And people condemn benefit fraud!

[NormanH]

http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/feb/08/hsbc-files-expose-swiss-bank-clients-dodge-taxes-hide-millions

This is where the real fraud is....

[suein56]

These people are everywhere, even here. What amazes me is where they get their money from and how brazenly they lie.

At least France is condemning some of the guilty ones.

Quote from the newspaper article :

The files reveal that HSBC’s Swiss private bank : Colluded with some clients to conceal undeclared “black” accounts from their domestic tax authorities.

This French minister was found to have an undeclared Swiss bank account with 15 million eros in it and he kept repeating under oath in court that No he didn't, until he finally agreed Yes he did.

Here : http://actualite.lefigaro.fr/ancien-ministre-ministre-du-budget-suisse.html

Sue

[DraytonBoy]

Oh my god, the wealthy have been hiding their money. Has this just happened or has it been going on for some time?

[suein56]

[quote user="DraytonBoy"]Oh my god, the wealthy have been hiding their money. Has this just happened or has it been going on for some time?[/quote]

OK I confess, I am naive. [:)]

Sue

[NormanH]

I believe that the present Prime Minister's family wealth comes from helping them to do it.

[Tom]

There are actually a few worthy wealthy people in the UK who don't mind paying 45% tax.

http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-31517383

Among reasons given:

Too complicated and they would rather concentrate on running their business.

Guilty conscience

Some avoidance schemes mean living abroad for part of the year

[NickP]

[quote user="NormanH"]I believe that the present Prime Minister's family wealth comes from helping them to do it.

[/quote]

Any proof for your belief, or is this comment just another chance for you to air your normal snide anti UK views.[:D]

[NormanH]

dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2133064/David-Camerons-family-fortune-tax-dodging-offshore-investment-funds.html

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2012/apr/20/cameron-family-tax-havens

http://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2012/04/22/why-its-fair-to-talk-about-david-camerons-fathers-tax-affairs/

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/david-cameron/9218119/David-Camerons-inherited-family-wealth-based-in-foreign-tax-havens.html

[NickP]

Interesting that none of your links expose any fraud or indeed anything illegal. Of course I'm sure that you have never asked any builder or odd job man to accept cash and not give you the bill with vat added, it must be difficult being so moralistic, I applaud your attitude.[Www]

[woolybanana]

So, Norman, why don't you also condemn the manipulations and property dealings of Red Ed the leader of the opposition, known by his MPs as Ed the Droop.

Or are you so blind as to only be able to condemn one side of the equation?

The politics of jealousy and envy is a very dangerous toy to play with.

[DraytonBoy]

The Labour party have accepted large donations from PWC (accountants) who have set-up 000's of tax avoidance schemes but of course they can't possibly be as corrupt as the nasty Tories.

[NormanH]

"the manipulations and property dealings of the leader of the opposition"

Have they anything to do with hiding wealth in overseas tax havens which is the topic of this thread? If they have I am sure you will be able to tell us more..

[woolybanana]

Not overseas, Norman, but certainly hiding wealth from tax. Seems to me that this has all blown up because it is an election year.

When I began working abroad in 1974, we were told to bank ourt savings from places like Libya, Iran, Kuwait in the Channel Islands. Told by whom? The Inland Revenue of course.

Of course due taxes should be paid but trying to turn that into the politics of jealousy is abhorrent.

[Gluestick]

Sadly, they are all "At It", Norman.

(You can copy and paste URLs into Google)

Just a small sampling..........

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2953955/Key-Miliband-backer-offshore-tax-row-Labour-donor-transferred-shares-Liechtenstein-Jersey-later-sold-reported-37-million.html

http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/news/Politics/article1519471.ece

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Mills_%28lawyer%29

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/labours-backers-use-tax-havens-1143782.html

http://flag.blackened.net/blackflag/213/213unth.htm

[NormanH]

Of course due taxes should be paid but trying to turn that into the politics of jealousy is abhorrent.

I'm not  sure what that phrase means.

