5m-shares-tax-haven-liechtenstein-1498813.

Out of fairness another link which mentions comments from Richard Murphy.

www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/mar/13/more-to-margaret-hodge-grillings-than-dramatics

POGS, if my father had lived longer we would supported his claim 100% , what we didn't agree with or want was Mum having the money ,neither did she , she said she could not and would not benefit from the years of suffering my father endured. Now I think I would have made a different decision, encouraged mum to accept the money and give every penny to charity, we were to emotional at the time watching Dad die. No way can I agree that children should benefit from these sorts of compensation though

I did not expect you to benefit from the compensation for your father's illness daphnedil the poor man was entitled to it to make his last years more comfortable.

Yes Anniebach I do know about Pneumoconiosis or otherwise referred to as black lung disease and I do know varying compensation settlements have been awarded . There are two forms of pneumoconiosis Simple CWP and Complicated CWP which causes massive fibrosis. Horrible .

It was your families choice not to proceed with a claim and any compensation due to your father . Had he lived long enough to have received compensation I for one would not have begrudged him or his family one penny.

If those who have stated that the family should not benefit from compensation payments after the death of the awardee what do you expect families to do, give it back to the government or Insurance Company or whom ever paid it out ?

DaphnedilI.

I have COPD/Broncheactasis so I am well aware of living with a lung disease thank you. I would estimate quite a few GN posters have lost loved ones due to lung disease.. I was saddened to read your post which was unpleasant in tone.

I know how you feel Daphne, my father suffered from Miners lung disease - as it's known here -the thought of benefitting one penny from his suffering fills me with horror , there was a long battle by the NUM for compensation , the battle won as my father was dying, my mother refused to allow the claim to go forward , we agreed, we couldn't have spent it after his death , too horrible

Yes, Jane10, I would have considered it money grabbing if I had benefited by one penny from what my father suffered. Why is that such an extremely unpleasant idea?

I have used evasion very carefully in my post above. The figure of £34bn does not include any aggressive tax avoidance. There is a suggestion that if we included that in the figures it wou ld amount to 120bn per annum.

All our deficit/ debt problems solved and GOs surplus would materialise, by a massive amount.

Man from Mars comes down and looks at the UK revenue and benefit system.

He recognises that there is fraud and evasion taking place.

He understands that the UK is very strapped for cash - or so he's told.

He looks at where the biggest problem is and decides it is with tax evasion at £34bn per annum. Benefit fraud comes in at £1.3bn per annum.

He then discovers that the UK has chosen to spend more money chasing benefit fraud than tax evasion.

I wonder what his conclusion would be as to the competence of the U.K. Government

And we are talking about tax avoidance/evasion no money grabbing there then

"Money grabbing"? Extremely unpleasant thing to imply!

You've hit a nerve, POGS. My father died from a lung disease and I had to watch him suffering for years. He had never been awarded any sort of compensation. Maybe I should have sued his employer for allowing smoking in the workplace, but I'm not that money grabbing. Compensation is awarded to the person who is ill, not grieving relatives.

"If trust is to be restored in the fairness of our tax system, much greater transparency is essential. We need to open companies’ tax affairs to public account. HMRC always refuses to disclose the details of its tax deals with companies by hiding behind the legal obligations to keep taxpayers’ affairs confidential.

That will no longer wash. When we know the assets that companies hold in every country, the revenues they earn in every country and the profits they make from those revenues, we will be able to see if the tax they pay is fair.

I don’t think greater transparency will destroy or even harm capitalism, but it will help to persuade the 85% of the UK population who pay their tax through PAYE that everybody is truly equal under the tax laws."

Margaret Hodge said this in January about Google's tax. It's a shame she is not still the chair of the PAC, although Andrew Tyrie does quite well.

Richard Murphy is an accountant, and the sums are audited.
I think I will believe him. He's not a member of any party, so has no axe to grind, and he checked up on his sources.
I do not have any gurus. By the way, he is a follower of Margaret Hodge as well.
I am pleased you appreciate her work and his.

www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2013/05/13/why-the-tax-profession-hate-margaret-hodge-is-that-she-represents-democracy-and-the-really-loathe-that/

www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2015/05/21/on-margaret-hodge-and-the-pac/

Durhamjen

Interesting your chosen economic guru Richard Murphy comes up with different sums for the Labour donation than many. If you read my link you will see an official Labour statement giving a different sum, unless I have misread information.

I raised the point re Labour donations as your link mentioning the words of Dianne Abbot the Shadow Secretary for International Development saying

"There is a clear conflict of interest in DFID spending aid through 'these firms' to reduce global poverty because 'these companies' are themselves fuelling 'legal theft' of the developing worlds public finances"

The link gives an impression that Labour are so disgusted in the Big 4 they are going to make this pioius, aren't we good decision but I see the hypocrisy when Labour was happy to take money from 'these firms' when it suited.

Labour MP Margaret Hodge when she was the Chair of the Public Accounts Committee said it was ' inappropriate ' for Labour Shadow Cabinet Ministers to accept support from PWC.

Yes, you are correct, it is not only Labour in the frame , all parties have faults , that is the point. But if the perpetual finger is directed towards everything Labour saintly, everything Conservative evil don't be surprised if somebody posts to point out that is not how everybody views it.

daphnedil

Then that is your view. Mine is different. I saw a family who were loving and caring and spent 'years' watching their dad die slowly from lung disease before them. Quite rightly he was compensated for loss of earnings , the ability to work and earn a decent wage . I wouldn't begrudge them one penny of his compensation as they were living the hell he was going through also.

We will agree to disagree perhaps.

www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2010/08/19/who-did-the-big-4-fund-before-the-general-election/

Jalima, the accountants paid this before the 2010 election. Can't find a comparable one for this election.

Did you read the link which shows that the accontancy firms have given to all parties, not just Labour?

Are you saying it's wrong to stop UK accountancy firms from helping UK people to avoid paying UK tax?

theconversation.com/the-new-tax-laws-planned-in-wake-of-panama-papers-and-the-crucial-role-of-public-opinion-57696