Theresa May calls General Election on 8th June.

[DynamicSpirit]

Lots of people having to wait 2 weeks plus to see their GP.

Yes, tell me about that one. Mostly I no longer even bother trying to make an appointment with my GP unless it's for something that appears to be a long-term condition. For 'normal' illnesses, there seems to be no point when I know I'm unlikely to get an appointment within 3 weeks. So far, I've been lucky, but the obvious risk there is that I'll end up not going to the GP for something that I initially assume will clear up by itself, but which actually really needs medical attention and which will become much more serious because of waiting.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Tax avoidance and tax evasion are not the same.

It is infuriating to keep hearing people confusing these two matters, especially as a little research would make it clear to them.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

I can guarentee you that payment of dividends to buisness owners wives is not limited to Philip Green .....its standard practise in thousands of small and medium size businesses.

I suspect you're correct. Paying dividends to partners is however only possible if those partners hold shares in the company - justifying their dividends. And unless the company has gone to the trouble of creating non-voting shares (possible but I would imagine needs specialist legal help), that would imply the partners legally have partial control of the company. I would imagine that kind of thing becomes a minefield if the marriage later breaks up.

The real solution to many of kinds of avoidance tactics is to ensure that corporation tax, national insurance, and dividend tax, and income tax are designed in such a way that the amount of tax you pay depends only on your actual earnings, and not on how you chose to account for your earnings. And that would require a considerable shake-up of that tax system (possibly, including abolition of national insurance) that looks highly desirable, but which no political party appears to have the stomach for. And you also would need a shake-up of the rules around tax bands to ensure that for a family, total tax paid depends only on the aggregate family income, not on how that income is distributed within the family - I suspect that would be extremely hard to achieve.

 

[EM2]

Tax avoidance and tax evasion are not the same.

I didn't say that they were. You asked for 'a concrete example of a super elite who has abused loopholes'. Is that not it then?

 

[DynamicSpirit]

It is infuriating to keep hearing people confusing these two matters, especially as a little research would make it clear to them.

I think the problem here is that - although tax avoidance and tax evasion are legally very different, there are cases where tax avoidance can lead to your tax liabilities bearing so little relation to your actual income that, on reasonable ethical grounds, avoidance can look ethically not much different from evasion. (I would though stress that this is a bit of a judgement call and applies to some, not all, tax avoidance).

 

[Moonshot]

I suspect you're correct. Paying dividends to partners is however only possible if those partners hold shares in the company - justifying their dividends. And unless the company has gone to the trouble of creating non-voting shares (possible but I would imagine needs specialist legal help), that would imply the partners legally have partial control of the company. I would imagine that kind of thing becomes a minefield if the marriage later breaks up.

The real solution to many of kinds of avoidance tactics is to ensure that corporation tax, national insurance, and dividend tax, and income tax are designed in such a way that the amount of tax you pay depends only on your actual earnings, and not on how you chose to account for your earnings. And that would require a considerable shake-up of that tax system (possibly, including abolition of national insurance) that looks highly desirable, but which no political party appears to have the stomach for. And you also would need a shake-up of the rules around tax bands to ensure that for a family, total tax paid depends only on the aggregate family income, not on how that income is distributed within the family - I suspect that would be extremely hard to achieve.

I wouldnt disagree with the above. So leading on from the above generates the question of what we as the voting public want to be provided by the state paid for out of tax receipts. As an example, do we really want the state to provide a pension when we are perfectly capable ourselves of providing for our own?

 

[Moonshot]

I didn't say that they were. You asked for 'a concrete example of a super elite who has abused loopholes'. Is that not it then?

Dividend payments are not loopholes. But in any event, I m sure that Philip Green had paid a lot more tax in the UK than the average member of the public.

 

[EM2]

As an example, do we really want the state to provide a pension when we are perfectly capable ourselves of providing for our own?

Not everyone is.
It would be sensible to have the option to refuse it though, the same as the bus pass and free TV licence.

 

[EM2]

Dividend payments are not loopholes. But in any event, I m sure that Philip Green had paid a lot more tax in the UK than the average member of the public.

Paying the dividend to your tax-haven-habiting wife is a loophole though.
Sir Philip may well have paid a lot of tax. But if those loopholes were closed, he'd have paid a lot more.
I'd be interested to see if someone could work out what percentage of his total income he has paid in tax compared to me...

 

[Moonshot]

Paying the dividend to your tax-haven-habiting wife is a loophole though.
Sir Philip may well have paid a lot of tax. But if those loopholes were closed, he'd have paid a lot more.
I'd be interested to see if someone could work out what percentage of his total income he has paid in tax compared to me...

