Damn Lefties

[Phage]

honest = lack of deceit.
Your condescension is dull.

[Fraz]

Your condescension is dull.

Your defence of greed is depressing.

[aidanjt]

Yeah, but you know that won't happen. People are too fearful of all the intelligent people sodding off, leaving us with 58m chavs and no economy. Whether that would happen... be my guest, but I've heard so many people whinge about it in the past that there's certainly a consensus from certain sectors of society.

Strawman, you don't require intelligence in order to be filthy rich. Most scientists and professors earn under £150,000 p.a., does that mean they're stupid and unproductive because they're not loaded?

The only prerequisite for making money from money is... money. Rich daddy means rich offspring. And that's all there is to it.

The fact that people are so fanatical about money simply means they have lost sight of what an economy is suppose to do, ration finite and perishable resources by equitable means.

[jim]

Strawman, you don't require intelligence in order to be filthy rich. Most scientists and professors earn under £150,000 p.a., does that mean they're stupid and unproductive because they're not loaded?

The only prerequisite for making money from money is... money. Rich daddy means rich offspring. And that's all there is to it.

The fact that people are so fanatical about money simply means they have lost sight of what an economy is suppose to do, ration finite and perishable resources by equitable means.

I'm not saying that you require intelligence to be filthy rich, and yeah I'm well aware of the science issue. One look at the jobs section in New Scientist was enough to sastisfy me that I hadn't ruined my life by giving up with chemistry and physics.

What I'm saying is that that's what people fear.

Obviously people don't fear rich people who don't pay tax leaving - what possible benefit do they provide? But they do fear intelligent people leaving, and a fairly large proportion of people believe that earnings and intelligence have positive correlation.

[TheAnimus]

Good riddance to them. If they can't pay tax honestly, I'd rather they'd **** off.

But don't forget why dentists earn so much money in the first place?

If my mouth hurts, i'll pay an awful lot of money to have it fixed.

There is quite a large shortage of dentists, therefore I have to out pay someone else to be seen, or realise my need isn't that high (hmm, i've not had a check up in like 2 years....).

So if they all left they might be missed.

The thing that this completely fails to take in to command is that a salary is a mixture of demand and supply, up to the worth.

By that I mean you might find that a comfy bed tester is a job desperately needed by society, however given the fact that many people are happy to do the job, as its low stress and offers plenty of rest, the pay is not that great, because the supply is so much higher than the demand.

This is true of plenty of academics I know, I would happily go in to a 'light retirement' and lecture my crazy thoughts as fact, as plenty of my old lecturers did when they got fed up with industry. As such despite been smart people, they earn a lot less than if they worked in a less desirable roll.

It was this crazy fact ignored by the survey that pissed me off. Tax accounts are very useful, under gorden brown the tax book has increased massively, should I know all these rules for my business? No I'll pay an expert rather than waste my time (as it would take me 10 times longer as i'd have to learn it all). This is a massive saving for me, as I now know how much money to give HMRC, this isn't me dodging tax, I seriously have little idea until my accountant tells me, it would be wounderfully simple if it was say 1/3rd of my earnings but alas its not.

so like i said, stupid lefties have taken over.

[Fraz]

Yes, I understand the concept of market forces, etc, especially after your very helpful comfy bed tester analogy . And yes, I would probably pay an accountant to do my tax return if it was really complicated, as I have no clue either.

I guess I haven't been clear. It just annoys me immensely when people don't follow the spirit of things. We get roads, police, fire and health services, etc etc. These are good things, and it saddens me when people try and find a way of avoiding paying for these services - even if the mechanism used is technically legal.

The dentists in question earlier had found some company that are going to literally *insure* them in case they ever have to pay the taxes the company claims it can help them avoid. So... these dentists are going to pay £10,000 a year each to this company to avoid paying the £40,000 a year they would normally pay in taxes to the government. If the inland revenue ever have some some dispute over whatever dubious loophole is being used, the company then pays the taxes due anyway, as the dentists are insured against this circumstance. Essentially it's a complete win for the dentists, and a complete fail for society.

Does that seem fair to you, in any way? It doesn't to me.

I really don't mind paying tax. Obviously I would be annoyed if that tax money was horrendously squandered (which is debatable...in another thread, no doubt), but I don't mind paying a reasonable amount of tax in order to receive the services the government provide. After going to Sweden and seeing the huge difference in quality of life between them and us, I'd say I'd be quite happy paying more taxes, if the services were correspondingly improved.

Furthermore, I just don't get how people can be so greedy. I just totally fail to understand how someone could consider a salary of £110k after tax not being enough money, and thus feel the need to go to lengths to avoid their income tax somehow. It just make me sad. I could kind of understand someone dodging their taxes if they were earning 10k a year, and struggling to get by, but not for someone earning £100k+ post tax. It's just naked greed.

The article you initially posted is fairly ridiculous. We obviously need bankers, etc. I still don't see why they should earn so much when frankly they seem to be so incredibly poor at their jobs, but that's another story. Obviously the market appears to believe they are good at their jobs, and deserve the money. But then, the world is fully of crazy crazy people. I think I've moved off topic... I'll stop ranting.

