Better than nothin’. I like the poster too. Osborne, you young scamp, put those jobs back where you found them!

“I’m sure this has nothing to do with the growing movement to highlight tax avoidance, which was all over the newspapers over the weekend.”

Given that a) the vast majority of ordinary voters who’d come into contact with these protesters would be pissed off at them and not get the message, and b) the tax avoidance measures were the brainchild of Lib Dems in government, as a sop to the anti-fees brigade, yes, it doesn’t really have much to do with your little protest.

Tax to trade is what is required.

If you want to trade you pay a tax to trade fee. You can move your head office where you like, but if you don’t pay your tax to trade fee, then keep out.

Of course this has no chance because the global elite have been buying up the worlds politicians to push trough so called free trade areas to stop anything like this.

The old slogan in the 50s of “What’s good for General Motors is good for America” no longer has any credit. If said company relocates its factory to China ,and its head office to the Cayman island then that is not good for America.

Hope they cut down on Guardian Media Groups tax avoidance as well then – they haven’t paid any corporation tax since 2008 and use all sorts of offshore structures.

All legal of course, but you can’t have it both ways…

“you can’t have it both ways…”

Sure, you found anyone who defends the gruaniad (outside of their payroll) on here?

” but you can’t have it both ways…”

Moronic troll thinks everyone on the left works for the Guardian. I think the slogans at troll central are getting a bit lame.

Dmob – sure, the timing has nothing to do with it.

Have UKUncut targeted the Guardian yet?

When they do, let me know and I’ll join Polly Toynbee at the demo.

Bonus points for anyone explaining how the proposed changes will impact on any of the companies targeted by UKuncut.

Without knowing the full details of internal accounts thats probably not possible to answer completely accurately Tim. Overall according to the OP, the gain is £2 billion and a further 5 bill is protected. It’s also proof that a large part of tax avoidance is about political will, which is where the protests come in.

Sorry sally (polly t), you can’t hide from the truth:

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/columnists/article6959685.ece

Incidentally, those tempted to put this down as a win for direct action might like to check the date on this report… Note especially:

It seems that the Government is committed to taking a more strategic approach to avoidance schemes to try to prevent the need for increasingly complex and frequently changing legislation. Ultimately this may result in the introduction (as in some other countries) of a general anti-avoidance rule (‘GAR’).

Tim, I’d agree that it isn’t necessarily a win for Direct Action, but then you can’t really measure the impact of protests with some accuracy – no government ever admits that it changed direction/instituted a policy as a result of direct action. To do so would merely invite more of it……

13 – Well quite! I’ve seen someone saying that the timing is more a reaction to the student protests, by giving something to Nick Clegg to announce as a triumph for the Liberal Democrats…

“more a reaction to the student protests, by giving something to Nick Clegg to announce as a triumph for the Liberal Democrats…”

Which you could interpret as something needing to be done for Clegg to head off a rebellion. The fact is many lib dems rely on the student vote, so clearly they are going to be worried at protests…..

Thet Times article is hilariously lame, and it’s funny that pathetic right-wingers are trying to use that to hit back.

Face it – all those ‘Tea Party protests’ that the TPA and your man Daniel Hannan was talking up haven’t materialised at all.

The Guardian bought EMAP along with Apax – and was forced to go offshore because of the way Apax is structured.

If you guys can point to any tax on regular profits that the Guardian is evading, be my guest!

16

Sunny, it’s the same principle to the right wing nutters as the relative weight between amounts lost to benefit cheats, and the amount lost to tax avoidance and evasion: i.e. they will go on and on about the former, and ignore the latter. Same goes with this: they will make a hue and cry about the Guardian (however inaccurate the premise) whilst totally ignoring the “real” problem of the many companies and individuals who do much, much worse.

a result’s a result.

still, what this says to me is that vocal public pressure about tax avoidance prompts the government to “do something about tax avoidance” – one can imagine the call going down to civil servants and revenue service wonks – and this is the best they’ve been able to come up with.

afaics, there’s nothing here to address the tax minimization strategies used by Philip Green, Cadbury, Vodafone or Boots and that is consistent with the idea that these examples have to do something pretty intractable and fundamental points of tax law, to whit the possibility of a foreigner being the legal owner a company run by their husband and problems with EU freedom of establishment, as discuss in comments threads past.