I do know that there has been considerable propanda in the largely Conservative owned press against the poor, the handicapped, the unemployed, those who are seen as 'scroungers', yet at the same time wealthy people have been helped to avoid (quite legally I accept)  paying taxes by the family of the man who is at present Prime Minister of the country.

He who claimed " we are all in this together" .

[Tom]

This is from 'Tackling Tax Avoidance' document published by the Treasury in March 2011

.....But I want to be clear that being open for business does not mean being open to tax avoidance.

We are committed to creating the right tax environment for business and individuals, which

encourages enterprise and minimises red tape. In return we expect everyone to pay their fair

share. And where we see tax avoidance, we will crack down on it. That’s particularly important

at a time when the Government has had to make tough choices elsewhere.

 We inherited a tax system with a ‘tax gap’ of around £40 billion. More than a sixth of that is due

to tax evasion – that is, illegally understating tax liabilities. But a further one sixth is estimated to

be due to tax avoidance – that is, reducing tax liabilities by using the tax law to get a tax

advantage that Parliament never intended. And the problem is a persistent one – only this

month, we have moved to close down an avoidance scheme using contrived, circular

transactions claimed to generate tax relief twice for effectively the same expense.

So these people with  HSBC Swiss accounts seem to have been getting  an advantage that Parliament never intended.  They should hve been investigated by now.

[DraytonBoy]

Surely the most important question is whether all 'tax avoidance' schemes should be shut down?

The tax gap mentioned above is closing as HMRC are becoming more aggressive in pursuing on-payers etc and in fact evasion and avoidance only makes up 20% of the total tax lost so it's not as big a problem a people may think.

[powerdesal]

'' reducing tax liabilities by using the tax law to get a tax advantage that Parliament never intended. ''

Another example of how Politicians fail to think ahead, and then pillory anyone who obeys the laws that they ( the Politicians ) didn't think through.

[Frederick]

And while the subject is claiming tax refief..... does anybody benefit from this just introduced ?

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/registration-opens-for-new-married-couples-tax-break

[Gluestick]

[quote user="DraytonBoy"]Surely the most important question is whether all 'tax avoidance' schemes should be shut down?

The tax gap mentioned above is closing as HMRC are becoming more aggressive in pursuing on-payers etc and in fact evasion and avoidance only makes up 20% of the total tax lost so it's not as big a problem a people may think.[/quote]

Invariably forgotten, ignored or not understood, are two simple realities:

1.  Britain is a signatory to over 100 Dual Taxation Treaties: (This is precisely why those fiscally resident in France and in receipt of a civil service, armed forces pension etc, can offse the tax deducted at source in Britain, from their French taxes.).

2.  Britain is a member of the WTO ( Previously, GATT - General Agreement on Tariffs  and Trade).

At present, there are in excess of 1,000 dual taxation treaties extant, globally.

Additionally, Britain lacks working capital: indeed, to support the Blair-Brown unsecured consumer credit bubble and the last insane house price bubble, the capital had to be "imported" via the global capital markets, recycled (as MBIs etc) and recycled again. And then repaid: leading to the so-called "Credit Overhang".

To place this into relative perspective, by 2003/04 the value of UK residential property, alone, was 66% of the TOTAL capital value of the UK!

If Britain, overnight, withdrew from its dual taxation treaties etc, in order to clamp down on "Tax Avoidance", then this would trip an instant trade and capital war, internationally.

Therefore, all the huffing and puffing and strident screams of politicians is simply hollow rhetoric, aimed at seducing the great unwashed to vote for them.

[DraytonBoy]

I really meant closing the schemes because it's morally wrong that the wealthy can avoid tax at the same time as public services (probably not used by the wealthy) are being cut to reduce the deficit. There will always be the rich and everyone else and living in a capitalist world I accept that but part of me feels that the wealthy (millionaires and above) should be encouraged to ignore the tax avoidance schemes etc and pay what's due.

