So is everyone on here paying tax ?

[dingodan]

I don't think you're in any position to accuse people of ignorance on this subject. Tax avoidance isn't "totally legal", it's just not a criminal offense. HMRC will prevent companies from operating schemes they believe are solely for the purpose of avoiding tax.

You wolly.

Schemes were people pay less tax are to encourage certain practices. If you rent out a room in your home, you wont pay tax if the rent is less than £4,250PA. This is to encourage people to rent rooms in their homes, and if they want to avoid paying any tax, renting the room at an affordable rate.

The opportunity to avoid tax is the governments way of incentivising you to behave a certain way economically.

This is totally seperate fudging the books to evade paying taxes that the law says you should pay.

If the government says to a company "Set up here in the UK and if you employ X number of people, and you can pay less tax" then, by your logic, the company that takes up this offer is a "tax avoider".

You are confusing tax avoidance and tax evasion.

Personally I hate the whole concept of taxes.

"The power to tax is the power to destroy" - U.S. Chief Justice John Marshall.

 

[sten_super]

Personally I hate the whole concept of taxes.

I know we've talked a bit about this before, but do you genuinely believe there should be no system of income redistribution? Not looking for an argument, just interested if I've understood you correctly?

By the way I took the quote out because it is (seemingly) a misquote. According to all of the references that appeared on the first page on google he said that "the power to tax involves the power to destroy".

 

[Scampi]

Sorry Dingodan , I forgot you were the tinfoil hat bloke. As someone who has had to deal with HMRC while setting up an overseas insurance management company I know exactly their attitude to tax avoidance and it's got nothing to do with encouraging " certain practises". I know the exact difference between tax avoidance and tax evasion, sadly it appears you do not.

 

[Scampi]

You might be interested in this website, Dingodan. Its the HMRC's anti tax avoidance group
http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/avoidance/index.htm

Oh and you might like to note HMRC's distinction between tax planning and tax avoidance. Just suggesting like, in case you ever want to be taken seriously on this subject

 

[beorhthelm]

You are confusing tax avoidance and tax evasion.

and i think you're confusing allowances for avoidance. the example of the room renting is a specified allowance with in the tax system, just like the personal allowance, CGT allowance and other mechanisms prescibed to allow you to reduce your tax liability.

avoidance is where you have, as Scampi suggests, using a loophole in the system thats not strictly illegal, though the tax office might frown upon it or tell you they wont allow it. i.e. a self employed person claiming tax relief for a new van every year (they would say you can only claim once every n years), or placing your company accounts in an off shore bank so you only pay tax on the money you repatriate. evasion is where you use employ methods to avoid tax that are explicitly outlawed, or otherwise defraud the system, like the aforementioned self employed claiming to buy a new van but actually just putting a false reciept through the books, or at its simplist taking cash and not declaring it (which everyone has probably done).

 

[dingodan]

All that all of the above demonstrates is that HMRC too, would now like to lump tax avoidance and tax evasion into the same basket.

But this is a semantic debate because avoidance and evasion are two different words for a reason. If you believe that a company is avoiding taxes it should not be able to avoid, then you have to change the tax laws. If you do that the avoidance becomes impossible and they only remaining options are to evade the taxes now due, or pay them.

To the extent that there is a problem here it is a legislative one.

But I am not interested because, to answer the other question, I do not believe that the government should redistribute wealth.

The government does not have any wealth. It only has my money and your money. If I choose to give my money to those without money then fair enough. But it is not the governments to give away.

What really gets to me is income tax, because I own my labour and it is my private property. If the government takes a chunk before I get it, that implies that the government owns the fruits of my labour and permits me to keep some. That really means that for all intense and purposes I am a slave.

Paying for services is different, but if the government only fulfilled its limited role in our lives and nothing more, it would not need the money it takes in a tax on our labour anyway.

And what about the things I pay for that I really, strongly object to paying for. Like bombs and bullets and bailouts and the rest?

I agree with Jefferson & Franklin on taxes and wealth distribution.

"To compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical."

"The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not."

- Thomas Jefferson

"I am for doing good to the poor, but I differ in opinion of the means. I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it. In my youth I traveled much, and I observed in different countries, that the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer. And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, and became richer."

- Benjamin Franklin

 

[Scampi]

And the lesson of the story, never try to reason with a Zealot. IMO you're completely hatstand Dingodan.

 

[Bulldog]

Pay tax ? of course I do, over 1K last month. The working class pay the bulk of the taxes in this country, it's the rich Tory bastards that fiddle the system while claiming to be the backbone of it.

 

[BensGrandad]

What I always find amusing about this is that nearly every business and self employed person employs an accountant to compile their acounts and sort out their tax liability in a manner that is legal. If it transpires that the accountant has made a mistake and the man that you put your trust in has now dropped you in the s..t as it is never the accountant that is nicked but the tax payer. This is illustrated by the likes of Lester Piggott and Ken Dodd who would have employed an accountant but they got nicked not their accountant who I am sure they put explicit trust in

 

[8ace]

What I always find amusing about this is that nearly every business and self employed person employs an accountant to compile their acounts and sort out their tax liability in a manner that is legal. If it transpires that the accountant has made a mistake and the man that you put your trust in has now dropped you in the s..t as it is never the accountant that is nicked but the tax payer. This is illustrated by the likes of Lester Piggott and Ken Dodd who would have employed an accountant but they got nicked not their accountant who I am sure they put explicit trust in

What if they didn't disclose everything to their accounts? Accountancy looks pretty tedious, I'm sure it's easy to make a mistake.

