Posted February 8, 201114 yr ...then you get exempted from the "Belt-Tightening" process.... To us, it's an obscure shift of tax law. To the City, it's the heist of the centuryIn David Cameron we have a leader whose job is to quietly legitimise a semi-criminal, money-laundering economy George Monbiot guardian.co.uk, Monday 7 February 2011 22.01 GMT I would love to see tax reductions," David Cameron told the Sunday Telegraph at the weekend, "but when you're borrowing 11% of your GDP, it's not possible to make significant net tax cuts. It just isn't." Oh no? Then how come he's planning the biggest and crudest corporate tax cut in living memory? If you've heard nothing of it, you're in good company. The obscure adjustments the government is planning to the tax acts of 1988 and 2009 have been missed by almost everyone – and are, anyway, almost impossible to understand without expert help. But as soon as you grasp the implications, you realise that a kind of corporate coup d'etat is taking place. Like the dismantling of the NHS and the sale of public forests, no one voted for this measure, as it wasn't in the manifestos. While Cameron insists that he occupies the centre ground of British politics, that he shares our burdens and feels our pain, he has quietly been plotting with banks and businesses to engineer the greatest transfer of wealth from the poor and middle to the ultra-rich that this country has seen in a century. The latest heist has been explained to me by the former tax inspector, now a Private Eye journalist, Richard Brooks and current senior tax staff who can't be named. Here's how it works. At the moment tax law ensures that companies based here, with branches in other countries, don't get taxed twice on the same money. They have to pay only the difference between our rate and that of the other country. If, for example, Dirty Oil plc pays 10% corporation tax on its profits in Oblivia, then shifts the money over here, it should pay a further 18% in the UK, to match our rate of 28%. But under the new proposals, companies will pay nothing at all in this country on money made by their foreign branches. Foreign means anywhere. If these proposals go ahead, the UK will be only the second country in the world to allow money that has passed through tax havens to remain untaxed when it gets here. The other is Switzerland. The exemption applies solely to "large and medium companies": it is not available for smaller firms. The government says it expects "large financial services companies to make the greatest use of the exemption regime". The main beneficiaries, in other words, will be the banks. But that's not the end of it. While big business will be exempt from tax on its foreign branch earnings, it will, amazingly, still be able to claim the expense of funding its foreign branches against tax it pays in the UK. No other country does this. The new measures will, as we already know, accompany a rapid reduction in the official rate of corporation tax: from 28% to 24% by 2014. This, a Treasury minister has boasted, will be the lowest rate "of any major western economy". By the time this government is done, we'll be lucky if the banks and corporations pay anything at all. In the Sunday Telegraph, David Cameron said: "What I want is tax revenue from the banks into the exchequer, so we can help rebuild this economy." He's doing just the opposite. These measures will drain not only wealth but also jobs from the UK. The new legislation will create a powerful incentive to shift business out of this country and into nations with lower corporate tax rates. Any UK business that doesn't outsource its staff or funnel its earnings through a tax haven will find itself with an extra competitive disadvantage. The new rules also threaten to degrade the tax base everywhere, as companies with headquarters in other countries will demand similar measures from their own governments. So how did this happen? You don't have to look far to find out. Almost all the members of the seven committees the government set up "to provide strategic oversight of the development of corporate tax policy" are corporate executives. Among them are representatives of Vodafone, Tesco, BP, British American Tobacco and several of the major banks: HSBC, Santander, Standard Chartered, Citigroup, Schroders, RBS and Barclays. I used to think of such processes as regulatory capture: government agencies being taken over by the companies they were supposed to restrain. But I've just read Nicholas Shaxson's Treasure Islands – perhaps the most important book published in the UK so far this year – and now I'm not so sure. Shaxson shows how the world's tax havens have not, as the OECD claims, been eliminated, but legitimised; how the City of London is itself a giant tax haven, which passes much of its business through its subsidiary havens in British dependencies, overseas territories and former colonies; how its operations mesh with and are often indistinguishable from the laundering of the proceeds of crime; and how the Corporation of the City of London in effect dictates to the government, while remaining exempt from democratic control. If Hosni Mubarak has passed his alleged $70bn through British