Tthe coalition agreement states (p30):

“We will make every effort to tackle tax avoidance, including detailed development of Liberal Democrat proposals.” (which were in the LD manifesto)

So in this case the “growing movement” is going where the government leads. I wouldn’t sweat it, though. Clearly the time for this stuff is nigh.

I’m not particularly a fan of the GAAR (which I think is a Lib Dem idea). It doesn’t seem to make much sense to have an extra law saying “Don’t do the stuff that all those laws over there allow you to do”, though much depends on the drafting.

Hven’t looked at the detail of the other proposals, but I am very encouraged by the fact that they focus on detailed examples, not puffy statements about crackdowns.

I’m just confused as to why anyone would think the government, which kind of needs tax revenues, would be opposed to closing tax loopholes?

My question is rather why we still have so many – who did it suit and why was it not tackled? Just a matter of no time or a deliberate decision.

Luis, its the low hanging fruit – this is the best they have come up because it is easy. It also demonstrates that political will is going to be crucial to tackle this.

“why anyone would think the government, which kind of needs tax revenues, would be opposed to closing tax loopholes?”

Because for most of the past century, political parties have been reliant on the support of wealthy individuals (and themselves have often been wealthy) and as such closing loopholes and tackling evasion risks losing your place in the elite. Far easier to tax those without the means to employ expensive accountants and move money around.

If you understood the state to merely be an instrument of a wider ruling class this would be obvious.

“Because half a dozen grasshoppers under a fern make the field ring with their importunate chink, whilst thousands of great cattle chew the cud and are silent, pray do not imagine that those who make the noise are the only inhabitants of the field; that, of course, they are many in number; or that, after all, they are other than the little, shrivelled, meagre, hopping, though loud and troublesome insects of the hour.”

Planeshift,

Indeed. But during the last century we have had five periods of socialist/social-democrat government. If this was simply a class issue, wouldn’t this have been one of their first concerns?

I do believe there is a constant danger of creating a ruling political class incidentally, but I do not think a Marxist-type class based analysis really helps there – it is more a case of politics becoming a career (always a problem).

23

The repeated failure of left of centre governments in this country to promote a more equal society must be seen as a huge political cop out. Far from producing a progressive society, those in power were and are all too often co-opted and worn down. They achieve little, or where they do make genuine progress, it ends up mired in bureaucratic sclerosis and failing to modernise.

Careerists will often be fobbed off witha seat in the Lords (let’s not even START about why that institution wasn’t strangled by the first Labour government!) or some quango….because it’s a lot easier than actually doing the right thing.

Until the Guardian starts making a profit again- not likely for the next few years at least- the question of how its affairs are structured is a bit of a moot point. If you don’t make any profit, you don’t pay any corporation tax.

“it is more a case of politics becoming a career (always a problem).”

Except some of the most powerful and influential people in the UK are not career politicians, in fact most are not even on the payroll of the state.

Remember when being a left-wing radical meant wanting to ‘overthrow all existing social conditions’? Now it means getting Philip Green, the permatanned, portly owner of Topshop, to pay his taxes.

On Saturday, a flashmob of students, left-wingers, greens and newspaper columnists alarmed the 14-year-old girls buying chunky jewellery by storming Topshop in London to brand Green a ‘tax dodger’. They sang ‘We are the tax enforcement society!’. They chased pretend Philip Greens around the railings of girlish gear while shouting, ‘You owe the tax office £285million!’. They encouraged the bemused-looking teen shoppers to join the protest, because if Green paid the tax he has allegedly dodged it would ‘cover the tuition fees of 32,000 students or the salaries of 20,000 NHS nurses’.

http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php/site/article/9971/

If you guys can point to any tax on regular profits that the Guardian is evading, be my guest!

The Guardian hasn’t made a profit in years. Its losses are used to set off any profits made by the other elements of GMG, to reduce its overall corporation tax bill.

The Guardian bought EMAP along with Apax – and was forced to go offshore because of the way Apax is structured.

That really is hilariously lame. Oh Noes! We’ve been forced to avoid stamp duty by routing the transaction through a Caymans registered SPV! If only we were able to use a UK company and pay full stamp duty on the transaction! For a bonus Sunny, can you explain why the Scott Trust has been wound up? Special plus if you can manage to avoid the words ‘Inheritance Tax avoidance scheme’