gdp's Comments

FCAblog : How much tax is saved by using a personal service company?

Tue, 9 Oct 2012 08:22:20 +0000

Murphy Richards is Ritchie\\\'s very amusing spoof account. It is scarily realistic and a must-follow on Twitter.

FCAblog : Nudge and tax avoidance

Tue, 25 Sep 2012 22:02:05 +0000

Oh, I'd missed that reference. Thank you.

FCAblog : Well, fancy that!

Fri, 14 Sep 2012 21:58:40 +0000

I got the feeling that most companies wouldn't use the liability guarantee thing precisely because they want to keep their liabilities parcelled up neatly into subsidiaries. I could have got that wrong, I guess.

FCAblog : Governments and property rights

Sun, 9 Sep 2012 11:40:31 +0000

So what do they teach on PPE courses? I did philosophy myself, so it's evident they don't know a shred of philosophy; the financial crisis and their proposed 'solutions' prove they are equally ropey when it comes to economics; so you might at least expect them to be aware of some of the fundamental principles of politics. Apparently even that's too much to ask.

FCAblog : Governments and property rights

Sat, 8 Sep 2012 14:22:46 +0000

Hi both. I use dormant bank account claiming as an example of something where the government knows that it's somebody else's asset but goes ahead and takes it anyway. I suppose another example might be wealth taxation (as opposed to income tax). Even if you believe that the money might be put to good use, should governments be undermining citizens' property rights? I'd be very interested in both of your thoughts on the reasonableness of my assumption. I've had two people question it on Twitter, but neither was able to provide a better one.

FCAblog : UKuncut's idiotic comment of the day

Thu, 6 Sep 2012 21:14:59 +0000

Thank you for this. Certainly, let's move forward.

FCAblog : Ritchie and wealth taxes

Wed, 5 Sep 2012 21:35:15 +0000

I cut a little bit of his preamble. But those are his policy suggestions, verbatim. It's really a very strange piece indeed, for the reason you mention.

FCAblog : What is currency?

Mon, 3 Sep 2012 20:10:20 +0000

And would you care to recommend any particular search result in particular? Don\\\'t be shy, now.

FCAblog : UKuncut's idiotic comment of the day

Sat, 25 Aug 2012 20:40:13 +0000

I've seen what you have written about me on Twitter. I have not repeatedly misrepresented your comments. Rather, I've been trying to understand what you mean. As indeed, I hoped you were trying to understand what I mean. If it's crappy traits, perhaps you'd cast your mind back to why I blocked you on Twitter. In case you've forgotten, it's because you mocked me for having depression. Now that, my friend, is a very crappy trait. I don't think you're cross with me because of anything I've written. Instead, I think you've ascribed motivations to my writing that simply aren't there. That reflects your own biases rather than my own. You might want to think about that. You're welcome to keep posting here; you'll be aware that I haven't edited or censored anything you've written here. But if you choose to do so, please find the civility that you seem to demand of others. Currently you would fail your own tests of decency.

FCAblog : UKuncut miss an open goal

Thu, 23 Aug 2012 12:00:59 +0000

What's your point, caller?

FCAblog : The four fatal flaws in "Why HM Revenue & Customs have got the Tax Gap wrong"

Thu, 23 Aug 2012 11:59:43 +0000

I might. But theirs does at least look order-of-magnitude right. And theirs doesn't suffer from the five flaws that Murphy's does. I can think of a few ex ante reasons why the UK's percentage lost to evasion might be lower than elsewhere. I'm sure you can too.

FCAblog : Is taxation theft? A response to Alex Briggs

Tue, 21 Aug 2012 22:16:00 +0000

Possibly. But then I think you'd find that "dishonesty" isn't a necessary part of the definition.

FCAblog : Is taxation theft? A response to Alex Briggs

Tue, 21 Aug 2012 22:14:21 +0000

Yes, sorry, it was meant more as a suggestion for the future. The newspapers are particularly guilty of it: they change their articles all the time.

FCAblog : UKuncut's idiotic comment of the day

Tue, 21 Aug 2012 21:50:52 +0000

Worstall explains it more colourfully here. OK, it's not exactly evidence but it's a more plausible explanation of what goes on than "it goes into a bank vault and is never seen again".

FCAblog : UKuncut's idiotic comment of the day

Tue, 21 Aug 2012 21:49:41 +0000

What direct tax do you pay when you buy a McDonalds?

FCAblog : Is taxation theft? A response to Alex Briggs

Tue, 21 Aug 2012 21:44:45 +0000

Hi there. You should log out of Wordpress and take a look at your site as us ordinary folk see it. There are two versions of the article: the one I quote above and another one that has merely the title and a hyperlink that goes in a perpetual loop. I'm happy to go back to the article, but in future I'd rather deal with any modifications to your argument via comments below the article rather than you revise the article itself, if possible.

