The UKuncut movement must feel satisfied at the publicity afforded it by the BBC this morning. Tim Street gets a four minute canter here, followed up by an extensive interview with Margaret Hodge here! Oh, those evil corporations.
TAX ATTACK TAXING
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On Sky News (Adam Bolton) they had a debate, the one eyed idiot got a lot of blame for hislight touch regulation and his over complication of the tax system.
Over at the BBC we get lefties wheeled out like Hodge who somehow forget THEY were in power when this tax avoidance went on.
It amazes me that the lefties cannot remember all those Brown budgets where he made tax laws more and more and more complicated and complex. Did they not realise what the consequences of that would be?
When a multinational corporation operating in this country has to abide by hundreds of regulations and at the same time has to abide by its obligations to shareholders to maintain profitability, then there is going to be a clash as it takes that corporation a LOT of time to be able to navigate one of the world’s longest tax codes to work out what it actually owes to the exchequer.
With all the legal loopholes and rebates and allowances on thousands of different things, then an OBVIOUS consequence of that labour created complexity is the fact that it will take a hell of a lot longer to establish what is and what is not actually owed to the exchequer. When our tax laws are so complex that even tax lawyers are finding it almost impossible to understand them, then the only options for corporations and the exchequer are very costly court cases (for corporations AND tax-payers), or granting more time to establish genuine lawful liability, then the sensible thing for tax-payers is granting more time.
If anything, the way that corporations are RIGHTLY granted more time to establish the actual liability of the corporation, is a very strong argument in favour of extreme simplification of tax law and creating a flat tax for corporations, SMEs and individuals.
I am sick of thick lefties with very short memories being shown and given carte blanche on the BBC to spout their ridiculous bullshit by blaming the tories for allowing some sort of elitist corporatocracy to exist, when it was LABOUR which created it, cheered on, every single step of the way by the BBC!
Repost from the Open Thread
The latest front to be opened by the BBC against the coalition and capitalism is the bigging up of the NAO report on so-called HMRC indulgence towards big business. On the Radio 4 8:00 News we were given a rant by Labour front organisation UKUncut (with a soundbite from an unchallenged rant on Today at around 7:10) followed, again on Today, by an interview with Margaret Hodge (a seriously rich heiress whose fortune is, I’m sure, secure in a highly efficient tax avoiding trust – although Mrs Hodge wasn’t asked anything about that). As I’ve commented before – and as Tim Worstall has posted on his blog eg http://timworstall.com/2011/12/02/so-this-entirely-buggers-the-idea-that-vodafone-owed-6-billion-doesnt-it/ – the Private Eye story which started this crusade was a crock because Vodaphone never owed the alleged £ billions in tax (although it was provided for – and written back – in its accounts) due to a European Court decision that the UK CFC legislation (under which Vodaphone was alledgedly liable) was against EU law.
The point which was ignored by the two Labour activists (Hodge/Naughtie) was that, unlike you and me, big corporate has the resources to fight HMRC all the way and, moreover, is prepared to do so. It’s not that big corporate is indulged by HMRC: it’s that the little people are victimised because they do not have the deep pockets necessary to fight HMRC crapola. Of course, this never came up (except as a failing of big corporate which has the nerve to disagree with HMRC and, worse, win the argument in the courts).
Mrs Hodge further alleged – on the basis, I suspect, that’s it’s a nice big fat round number – that “£25 billion” annually (?) is somehow owed by big corporate in unpaid taxes. No questions as to where this number came from (presumably the NAO or some UKUncut/Labour briefing paper) or any underlying factual support. I seem to remember that before this Labour love-in was broadcast it was regretted that although Today had tried to get someone from HMRC or the Treasury in to be interviewed, no-one was forthcoming. This might even be true but there are endless tax experts out there who would have been willing and able to make Mrs Hodge’s day in the sun a bit less brilliant. As it turned out, the only “impartial” source of comment was Hugn Pym. Hugh and Naughtie had the usual preliminary incest-interview whereby the stage was set for the customary BBC “sentence first – verdict afterwards” trial of those not approved of in the Narrative: this time it was those companies which only pay the tax they are obliged to pay by law.
. . . and clarification from Tim Worstall here http://timworstall.com/2011/12/20/from-the-pac-report-the-25-billion-in-tax-unpaid/ on that £25 billion “unpaid” tax figure. It’s actually NOT £25 billion of unpaid tax: it’s £25 billion of tax in dispute so “unpaid” tax will most probably be substantially lower. Now a competent journalist or journalistic organisation would have had that that point clarified once Mrs Hodge (a Labour MP – not a disinterested expert) had brought it up on Today. But no, we’re talking the BBC here: dishonest, biased and incompetent.