[powerdesal]

'' the wealthy (millionaires and above) should be encouraged to ignore the tax avoidance schemes etc and pay what's due. ''

What is due is dictated by the tax laws, the law is the law, it has no moral value.

To encourage people ( wealthy or otherwise ) to pay more than the tax laws say they should is, in effect, to encourage them to break the law. :-)

[Gluestick]

[quote user="DraytonBoy"]I really meant closing the schemes because it's morally wrong that the wealthy can avoid tax at the same time as public services (probably not used by the wealthy) are being cut to reduce the deficit. There will always be the rich and everyone else and living in a capitalist world I accept that but part of me feels that the wealthy (millionaires and above) should be encouraged to ignore the tax avoidance schemes etc and pay what's due.[/quote]

During this time Lord Clyde gave this famous quote (in taxation

circles) in the case of Ayrshire Pullman Motor Services v Inland Revenue

[1929] 14 Tax Case 754, at 763,764:

"No man in the country is under the smallest obligation, moral or

other, so to arrange his legal relations to his business or property as

to enable the Inland Revenue to put the largest possible shovel in his

stores. The Inland Revenue is not slow, and quite rightly, to take every

advantage which is open to it under the Taxing Statutes for the

purposes of depleting the taxpayer's pocket. And the taxpayer is in like

manner entitled to be astute to prevent, so far as he honestly can, the

depletion of his means by the Inland Revenue".

Over and over again courts have said that there is nothing sinister in

so arranging one's affairs as to keep taxes as low as possible.

Everybody does so, rich or poor; and all do right, for nobody owes any

public duty to pay more than the law demands: taxes are enforced

exactions, not voluntary contributions. To demand more in the name of

morals is mere cant.

• Commissioner v. Newman, 159 F2d 848 (1947).

Also Here:

[NickP]

While I can find nothing to disagree with in your example GS, the law does seem weighted in favour of those who are at the top of the tree, whereas the ordinary bloke going to work and paid weekly gets very little in the way of chances to "avoid". and I'm sure that the man on the Clapham omnibus pays proportionately more in tax or it does seem so.

[Gluestick]

[quote user="NickP"]While I can find nothing to disagree with in your example GS, the law does seem weighted in favour of those who are at the top of the tree, whereas the ordinary bloke going to work and paid weekly gets very little in the way of chances to "avoid". and I'm sure that the man on the Clapham omnibus pays proportionately more in tax or it does seem so.

[/quote]

Of course he does, as he is taxed under Schedule E (PAYE) and has little chance or opportunity for tax planning.

However, if that man had the nous and guts to start his own business, then the sky becomes his oyster; and the tax planning opportunities increase at every plateau he achieves.

There is an old adage: "Most people are far too busy making a living to actually make any money!".

And this is the core crux of the matter: Government, irrespective of political ideology, is addicted to profligacy. They must continue to increase taxes to feed their own insatiable incompetence, wishes and scrambled little minds.

And it is that very bloke on the mythical Clapham Omnibus who, proportionately, suffers as a result of Government's profligacy!

This is why this topic as a pre-election gambit (mainly from the Liberal left) is being exploited: to try and make that bloke on the bus feel a mite better and provide him a comfort zone.

In order to place this whole matter into 20/20 perspective, let me, as the late Max Bygraves might have said "Tell you a story!".

When Thatcher was duly ensconced at 10 Downing Street, not long before each and every general election, she hosted a very discrete dinner, to which were invited a carefully selected bunch of mega-rich non-residents. These included such as John Latsis (Greek: tankers) and the "Usual suspects".

The begging bowl was passed around for campaign contributions and the deal was Government would not tighten or change fiscal laws on non-residents and ex-pats, owning resplendent mansions in London and country estates etc, all provided seriously significant cheques were passed over......

More interestingly, Blair and his supposed NuLabour continued this practise with keen fervour.

As the appalling American woman, Leona Helmsley once stated: "Taxes are for the little people!".

Here:

I leave you to draw your own conclusions.......