[Sloper]

As a practitioner of tax avoidance Jasper I thought you'd be all for people avoiding tax by paying accountants and consultants   Benefit fraud is an offence as is tax evasion and both need to be addressed with vigour.

It doesn't help Labour then that they've signed up goverment departments to off shore tax avoidance schemes and cut the number of people at HMRC looking at dodgy avoidance schemes and evasion.

It doesn't help Labour that Gordon Brown's rushed merger of Inalnd Revenue and Customs & Excise was little short of a disaster.

Now then, why do whingeing lefites seem to think that illegal benefit fraud is ok but legal tax avoidance isn't?

PS what are your rates I need some tax planning advice?

[Jaspersharpe]

I'm all for people using accountants (well me anyway, most are shit) to ensure that they don't pay too much tax and that their tax affairs run smoothly.

There is a difference between making sure a subcontractor only pays the £2k he owes rather than the £3k that has been deducted from his income and some cunt ripping the country off for millions by using their dodgy offshore status.

As you well know.

I'm in favour of a fair tax system where the rich pay what they should, those at the bottom pay nothing and those on middle incomes aren't screwed. Like you, I think the personal allowance should be raised which is another reason why, unlike you, I will be voting Liberal Democrat.

[cowboyhat]

Policies all in one place: http://www.comparepolitics.co.uk/

[Sloper]

Jasper, you are of course right, but Labour has its fair share of off shore tax avoiders, including one Tony Blair, plenty of Gordon's mates and even government departments.

I would vote lib dem but I oppose their electoral reforms, economicl and local income tax policies.

[Yossarian]

There was an interesting article in the Times today (at least I think it was today - it was actually linked from the Guardian election blog thing) by Daniel Finkelstein about what direction the Lib Dems might go, especially if they are very successful in this election.

The gist of it was that Clegg has strayed quite a long way right of the position of Ashdown and Kennedy who, he argued, saw themselves as the left wing alternative to Labour, and who came quite close to succeeding in convincing Tony to get into bed together.  Clegg on the other hand has (very successfully) moved away from that and become the saviour for rebellious centrists (I think he used the term "middle class rebels") who want to shake things up a bit. 

The thing that worries me about the Lib Dems (which he picks up on towards the end) is that despite Clegg, the rest of the party haven't really made up their minds exactly where they stand.  I think there are quite a few west country hippies who, in the miraculous but not unforeseeable (did you see what I did there?) event of a Lib Dem victory would desperately try to drag the party away from their current and quite admirable economic position to some sort of "Your house isn't made of straw and reconstituted pig shit bricks - here, why don't you pay an extortionate eco tax", which they would immediately spend on replacing the RAF with hot air balloons and giving enormous subsidies to acupuncturists.

[tomtom]

A work of GENIUS. Sheer GENIUS.


"Last week, I met a gay former Labour voter, who told me that paedo bikinis had been shouting at buses on the high street."

or "Last week, I met a Jewish fishmonger, who told me that climate change hysteria put them on benefits."

[Jaspersharpe]

That's brilliant.

Well well well, the Tory rags have gone for it today!



Amazing. 

http://iaindale.blogspot.com/2010/04/these-shameful-attacks-on-clegg-will.html

Encouraging stuff that they are stooping so low and getting so desperate. I'm just surprised The Express didn't go with "Did Clegg Plot to Kill Diana?".

[Johnny Brown]

Its totally ridiculous. At the rate they are going this won't be just a sea change in politics but in the press as well.

[Jaspersharpe]

The Mail's effort is particularly hilarious.

Here's their article: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/election/article-1267921/GENERAL-ELECTION-2010-Nick-Clegg-Nazi-slur-Britain.html

And here (courtesy of @JonathanHaynes) is what they've based it on (from EIGHT years ago): http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2002/nov/19/eu.germany

Front page news?! What a bunch of cunts.

[dave]

Mail = CUNTS. Where's there self recockingspect?

[Jaspersharpe]

For some reason that picture doesn't seem to be working now? I'll try this.....



The Mail article is actually pretty amazing. It would be difficult to parody.

Fake photo of Brown and Clegg? TICK Picture of plucky Cameron jogging with squaddies? TICK Made up total nonsense story? TICK. There we go, that's the cover story sorted.

[dave]

This goes to illustrate why I totally abhor all tabloids. I don't understand in this day and age why people buy papers at all.

[cofe]

Cameron should distance himself from this lot if he has half a brain. i doubt he will, especially when he's out meeting young Afghanistan veterans, who tell him that Eurocrats meant the dead going unburied.