banks, the Egyptians won't see a piastre of it. Reading Treasure Islands, I have realised that injustice of the kind described in this column is no perversion of the system; it is the system. Tony Blair came to power after assuring the City of his benign intentions. He then deregulated it and cut its taxes. Cameron didn't have to assure it of anything: his party exists to turn its demands into public policy. Our ministers are not public servants. They work for the people who fund their parties, run the banks and own the newspapers, shielding them from their obligations to society, insulating them from democratic challenge. Our political system protects and enriches a fantastically wealthy elite, much of whose money is, as a result of their interesting tax and transfer arrangements, in effect stolen from poorer countries, and poorer citizens of their own countries. Ours is a semi-criminal money-laundering economy, legitimised by the pomp of the lord mayor's show and multiple layers of defence in government. Politically irrelevant, economically invisible, the rest of us inhabit the margins of the system. Governments ensure that we are thrown enough scraps to keep us quiet, while the ultra-rich get on with the serious business of looting the global economy and crushing attempts to hold them to account. And this government? It has learned the lesson that Thatcher never grasped. If you want to turn this country into another Mexico, where the ruling elite wallows in unimaginable, state-facilitated wealth while the rest can go to hell, you don't declare war on society, you don't lambast single mothers or refuse to apologise for Bloody Sunday. You assuage, reassure, conciliate, emote. Then you shaft us. • A fully referenced version of this article can be found on George Monbiot's website ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ So, we have our Public Services, our Voluntary Sector and our NHS basically raped by the cuts that the "Coalishun" keep telling us are necessary, and yet they are allowing MASSIVE tax breaks for rich, unaccountable, money-grabbing Corporations and banks.... Great.... I read somewhere that something like £120 billion has been avoided and evaded by the rich and by Corporations such as Vodaphone, Tesco, Barclays and other thieving f/ucking b'astards who are RAPING this country and the Developing countries too... And it's all been allowed to happen, by the previous Nu Labor administration (who are hardly blameless in this) and is continuing under the "Coalishun"... You know, Danny "The Ginger Rodent" Alexander talks the talk about how he's going after these rich Tax Avoiders, but what the fcuk is he actually doing? Has he even managed to get £1 in avoided tax off the likes of Philip Green, Lord Ashcroft, Gideon Osbourne et al..??? NO HE BLOODY WELL HASN'T..... <_< I would just like to see even a fraction of the effort put into bringing rich tax avoiders to heel that is put into coming down like the proverbial wrath of god onto Benefit Fraudsters... Not gonna happen though, is it...? Because, it's the same old Tories as it always was, the same old Milton Friedman, Monetarist/Reaganomics/Thatcherite bullsh"t that it's always been, even during the supposed "Labour" govt... The fact of the matter is, the poor, the working classes, and now the "Squeezed Middle" are going to suffer ALL the pain, while the elite continue to stick their snouts into the trough.... Heck, even Mervyn King from the Bank of England seems to revel in the fact that about 95% of us are just going to have to "tolerate" a drop in our living standards, cuts to our services, rises in Inflation and VAT, etc..... These people are scum, they are thieves, they are exponentially WORSE than your average chavs who fiddle the dole.... Like I say £120 BILLION in tax is being evaded and this Govt says that it wants to reduce the deficit by £81 billion... Hey, folks, do the maths here.... <_<
February 8, 201114 yr If i don't pay my Taxes HMRC come after me with pitchforks, the coppers, fines and then they just straight up repossess it. If a rich person doesn't pay taxes then it's chalked up to avoidance and off they swan. If a firm is UK based, in my eyes it should be charged on it's total profits figure regardless of where it's earned, and overseas based companies should be charged on their UK activities,
February 8, 201114 yr Author If i don't pay my Taxes HMRC come after me with pitchforks, the coppers, fines and then they just straight up repossess it. That's about the fukkin' size of it... Witness the HMRC putting out all these letters over the past few months because they cocked-up people's PAYE, how understanding are they being about ordinary folks not paying the correct taxes (which isn't even their bloody fault anyway, wasn't a case of anyone on PAYE deliberately avoiding tax, the HMRC FUKKED-UP!!!!! <_< )?? And then you have to listen to rich, whingeing gits like Michael bloody Caine moan and bitch about having to pay 50% top-rate... FUKK OFF, YOU C/UNT!!!!!! :angry:
February 8, 201114 yr Talking of the massive PAYE cock up, i have to do a $h!t load of research on it for one of my classes this week. Just how it went unnoticed for so long is a mystery.
