Times Rich List..

[imamartian]

it's more obscene this year than last year... how can people have so much money, and yet so many people can't really afford to live?

I have quite a good job, paid quite a bit over the average wage, yet i feel like i'm only just scraping by !!!

Wouldn't it be appropriate to cap personal wealth to a billion? and use the rest to raise the gdp?

 

[EFCLee1]

Yano what's even more disgraceful, being a multi-millionaire and using a loophole to pay less tax

Top Premiership footballers like Wayne Rooney and Gareth Barry are avoiding millions of pounds in tax through a loophole which means they can pay 22% on wages.

They are using complex tax avoidance schemes that allows them receive earnings from image rights into a 'shell' company, where they pay business, rather than personal, tax rates.
The Sunday Times has uncovered 55 players who are taxed at just 22% because they get a large proportion of their total earnings from their image rights companies.

The newspaper said that Manchester United star Rooney has saved almost £600,000 over the past two years by using the tax loophole.

Manchester City's Barry took home £135,000 more than if he had paid income tax at 40%.

Now the taxman has demanded the clubs pay £100m on behalf of their players as HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) investigates how to stop the arrangement.

The players uncovered as taking advantage of the gap in the tax rules include England and Chelsea defender Ashley Cole, former husband of singer Cheryl, Manchester United's Rio Ferdinand, and his team-mate Michael Owen whose company Owen Promotions owns 11 racehorses.

Arsenal's Theo Walcott has TJW (Promotions) while David James, the former England goalkeeper has Toocoo.

Scores of top footballers launched their own companies eligible to take image rights payments after Labour Chancellor announced the 50p top rate tax.

The players have two contracts with their clubs. They get a salary as a player and the other is for 'image rights' - earnings from shirts and other merchandising. These royalties are paid into a company which is only liable for 28% corporation tax rather than the 50% income tax.

And players can take out loans from their companies where they only pay 2% tax on the sum because it is regarded as a benefit in kind.

Investigations by the Sunday Times showed the £200,000-a-week Rooney, Barry and Chelsea's Daniel Sturridge took advantage of this tax loophole. HMRC have confirmed they are looking at players' companies as part of their probe into image rights and tax avoidance.

They have demanded the money from the soccer clubs to make up for the shortfall in tax revenues after they overstated the proportion of players' income that was coming from image rights.

The practice is also used in other well-paid industries that are exposed to higher tax rates, such as banking and IT. The practice was highlighted by This is Money in 2009.

 

[^woody^]

I don't think we can blame anyone for taking advantage of a loophole

We all do it to some extent, and have our own personal loopholes and scams, which are perfectly legal. It is up to the relevant authority to close the loophole.

But so much wealth in one persons hand is obscene. There is no way it can all be spent or is all needed, and it goes beyond mere wealth after a point and becomes more of a power thing.

We need a period of communism to level things out a bit

I have had a restless night trying to work out how I am going to spend the £85 million jackpot when I win it tomorrow, and I concluded that I just wont be able to manage it

 

[imamartian]

I don't think we can blame anyone for taking advantage of a loophole

We all do it to some extent, and have our own personal loopholes and scams, which are perfectly legal. It is up to the relevant authority to close the loophole.

But so much wealth in one persons hand is obscene. There is no way it can all be spent or is all needed, and it goes beyond mere wealth after a point and becomes more of a power thing.

We need a period of communism to level things out a bit

I have had a restless night trying to work out how I am going to spend the £85 million jackpot when I win it tomorrow, and I concluded that I just wont be able to manage it

so thats what i'm saying... a billion should be enough for anyone shouldn't it?