FCAblog : UKuncut's idiotic comment of the day

Sat, 18 Aug 2012 08:23:14 +0000

But is it true? Is it fair? The first two sets might be broadly equivalent, but the third certainly isn't. And it's inappropriate to imply that everyone on the front cover of Fortune belongs to the third set. Whichever way you look at it, it's not evidence of any sort.

FCAblog : UKuncut's idiotic comment of the day

Sat, 18 Aug 2012 08:09:41 +0000

Tax isn't calculated on what you can afford. That's why there are campaigns to (a) remove people on the national minimum wage from income tax and (b) pay low-paid workers a living wage (because, so the campaign goes, they cannot afford to live on their current post-tax income). The tax system does try to accommodate affordability at some base level. But it's not right to say that every tax bill can be afforded. And it's certainly not right to say that being able to afford a tax bill means you should have one.

FCAblog : UKuncut's idiotic comment of the day

Sat, 18 Aug 2012 08:02:48 +0000

(Renumbering for ease of reference) 1. I don't accept your definition of treason. Your definition is both so vague and broad as to encompass virtually every form of behaviour, including many that aren't - and never will be - illegal. Treason requires that an individual attempt or conspire to overthrow the government. Seeking to minimise one's tax bill within the law could never constitute such an act. It's not even 'effectively' the same. It's not the same league. It's not even the same sport. 2. VAT is due on accountants' fees. So everyone who has paid a UK accountant will have paid VAT on those fees [if the accountant happens to be below the VAT threshold and not registered for VAT, the input VAT would be unrecoverable so the effect is almost the same]. I don't see why you think paying McDonald's is "paying tax" but paying a UK accountant isn't. In both cases, neither payment is equivalent to paying tax, but a significant amount of both bills will end up as a tax payment and, in both cases, amounts are likely to be made out of post-tax income. 3. I don't accept the model of the world that there are is a small group of people with massive wealth who don't circulate that wealth back into the economy. That wealth must find its way back into the economy otherwise it simply may as well not exist. Even if it's just sitting in a bank account in some tax haven, it can still find its way back into our economy if, say, it is lent out to a UK bank and from there to a UK business. Note I'm not claiming that this outcome is better socially for the UK or even that it's ethical. I'm merely observing that the claim that it doesn't circulate back into the economy is completely false. 4. I don't accept the narrative about wealth inequality. I found the Wilkinson/Pickett stuff to be a load of old hokum which chose the answer it wanted to get to and then selected the evidence it needed to support it. 5. I'm with you on Iceland/banks. I'd have let the banks here fail too. However, we both need to recognise that this would have created enormous difficulties for ordinary people here in the UK, who could have found themselves without banking facilities for an extended period of time. However, the issue of what we should have done with the banks is irrelevant to the issue of tax avoidance. 6. My argument isn't - and has never been - that all tax avoidance is ethical. It's summed up in point 1 of my previous reply: I don't regard avoiding a tax that you can afford to pay to be a sufficient condition for that behaviour to be unethical. You have to look at the outcome in the main, rather than picking on an individual aspect. For example, UKuncut were quick to declare Boots as a tax avoider for loading up its UK operating company with debt, reducing its UK profits. However, that simplistic analysis overlooks the impact of alternative courses of action on UK jobs, in the UK operating company, their suppliers and, indeed, within the UK private equity industry. I don't need to tell you what ethics is to be able to point out that any analysis that focuses on a narrow aspect of behaviour must fail to take account of the wider context. Given that UKuncut's contention is that we must look at the bigger picture, it's ironic that their campaign systematically fails to do that. And, if you think that you can declare a wide range of behaviours to be 'essentially treason', I'm afraid you fail to do it too.

FCAblog : UKuncut's idiotic comment of the day

Fri, 17 Aug 2012 20:15:49 +0000

Hi. Thanks for dropping by. 1. You regard it a fallacy to claim that "Being able to afford to pay a tax does not mean that it's unethical to use legal means to avoid it." Because that's a lot of negatives, I hope you'll allow me to repack that a bit. I do not regard "being able to afford to pay a tax" to be a sufficient condition to make avoiding that tax unethical. As you seem to think that's a fallacy, you do regard it to be a sufficient condition. Is that a fair assessment of your position? 2. Tax isn't based on what you can afford to pay. It's based on what you owe. Part of the tax gap comprises amounts which were due to HMRC but which weren't collected because the taxpayer went bankrupt before paying the tax they owed. How could that be the case if tax was taking account of ability to pay? 3. The slavery example is a real fallacy. It presumes that "laws which were once legal may be illegal in future" is a quality which all current laws possess. That's a great example of the generalisation fallacy. 4. The level of fees isn't relevant. Money which isn't taken in tax can be spent elsewhere in the economy. 5. Tax avoidance is treason? Er, dude, you might want to get out more. Particularly as you appear to have a harder line on what constitutes tax avoidance to other people. 6. As for your closing comment, on McDonald's, you would similarly pay tax on your accountants' fees. Is that what you really meant to say?