February 8, 201114 yr Everytime i see this thread title i instantly think of High School Musical :mellow:
February 8, 201114 yr Author Talking of the massive PAYE cock up, i have to do a $h!t load of research on it for one of my classes this week. Just how it went unnoticed for so long is a mystery. TBH, I think the blame for it can ultimately be laid at the door of Gordon Brown, after all, it was his brilliant idea to merge Inland Revenue and HM Customs and Excise, doing that led to all sorts of absolute bloody chaos....
February 8, 201114 yr TBH, I think the blame for it can ultimately be laid at the door of Gordon Brown, after all, it was his brilliant idea to merge Inland Revenue and HM Customs and Excise, doing that led to all sorts of absolute bloody chaos.... Not to mention their insistence at switching to a new system that obviously was not very well tested.
February 8, 201114 yr TBH, I think the blame for it can ultimately be laid at the door of Gordon Brown, after all, it was his brilliant idea to merge Inland Revenue and HM Customs and Excise, doing that led to all sorts of absolute bloody chaos.... My mum worked for Customs and Excise, she wasn't best pleased :lol:
February 8, 201114 yr Typical Tory logic - and a terrible slogan to go with it all, they don't have a clue.
February 8, 201114 yr Can someone translate all this 'text-speak' for me - what the feck does 'i <3 convervatives' mean? Sorry - bt as if th wrld hsn't bn dmbd dwn enf pple cn't evn b *rsd t' typ 'n fl anymr! By the way - I have it on good authority that Gordon Brown WAS behind the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Kath
February 8, 201114 yr Can someone translate all this 'text-speak' for me - what the feck does 'i <3 convervatives' mean? Sorry - bt as if th wrld hsn't bn dmbd dwn enf pple cn't evn b *rsd t' typ 'n fl anymr! Kath Exactly, that talk belongs in the lounge or iLoon thread!
February 8, 201114 yr yeah i cant type, bull$h!t i was drawing a heart you downsyndrome lesbo bitch, why do love labour so much anyway? :blink: Bye bye GG, nice to see the Tory attitude is the same ay? 'lesbo b*tch'? - probably homophobic aswell?
February 8, 201114 yr about time britain had a change is it not? Oh yes, our economy is going down a ditch (-0.5% Q4 2010), but Gideon etc. can survive well, nice changes, you may want to look up on it all. Also, Labour are around 6% to 11% above the Tories in the latest polls, so hopefully the CONservatives will be back in opposition where they belong.
February 8, 201114 yr plus didnt G.Brown start the f***ing chaos and f***ing with britain and sorry which party was he?
February 8, 201114 yr yeah i cant type, bull$h!t i was drawing a heart you downsyndrome lesbo bitch, why do love labour so much anyway? You are clearly a TWAT ... so I will put you on iggie poste-haste! In words you can understand - F*CK *FF! Kath
February 8, 201114 yr plus didnt G.Brown start the f***ing chaos and f***ing with britain and sorry which party was he? The banks started it off - without the bailouts we'd merely be Greece and Spain tbf, and I think the Tory manifesto should be 'Blame it on Labour', as all of their policies seem to be failing terribly, ay? And Kath... :heart:
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