I wouldnt like to guess......but in any event its safe to assume that Labours plans impose a greater tax burden on himself than either me or you. Which may well incentivise him to up sticks and move to a tax haven thus depriving the UK tax coffers completely. For the record, I thing the guy is a smarmy s*d myself and was glad to see him hauled over the coals for the BHS pension issue

 

[ninja-lewis]

Sir Philip Green (although I will concede that this is from 2005):
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2005/oct/21/executivesalaries.executivepay

Now, if this is *his* dividend, why is it being paid to his wife?

Tina Green was the legal owner of the shares so it wasn't *his* dividend. Unfortunately large parts of the media still think a wife can't own anything in her own right.

 

[Butts]

I wonder if Premiership Footballers pay their fair share of tax ?

Do they operate the same dodges as other high earners and is this somehow more socially acceptable than in the case of bankers and tycoons

 

[Moonshot]

I wonder if Premiership Footballers pay their fair share of tax ?

Do they operate the same dodges as other high earners and is this somehow more socially acceptable than in the case of bankers and tycoons

What is a "fair" share of tax ?

 

[muddythefish]

Tax avoidance and tax evasion are not the same.

.

Both indefensible when libraries are closing, schools short of money, social care in crisis, not enough policemen on the streets, armed forces decimated and the NHS deliberately starved of funding.

 

[muddythefish]

And frankly I do not trust a regime that has an inbred and inbuilt hatred of capitalism or anybody who is reasonably well off.

Taxes will be going up whoever wins the election....the hopeless Hammond has already promised as much.

And workers have been promised some of their rights back by Theresa May that the Conservatives have been chopping for the past 40 years.

Hurrah for the Tories !

 

[EM2]

Tina Green was the legal owner of the shares so it wasn't *his* dividend. Unfortunately large parts of the media still think a wife can't own anything in her own right.

He bought the company and then immediately sold it to his wife.
Their arrangement only works because she barely sets foot outside of Monaco. It's a tax dodge and nothing more.
http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/news/article-1527823/Uncovered-Greens-Empress-of-Arcadia.html

A City tax expert said: 'If a company is not controlled by a UK resident, the dividends are paid tax-free. A non-resident-controlled Jersey company, such as the one that controls Bhs, can receive tax-free dividends. It's as simple as that.

'I don't see how the Inland Revenue could challenge it. It is effectively a smart combination of non-residence and separate assessment. And you are home and dry on capital gains tax once you have been non-resident for five years.'

 

[yorksrob]

It sounds to me as though the Tories have seriously miscalculated their proposals for adult social care. Will it be nearer to poll tax, or pasty tax in magnitude, I wonder.

 

[AM9]

It sounds to me as though the Tories have seriously miscalculated their proposals for adult social care. Will it be nearer to poll tax, or pasty tax in magnitude, I wonder.

I generally agree with little that the current flavour of tory politicians propose, but they seem to have got the care self-funding bit right.
Why should everybody pay for care of the wealthy just so that they can pass on their estate to friends/relatives?
All the changes do is bring care in the home under the same rules as residential care, with the automatic provision of payment deferrment until the estate is realised. In addition, the floor of the retained wealth has been quadrupled.

 

[yorksrob]

I generally agree with little that the current flavour of tory politicians propose, but they seem to have got the care self-funding bit right.
Why should everybody pay for care of the wealthy just so that they can pass on their estate to friends/relatives?
All the changes do is bring care in the home under the same rules as residential care, with the automatic provision of payment deferrment until the estate is realised. In addition, the floor of the retained wealth has been quadrupled.

I don't think the theory is bad. I just don't think that core Tory voters will stand for the domestic residence being included in the 100k asset limit.

 

[AM9]

I don't think the theory is bad. I just don't think that core Tory voters will stand for the domestic residence being included in the 100k asset limit.

How would you propose that the ever increasing need for home care residential care is funded? What will the core Tory voters do then, - vote for another party?

 

[yorksrob]

I think that people will agree with the sentiment that "the wealthy" should pay towards their social care. The question is who they see as wealthy. I'm not a Tory myself, but it feels like a bit of a blue touch paper issue.

 

[AlterEgo]

I generally agree with little that the current flavour of tory politicians propose, but they seem to have got the care self-funding bit right.
Why should everybody pay for care of the wealthy just so that they can pass on their estate to friends/relatives?
All the changes do is bring care in the home under the same rules as residential care, with the automatic provision of payment deferrment until the estate is realised. In addition, the floor of the retained wealth has been quadrupled.

"The wealthy" in this context means anyone with a home worth over £100,000, so basically almost every homeowner. Madness.

I've no idea why we have such a bad attitude to social care. It is essentially healthcare by another name.