 

[joinerjohn]

And what class of person do you think HMRC target the most? Yep,, ordinary working class people.
My daughter claimed family working tax credit a few years ago. She filled the forms in correctly, supplied all of the wage slips, information etc they asked for. Checked everything before she sent it off to them. A month or so later she's awarded FWTC., complete with a breakdown of how they had worked out the amount.
A year later, she fills in the same forms again, supplies everything they want. Her circumstances remain totally unchanged. A month or so later she gets a demand from them for almost all of the amount paid , the previous tax year back. The letter explains how they had worked out her entitlement wrongly (you'd need a qualified accountant to go through it though) Result? A year working for just her basic wage, with a little tax credit thrown in as a sweetener. Had she packed in work and claimed benefits, she'd have only been about £20 - £25 a week worse off. Yet others such as Rooney, Cole, Ferdinand etc can literally fleece the taxman out of millions each year through tax avoidance schemes.
Utterly ridiculous.

 

[imamartian]

the risk is that these rich people will up sticks and move overseas, and the tax man doesn't get any of their cash !!

 

[EFCLee1]

And what class of person do you think HMRC target the most? Yep,, ordinary working class people.
My daughter claimed family working tax credit a few years ago. She filled the forms in correctly, supplied all of the wage slips, information etc they asked for. Checked everything before she sent it off to them. A month or so later she's awarded FWTC., complete with a breakdown of how they had worked out the amount.
A year later, she fills in the same forms again, supplies everything they want. Her circumstances remain totally unchanged. A month or so later she gets a demand from them for almost all of the amount paid , the previous tax year back. The letter explains how they had worked out her entitlement wrongly (you'd need a qualified accountant to go through it though) Result? A year working for just her basic wage, with a little tax credit thrown in as a sweetener. Had she packed in work and claimed benefits, she'd have only been about £20 - £25 a week worse off. Yet others such as Rooney, Cole, Ferdinand etc can literally fleece the taxman out of millions each year through tax avoidance schemes.
Utterly ridiculous.

+1

PAS = PEOPLE ARE S**T

 

[EngStudent]

I have quite a good job, paid quite a bit over the average wage, yet i feel like i'm only just scraping by !!!

Try supporting two people by way of a combination of student loan/grant to the sum of <£9k. Once rent/bills have gone out, it's really not much fun.

But thanks to the way in which the benefits sytem in this country works, my girlfriend cannot claim jobseekers allowance having graduated last June. Why? Because we're a couple and she lives with me, my loan/grants are seen as enough to support the two of us. She's applying for 10+ jobs a day but getting no luck at all.

I'll be finishing Uni and taking my skills & qualifications to a country that doesn't reward the workshy louts who spend their days drinking in the local park. I couldn't care how much celebrities & businessmen are worth, or what loopholes they exploit. They work for their money and 22% of their earnings is still a massive amount.

If we stopped throwing money at people who happily spend their lives claiming benefits, this country would be a much better place.

 

[imamartian]

I have quite a good job, paid quite a bit over the average wage, yet i feel like i'm only just scraping by !!!

Try supporting two people by way of a combination of student loan/grant to the sum of <£9k. Once rent/bills have gone out, it's really not much fun.

But thanks to the way in which the benefits sytem in this country works, my girlfriend cannot claim jobseekers allowance having graduated last June. Why? Because we're a couple and she lives with me, my loan/grants are seen as enough to support the two of us. She's applying for 10+ jobs a day but getting no luck at all.

I'll be finishing Uni and taking my skills & qualifications to a country that doesn't reward the workshy louts who spend their days drinking in the local park. I couldn't care how much celebrities & businessmen are worth, or what loopholes they exploit. They work for their money and 22% of their earnings is still a massive amount.

If we stopped throwing money at people who happily spend their lives claiming benefits, this country would be a much better place.

i wasn't rubbing it in with that comment, but trying to say it must be tough as a student/low paid/pensioner....

but don't you agree that the mega rich should be capped ... there is surely only so many yachts or football teams one person can own?

 

[EngStudent]

i wasn't rubbing it in with that comment, but trying to say it must be tough as a student/low paid/pensioner....

but don't you agree that the mega rich should be capped ... there is surely only so many yachts or football teams one person can own?

I know, I just felt that the details were required to make the point.