[Jaspersharpe]

"Last week, I met a Pakistani policeman, who told me that the Minimum Wage sexually assaulted a small child and also stole their sweets."

[john horscroft]

Now then, why do whingeing lefites seem to think that illegal benefit fraud is ok but legal tax avoidance isn't?

Now Sloper, what have I said before about throwing compliments about!?  This whingeing lefite feels that my fellow whingeing lefite Jasper was merely pointing up the enormous disparity between the effort expended on bringing benefit fraudsters to book compared to the the raised eyebrow response to tax evasion, especially given the factor of 15/1.  Yes, benefit fraud should be rooted out, but lets soak these rich fuckers first eh?  (Oh bollocks, I lost it at the end there didn't I.........?)

[Johnny Brown]

David Schneider's tweets on the money as ever:

Nick Clegg laid the pitch at Wembley #nickcleggsfault
   
 Eyjafjallajokull is Icelandic for 'Nick Clegg' #nickcleggsfault

# That cocky bloke who took the winning penalty for Germany in Euro 96 was Nick Clegg
 
# Kennedy assassination. New footage confirms hidden gunman on grassy knoll is Nick Clegg #dailymail #nickcleggsfault about 1 hour ago via TweetDeck

[Jaspersharpe]

#nickcleggsfault heading to number 1 on trending topics. #Mailfail 

[Johnny Brown]

Cameron's been struck by an egg. Or, in cockney rhyming slang, a Nick Clegg

Schneider's a genius.

[dave]

You gotta love Schneider. I recon with election looming it'd have been prime time for the BBC to grow a pair and commission a new series of Friday Night Armistice.

[Jaspersharpe]

Clegg: "I must be the only politician in the space of a week to go from Churchill to Nazi."

[Jaspersharpe]

Brilliant, the Daily Mail-o-matic is doing a Clegg special.......

http://www.qwghlm.co.uk/toys/dailymail/

[dave]

COULD NICK CLEGG MOLEST HOUSE PRICES?

IS NICK CLEGG INFECTING MIDDLE BRITAIN WITH AIDS?

WILL NICK CLEGG HAVE SEX WITH BRITAIN'S SWANS?

[Jaspersharpe]

http://www.demsoc.org/talkissues/2010/04/22/revealed-media-agree-its-not-about-issues-its-nickcleggsfault/

[Sloper]

Most tax evasion is committed by sole traders and small companies, just as most theft is committed in low volumes and low values and doesn't get the media attention that a decent blag does, so it is with tax evasion.

We have amongst the highest rates of tax recipts against projections, the issue is largely a straw man and often trotted out as a means of excusing or minimising the costs of benefit fraud.

It may suprise you but I find the government's attack on benefit fraud as wholly offensive and reprehensible, their stasi lite grass on a mate for a bung shows Labour for what they are, authoritarian wankers.

Personally there's a simple way of dealing with most benefit fraud, 1. stop penalising people for living together and 2 make people do some form of training and or work for 4 days a week and give them access to a staffed office to assist with job hunting on day 5.  This would stop a significant number of people working and claiming benefit,

[Jaspersharpe]

Most tax evasion is committed by sole traders and small companies, just as most theft is committed in low volumes and low values and doesn't get the media attention that a decent blag does, so it is with tax evasion.

We have amongst the highest rates of tax recipts against projections, the issue is largely a straw man and often trotted out as a means of excusing or minimising the costs of benefit fraud.

It would take a hell of a lot of sole traders committing a hell of a lot of fraud to add up to this one example of corporate dodginess costing the UK hundreds of millions.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/apr/11/ineos-headquarters-switzerland-tax-bill

If the actions of small companies and sole traders were costing HMRC the majority of the tax they are losing through fraud then they would be targeting them more rather than the thousands of offshore tax evaders. The 2007 amnesty "only" managed to bring in about £450m from 45000 people but that's a hell of a lot more than 45000 investigations into sole traders and small companies would generate.

What HMRC would like to do is get something more like the €130bn in repatriated assets that Berlusconi managed to last year (which made around €7bn in penalties alone). This kind of money (probably MUCH more from UK companies and individuals) is out there and the income on it should be generating tax revenue for the UK. Again, how many dodgy sole traders would it take to produce a similar figure.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/money/tax/article7077663.ece

http://www.thomaswhite.com/explore-the-world/Postcard/2010/italy-tax-amnesty.aspx

The simple fact is that the rich are not paying their fair share on both a corporate and individual level. This is costing the country a FUCK of a lot of money and needs to be addressed.

Agree completely re benefit fraud though.