Also, the Uncut guy claimed it was £25bn ANNUALLY. The £25bn which is in dispute has been in dispute for a couple of years at least. So once again a massive exaggeration.
I wasn’t sure – and, naturally, the BBC interviewers declined to get the issue clarified – whether the £25 billion in contention was an annual figure or not but the impression left was that this was big corporate being let off £25 billion annually in return for some expensive hospitality to senior HMRC figures. Appparently that’s the impression the BBC would like us to have since no-one from the BBC sought to challenge any assertion made by Tim Street (UKUnCut=Labour) or Margaret Hodge (Labour).
did no one also say that the figure was 30 billion a couple of years ago?…funny it wasn’t news then.
‘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 purpose 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’.
James Clyde, Law Lord
But yeah, the crusties and the ukuncut yoohoo everyone it’s me me mes and the Guardian/BBC self-styled liberal elite and The Brothers and sundry other class warriors – THEY know better.
I don’t know why we just don’t turn the country over to them.
Oh wait – we did in 1997 – and look what happened to it.
“Tax justice”. As if all enforced taxes are fair and vital.
What about the millions the Guardian Media Group avoid paying?
So the BBC is implying that the tax authorities are going for the easist people to extract money from . A bit like their telly tax collectors .
I was only listening in the hope that Universal Shami would be next up to give her views on Ms Hodge’s position that the tax due from a business is whatever some politician says it is, irrespective of what the boring old ‘law’ actually says. Isn’t there a human right not to be shaken down?
One more thing: Surely it wasn’t the BBC that’s spent the last few months taking out onions for our poor, misunderstood public servants that was presenting soundbites of an MP beasting a civil servant who can’t answer back as though there was actual courage involved?
Same old same old!
Because the BBC perceive it as a problem…it automatically has got to be a tonic for the nation.
No-one should be paying that £145 compulsory knowledge tax allocated to the BBC for a start…let`s give it to UK Uncut or other useless whingers of the BBC choosing…anyone but the BBC anyway!
I would go further…it is anyones patriotic duty NOT to pay Dave Hartnett and pals a single penny without the threat of pliers or terrifying body language.
Like Louise Casey says…if you put a penny in their cups, then you`ll never get them off the streets or off your back( or was that the homeless as Blair passed by?).
Support your local tax dodging multinational now…the Third World can only benefit.
Only mugs and the little people pay taxes remember?
That the BBC has brought me round to this way of thinking is about the only reason I know to keep it on its life support until the body bag is big enough to cover both Wood Lane and Media City in Salford.
It is not rocket science, the tax under dispute is usually with companies with international earnings that can be argued as to how much of which HMRC is entitled too. Listening to bBC you would get the impression that £25B was not recovered. The first line of the report:
“At 31 March 2011 HM Revenue & Customs (the Department) was seeking to resolve tax issues valued at over £25 billion with large companies, some of which included disputes over outstanding tax.”
The bBC in their headlines say unsttled as in UNPAID, but the report says resolve tax issues on £25B. Don’t expect the truth from Hodge, this was the Minister when labour was in who compained about housing for immigrants, but knew that Labour had secretly ordered councils to reserve council housing for immigrants. An order that was recinded by the coalition soon after they took power.
The last sentence of the first paragraph of the second page says; “At 31 March 2011, the Department was seeking to resolve over 2,700 issues with the biggest companies, including disputes over outstanding tax, with potential tax at stake of £25.5 billion..”
At no point in the report does it state how much tax was finally recovered. Those UNCUT mob and the media should learn to read.
Rescinded by the coalition too late to undo the Gerrymandering and MultiCulti consequences. Hodge should be burnt at the stake – whoops, have I “Clarksoned”? I apologise. Just comic hyperbole.
It was comic hyperbole which most of the country agreed with too. In poll after poll, Clarkson was supported by more than 70% of the participants.
No one from the bBC ever asks UK Uncut how much scarce police resources they use up with their (illegal) “direct action” occupations, like invading TopShop, Fortnums etc. The Met should send them the bill – see if that remains “unresolved”.
UK Uncut was started by an Oxbridge graduate as I recall, though their website is very shy about who they are personally. At the end of the day their interest in taxing the rich is nothing more than adolescent “Wealth Redistribution” marxist politics and class war.