[badass]

I really don't care what I'm confusing. If you want to think it's honest, then go ahead. In the case of the dentists I mentioned earlier, I'm not even sure your rather literal understanding of the word honest was involved.

The most honest thing anyone can do is legally minimize the amount of tax they pay as the more they hand to this ****wit government the more gets spent on illegal wars, big brother projects and on those that are too lazy to work.

[schmunk]

The dentists in question earlier had found some company that are going to literally *insure* them in case they ever have to pay the taxes the company claims it can help them avoid. So... these dentists are going to pay £10,000 a year each to this company to avoid paying the £40,000 a year they would normally pay in taxes to the government. If the inland revenue ever have some some dispute over whatever dubious loophole is being used, the company then pays the taxes due anyway, as the dentists are insured against this circumstance. Essentially it's a complete win for the dentists, and a complete fail for society.

I'd be very interested in seeing more on this, as I suspect that either you have the wrong end of the stick, or they are lying, or that this is tax evasion and the aforementioned dentists are going to get a nasty shock at some point (you can't insure against prison).

There really aren't many ways for a UK resident and domiciled individual to avoid tax (I am presuming these dentists are UK resident and domiciled...), and really the only ways I can think that these dentists might be making such significant tax savings would be huge capital expenditure (and therefore capital allowances), or otherwise making large pension contributions, neither of which is a revolutionary concept, or something I'd pay £10,000 for.

[JPreston]

I'd be very interested in seeing more on this, as I suspect that either you have the wrong end of the stick, or they are lying, or that this is tax evasion and the aforementioned dentists are going to get a nasty shock at some point (you can't insure against prison).

There really aren't many ways for a UK resident and domiciled individual to avoid tax (I am presuming these dentists are UK resident and domiciled...), and really the only ways I can think that these dentists might be making such significant tax savings would be huge capital expenditure (and therefore capital allowances), or otherwise making large pension contributions, neither of which is a revolutionary concept, or something I'd pay £10,000 for.

There really aren't many ways for a UK employee to avoid tax - but I take it you aren't a contractor. If you were you'd know there are many companies who will offshore your income, loan it back to you, say some magic words and hey presto your tax/management bill is down to around 20% of your gross rate - all staying within the letter (and allegedly now the spirit as well) of the law. I'm not an expert though, I haven't worked in practice for some years because....well, not to put too fine a point on it I'm too principled (and there aren't many issues I can take that position on ).

It's massive hypocrisy, or perhaps true blindness, that allows wealthy individuals to not only avoid paying for the infrastructure that fosters the safe, educated and stable society that supports their income, but also be proud of doing so. Tax rates are nil in Somalia but I wonder how much dentists get paid over there, or how long they'd be able to safeguard their wealth if they had the intellectual honesty to locate themselves to a regime commensurate with the level of taxation they feel they deserve to pay.

[TheAnimus]

Indeed those offshorers are VERY tempting.

Would I rather have a net take home of £95,000 or £125,000 (as one company is offering about 12-15%)

however, even I feel that is too little, but the notion of the 50p bracket, no thanks, i'd sooner work less and earn less, that one for me personally at the moment is the last straw.

[peterb]

And every pound of tax I legally avoid paying is a pound I am free to inject directly back into the economy supporting local shops, or saving in a bank in a way I choose, rather than this entrusting it to this economically inept and morally bankrupt government, whose idea of social justice appears to be take as much in tax as it can and then hand it out in an arbitary way to develop a dependency culture.

[Barrichello]

Large parts of the company my wife works for moved to Geneva last year, and seems decisions will have to be made soon for us. Really considering it now (especially if i can get a transfer or maybe go contracting) When we lived in Denmark a while back tax was extremely high but you could actually see and appreciate where it went back into the country and the local community. I see nothing in this country to show for all the hard work and tax paid. Just an increasing welfare state. Depressing to say the least.

[TheAnimus]

I wouldn't mind so much if the money went to the right part of the welfare state, education, sports + parks etc.

I've not switched to one of those questionable tax things, but who honestly isn't tempted by an extra £35k a year?

[Salazaar]

Would I rather have a net take home of £95,000 or £125,000 (as one company is offering about 12-15%)

Disregarding the issue of market forces for a while, do you honestly think that a man who earns £95k (or £125k depending on tax loopholes) actually works 4-5 times harder/longer than the man who only earns £25k?

They're both just trying to support themselves and their families so why shouldn't the one earning way beyond his needs be taxed higher to provide services that they both need (and let's face it, most tax goes to things like the NHS, schools, roads and Bobbys on the beat and not to illegal wars and stupid ID schemes despitte what the tabloids would have us believe)?

[Phage]

Hilarious - Marxism.

[Salazaar]

Hilarious - Marxism.

And in principle Karl Marx had quite a few good points. I'm not saying for a minute that we should overthrow the government and set up a communist dictatorship (unless I get to be Chairman) but I do wish that those getting paid massive wages, at the expense of the hundreds/thousands of underlings beneath them, would stop making excuses about paying tax and damn well contribute what they can afford to society, and not just what their accountants fail to find a way to withhold.