Sponging Billionaires - Time we paid more tax

[StephenStephen]

But how do you quantify how much is needed to satisfy your moral motivation? If the law allows and requires you to pay £X per year, how do you know your moral motivation in fact requires you to pay £X+Y per year? And how would you pay it, exactly, when the state does not allow tax 'donations'?

Yes, I agree, absolutely - it is largely a 'how long is a piece of string' calculation!
For me personally, at the moment I simply avoid doing anything which functions solely as a method of reducing my tax liability. I attempt to calculate my tax in good faith, without attempting to do anything which feels to me like 'playing the system'.
If my situation were such that I felt my moral obligations exceeded my tax liabilities, I would simply give money to those bodies performing underfunded functions ie; particular charities.

 

[EFLImpudence]

Then you are a silly person.

 

[SirGalahad]

https://www.theguardian.com/news/20...erb-penetration-uk-government-paradise-papers

Doesn't come as a surprise at all. Cameron was never going to come down hard on this industry especially after his father was implicated in the Panama Papers.

 

[noseall]

Yes, I agree, absolutely - it is largely a 'how long is a piece of string' calculation!
For me personally, at the moment I simply avoid doing anything which functions solely as a method of reducing my tax liability. I attempt to calculate my tax in good faith, without attempting to do anything which feels to me like 'playing the system'.
If my situation were such that I felt my moral obligations exceeded my tax liabilities, I would simply give money to those bodies performing underfunded functions ie; particular charities.

Does your moral compass get confused when the laws are ambiguous? I do what a professional asks me to do rather than take the me, me, me attitude. I would also find another pro' if I thought my accountant was dodgy (as I did when I first started out in business).

Pay your 20, 40, 45% and sleep at night is what I say.

 

[SirGalahad]

Trickle down economics which many like to spout is another busted theory like the broken window fallacy.

 

[HawkEye244]

Have to say it's a little rich of the BBC talking about morals when they employ people to go around threatening, abusing and lying to members of the British public to extort money out of them.

 

[motorbiking]

Trickle down economics which many like to spout is another busted theory like the broken window fallacy.

It may have been busted at a national level, but its working very effectively if you are competing at a country level. Though its more supply side economics rather than trickle down. Ireland for example has quite high personal tax levels, its only corporations that enjoy low taxes. So not really trickle down economics.

 

[JohnD]

Have to say it's a little rich of hawkeye talking about morals when he likes talking about molesting female politicians, female immigrants, and even dead or dying women.

 

[SirGalahad]

It may have been busted at a national level, but its working very effectively if you are competing at a country level. Though its more supply side economics rather than trickle down. Ireland for example has quite high personal tax levels, its only corporations that enjoy low taxes. So not really trickle down economics.

Don't quite follow what you are saying - elaborate a little re country level.

Trickle down economics are policies which "increase in the income share of the wealthiest people actually leads to a decrease in GDP growth."

The best way to grow GDP is by increasing the income of the poor and middle classes.

 

[StephenStephen]

Does your moral compass get confused when the laws are ambiguous?

Short answer - yes it does!

 

[JohnD]

Morality and Legality are not the same thing.

 

[motorbiking]

It may have been busted at a national level, but its working very effectively if you are competing at a country level. Though its more supply side economics rather than trickle down. Ireland for example has quite high personal tax levels, its only corporations that enjoy low taxes. So not really trickle down economics.

I prefer the wiki definition “an economic principle that advocates reducing taxes on businesses and the wealthy in society as a means to stimulate business investment in the short term and benefit society at large in the long term.”

If you work on the basis that global firms and wealthy individuals can choose where they pay taxes. Then taxing wealthy people less than your neighbor might increase the number of wealthy companies and tax payers to pay taxes with you albeit at a reduced rate.

The tax havens do i‎t to attract business that would otherwise pass them by. Those businesses in the business of helping pay their taxes locally which is money you’d otherwise miss.

 

[JohnD]

global firms and wealthy individuals can choose where they pay taxes.

You may have heard the proposition that companies should pay tax in the country where they do business.

So, for example if Starbucks has twenty thousand hot drinks shops in the UK, and none in, say, the Cayman Islands, it should pay tax in the UK.

If Amazon does ten thousand times more business in the EU than in the Isle of Man, it should pay taxes in the EU.

When Amazon is allowed to run a Dutch Auction with tax havens, and set up its notional "home" in the cheapest, all the other countries lose out.

But when, say, 28 countries which form a vast and profitable market tell Amazon that if it want to do business there, it has to follow the rules, it has two choices.

Do you think Apple can afford to lose European business, and concentrate on selling I-stuff to the population of Jersey?

Do you think the boss of the Daily Mail, and the company that he heads, produce their paper overseas, or sell it to foreigners? No, they produce it in the UK, and sell it to UL customers, in the UK, and receive almost all their revenue, and make all their profits here. Why shouldn't they pay tax here?

 

[motorbiking]

quite a few are members of the EU. One mans tax haven is another’s competitive economy.

I’m not saying it’s right the way i‎t is, but i‎t appears to be a fact that they can choose

It’s far more complicated than those proposing tax at the point of consumption would be prepared to admit.

 

[JohnD]

Who or what had the power to drag the Double Irish slowly to a halt?