I don't think the mega-rich should be capped; they work (or have worked) for their money, they employ thousands of people and those that apparently only pay 22% tax still contribute massive amounts of money. What irritates me is the amount of people who spend their lives claiming benefits; doing whatever it takes to avoid working and expecting the rest of us to keep them. Big businesses/mega-rich individuals are easy targets, and it seems nobody dare say anything to/about those who just don't want to work.

 

[Nige F]

i wasn't rubbing it in with that comment, but trying to say it must be tough as a student/low paid/pensioner....

but don't you agree that the mega rich should be capped ... there is surely only so many yachts or football teams one person can own?

targets, and it seems nobody dare say anything to/about those who just don't want to work.

Stick to English, M8 leave politics to the old un`s . And check out the government`s action on the sick list scroungers

 

[Nige F]

it's more obscene this year than last year... how can people have so much money, and yet so many people can't really afford to live?

?

The shadow of T******ism AKA a free market economy - simples

 

[EngStudent]

Stick to English, M8 leave politics to the old un`s . And check out the government`s action on the sick list scroungers

Engineering.

I've seen the action; it's a good start. However, I've also come across plenty of people who just don't want to work. They're happy living on £50/week, not looking for a job, sat drinking cider with their mates; their rent paid for them.

I know it's difficult, and I know we're in a recession (or are we? I haven't checked for a while), but this has been going on for years. £50/week is £2600/year. It's a measly sum and not something I'd want to live on (though if you look back a few posts, you'll see that I probably live on less), but too many people think it's their right and that the state should keep them. Maybe I'm just bitter (I refer you again to my earlier post), or maybe I was brought up to look after myself and not rely on everyone else to look after me. I just think the money we spend on keeping the workshy could be better spent elsewhere; I'm not saying we should abolish benefits because people will always fall on hard times, however too many people avoid working knowing that the government will look after them.

 

[joinerjohn]

. However, I've also come across plenty of people who just don't want to work. They're happy living on £50/week, not looking for a job, sat drinking cider with their mates; their rent paid for them.

I'm not saying we should abolish benefits because people will always fall on hard times, however too many people avoid working knowing that the government will look after them.

I'll be finishing Uni and taking my skills & qualifications to a country that doesn't reward the workshy louts who spend their days drinking in the local park. I couldn't care how much celebrities & businessmen are worth, or what loopholes they exploit.

Interesting,,,, This thread has quickly become a debate about "Benefit Britain."
Yet EngStudent freely admits that once he has his degree, he's prepared to go elsewhere to work. Perhaps you should have chose to study in another country too ?
What's the typical Brit to do, when Labour encouraged foreign workers here? G Brown once said "British jobs for British workers." yet did nothing to stem the influx of foreign labour.
The Olympic sites are typical examples. Almost all built using foreign labour. I applied for a job on the Stadium site, first question was "Do you speak Polish?" Guess what, I didn't even get an interview. Do you think that the first qualification you need to get a job in this country is the ability to speak another language? I certainly don't, but by mentioning this, I'll be accused of racism. Pah, Pah and Pah again.
The best thing the government could now do to help British Industry, is to ask a lot of the foreign workforce to return home. If that upsets some on here , well hard luck, I'm a realist, living in the real world, not some Utopian multicultural Nu Labour dreamland.

 

[EngStudent]

joinerjohn, if I could afford to study in a different country I would! The 'typical' Brit wants to work for a living; the group I made reference to are not (in my opinion) 'typical' Brits.

You're not the only person that feels that the foreign workforce returning home would not be a bad thing, but you know as well as I do that the European Court of Human Rights would have a lot to say about that, so it'll never happen. Can you imagine the backlash if Mr Cameron came out and suggested that? No chance. I'd heard the stories about the Olympic site so didn't bother applying (I was a part-qualified sparky at the time), however I sent my CV off to an agency and didn't hear anything back. I rang them and was told in broken English that they hadn't received my CV, which is odd because having not heard anything months before when I submitted it via their website, I put a copy through their letterbox!