 

[BensGrandad]

Even if they have it is still them that get nicked not the accountant. I think that there should be obligations made by the accountants. In my case I completed an analysis of both my income and expenditure under a very simple sytem of columns to keep my bills to him lower. I would rather collate that information myself than pay £50 an hour for a 16 year old to do it in their offices. fter that he cimpiled the accounts and claimed for what I waas entitled and then left me witha figure to pay. If he miscalculated and I should have paid more tax it is my responsibility and this is what peeves me, why should it be, he compiled the return.

 

[Bulldog]

I think you will find that both of the people you mention were nicked for the money they failed to tell their accountants about, the brown paper bags, not mistakes made on the money they did declare.

 

[Northstandite]

Even if they have it is still them that get nicked not the accountant. I think that there should be obligations made by the accountants. In my case I completed an analysis of both my income and expenditure under a very simple sytem of columns to keep my bills to him lower. I would rather collate that information myself than pay £50 an hour for a 16 year old to do it in their offices. fter that he cimpiled the accounts and claimed for what I waas entitled and then left me witha figure to pay. If he miscalculated and I should have paid more tax it is my responsibility and this is what peeves me, why should it be, he compiled the return.

BensGrandad ... was he definitely qualified i.e. an FCA, ACA, FCCA, or ACCA?

 

[Beach Hut]

The one time I paid an accountant £100 to do a tax return for me he got it wrong.

Got into a bit of bother with the tax man a few years back when I went into the higher tax bracket I got sent a tax return they advised was standard procedure. I paid this person to help me complete it and was advised I owed them quite a bit so paid it, then they said it was wrong and more owed. Did it myself the next year and then decided the transfer the problem causing this to my wife. Sent that return in with what I thought I owed and then got most of it back and never had a tax return since.

 

[BensGrandad]

BensGrandad ... was he definitely qualified i.e. an FCA, ACA, FCCA, or ACCA?

I used a reutable accountancy firm but that is not my point. I didnt have a problem my point is that if I had had a problem the onus is on me not the man I paid and trusted to look after my tax affairs. To me that is wrong. some of the onus should fall onto the accountant in my view.

 

[Gazwag]

Even if they have it is still them that get nicked not the accountant. I think that there should be obligations made by the accountants. In my case I completed an analysis of both my income and expenditure under a very simple sytem of columns to keep my bills to him lower. I would rather collate that information myself than pay £50 an hour for a 16 year old to do it in their offices. fter that he cimpiled the accounts and claimed for what I waas entitled and then left me witha figure to pay. If he miscalculated and I should have paid more tax it is my responsibility and this is what peeves me, why should it be, he compiled the return.

I think you will find that all legitimate accountants are accountable if they mess up, otherwise what the point in paying pi insurance. £50 an hour for a 16 year old, they saw you coming or was it a London firm. All professions have cowboys who tar the rest I'm sure there are in your line of business.

 

[DT Withdean]

I think you will find that all legitimate accountants are accountable if they mess up, otherwise what the point in paying pi insurance. £50 an hour for a 16 year old, they saw you coming or was it a London firm. All professions have cowboys who tar the rest I'm sure there are in your line of business.

Exactly, if qualified FCA, FCCA, ACA or ACCA.
Even if the complaint falters, they MUST inform their PI insurer straight away, and they don't want to do that for the time that ensues & potential effect on later renewal forms and premiums; no matter how small.

Always get fixed QUOTE in writing, not estimate, at the beginning covering all business and personal tax matters.
If too steep, go elsewhere.
And the more YOU produce annually of accurate and logical schedules, the less of their expensive time.

And if they were aware, or should've been aware of tax fraud, evasion or avoidance, they face imprisonment and/or steep fines for being party to money laundering. (Unless they have covertly reported it, which is a legal requirement).

 

[BensGrandad]

Their scale of charges showed different rates for different people and the collation of the figures was quoted as £50 per hour and yes it was a firm in London, I summised that it would be a 16 year old office junior collating the information and sorting out invoices and receipts, so did this myself each week. My whole point which people seem to be missing is that the onus on the returns being correct is on me or any other tax payer but the return is filed by a competant proffessional man, at whose feet no responsibility is laid because the tax payer has to sign a declaration on the return that the information given is correct. Nine times out of ten they wouldnt know and would assume that it was as they obviously trust their accountant.

 

[Freddie Goodwin.]

As far as HMRC are concerned, issues are between them and the 'customer'. If said customer decides to emply an accountatnt then that's down to them. I f accountant messes up then that's between taxpayer and accountant and of little interest to HMRC unless it can be shown accountant is incompetant with anumber of clients then HRMC can remove them from the list of accountants they will deal with.

People on PAYE have little scope to 'avoid' but cutbacks in staff and collection mean that those doing self assessment have a lesser chance of their returns being checked and has led to re-payments where none should be due.

In the past, a demand from the Revenue carried some weight and you didn't mess with them. now, due to cut backs, smaller debts or outstanding returns are not chased as they once were. let's face it, if you have a handfull of bills from gas, electric,council tax etc, you tend to pay the one who shouts loudest.

 

[GoldWithFalmer]

Pay tax ? of course I do, over 1K last month. The working class pay the bulk of the taxes in this country, it's the rich Tory bastards that fiddle the system while claiming to be the backbone of it.

your well paid-