 

[yorksrob]

"The wealthy" in this context means anyone with a home worth over £100,000, so basically almost every homeowner. Madness.

I've no idea why we have such a bad attitude to social care. It is essentially healthcare by another name.

Its healthcare that keeps people out of the more expensive healthcare, so we should pay more heed to it from a preventative point of view.

 

[AlterEgo]

Its healthcare that keeps people out of the more expensive healthcare, so we should pay more heed to it from a preventative point of view.

True in principle.

How do you prevent dementia, or terminal end-of-life conditions?

The only good thing about the current state of social care is it focuses some minds on the subject of euthanasia/living wills. I've worked in nursing homes as a teenager and I am absolutely resolute that I am not going to rot in one for the last dozen years or so of my life.

 

[Tetchytyke]

I wonder if Premiership Footballers pay their fair share of tax ?

Do they operate the same dodges as other high earners and is this somehow more socially acceptable than in the case of bankers and tycoons

They generally employ the same dodges, yes. The latest wheeze was to have much of a footballer's remuneration paid as "image rights" rather than a salary. These rights get paid into a holding company and then the footballer can withdraw them as dividends at their leisure, whether in this country or elsewhere.

It's these "image rights" that HMRC are taking a great interest in, but it'll be interesting. The last time they tried to clamp down on this, against Arsenal players David Platt and Dennis Bergkamp in the late 90s, they lost.

 

[AM9]

"The wealthy" in this context means anyone with a home worth over £100,000, so basically almost every homeowner. Madness.

I've no idea why we have such a bad attitude to social care. It is essentially healthcare by another name.

OK, yes it does by way of the high pricing of houses in the UK. So there is a lot of capital tied up in that housing stock. Who would you expect to pay for the rising cost of (mainly) later life care?

 

[Tetchytyke]

"The wealthy" in this context means anyone with a home worth over £100,000, so basically almost every homeowner. Madness.

I don't agree it is madness at all. £100,000 equity is a lot of cash. The equity isn't taken from the cared-for person until after their death.

The question is, why should the taxpayer fork out for their care so that their children get a £100,000 cash windfall?

 

[AlterEgo]

I don't agree it is madness at all. £100,000 equity is a lot of cash. The equity isn't taken from the cared-for person until after their death.

The question is, why should the taxpayer fork out for their care so that their children get a £100,000 cash windfall?

A typical person in residential (expensive!) social care is elderly and will be there until they die. They will almost certainly have paid off the mortgage.

That raises the question of why bother buying a house when you can just rent off the council. Someone else can pay, right?

It doesn't bother me personally, because I have no intention of going into elderly care to die slowly (and I am fairly confident by the time I am of that kind of age the law will enable me to make a choice about my life).

£100,000 is not a lot of cash and effectively penalises anyone who has purchased a house - and the lack of inheritance means their children will be less able to purchase a house, too.

 

[AlterEgo]

OK, yes it does by way of the high pricing of houses in the UK. So there is a lot of capital tied up in that housing stock. Who would you expect to pay for the rising cost of (mainly) later life care?

Why not turn the question around and ask why a homeowner should pay for their own care from their estate, but someone who has not saved, not owned a home and not provided for their own later life needs, avoid that burden?

(PS: guess who pays for their care?)

 

[Senex]

True in principle.

How do you prevent dementia, or terminal end-of-life conditions?

The only good thing about the current state of social care is it focuses some minds on the subject of euthanasia/living wills. I've worked in nursing homes as a teenager and I am absolutely resolute that I am not going to rot in one for the last dozen years or so of my life.

In the present state of knowledge you can't prevent such things, and they strike at random. Some people manage to live a full, healthy, and long life until they just die or deteriorate very quickly and then die -- and they can then leave their property intact to the relatives (or to an animal charity of they prefer). Others have a lingering end to life that can go on for years and involve considerable suffering (despite what that Labour medic Baroness Finlay always has to say in her enthusiasm for perfect NHS palliative care) -- and this can run up massive costs either for nursing at home or for care in a home. Why should someone who needs hospital care for years get it for free when someone who needs nursing care for years (home or in a home) must pay through the nose for it with no chance of insurance? If the political parties are determined to ignore debating the issues properly and sorting something sensible out as a matter of priority, then they should have a whipped vote on allowing voluntary euthanasia for those of us who'd prefer to die reliably and quickly than be forced to squander whatever we have on a useless prolongation of life (no "Qualies")?

As for the Tories and their proposals, have they decided now that they are just the party of Brexit and the very rich, and the would-be part of Labour's traditional claimant brigade, and that they can happily shaft the middle-income, middle-class (whatever that means) voters?