This is quite fun:
Tax evasion, tax avoidance,
crime and corruption cannot be differentiated:
Weird that we have different words for things that cannot be differentiated really. Even weirder that we have different laws, different punishments (ranging from none to a lot) for them as well.
4. The UK’s domicile rule, that helps make this
country a tax haven, should be abolished;
5. The UK’s tax residence laws should be reformed
to make it harder for people to leave the UK and
claim tax haven residence;
6. Introduce general anti-avoidance principles
into UK tax law to tackle artificial use of tax
haven structures;7. UK law should require significantly better disclosure
from UK companies and trusts so that we set the
international standard for transparency by which
others can then be judged;
8. H M Revenue & Customs should promote a Code
of Conduct for all involved in tax management that
requires tax compliance, which this report defines
as seeking to pay the right amount of tax (but no
more) in the right place at the right time where
right means that the economic substance of the
transactions undertaken coincides with the place
and form in which they are reported for taxation
purposes. There should be greater scrutiny for
those who refuse to participate, including
professional advisers;
Umm, it\’s tough to work out what he means by the domicile rule making the UK a tax haven. Sure, non-doms don\’t pay UK tax on their foreign earnings that they don\’t bring into the UK. But, umm, there\’s nothing in that arrangement that means that they don\’t pay foreign taxes in those foreign places where they make that foreign money. That\’s entirely a matter for the laws of those foreign places.
Point 5 is simply that fascist control of the population thing again. How can we raise tax rates if people can just bugger off? So, make sure they can\’t bugger off!
6 is the overturning of the basic common law point that we\’re all allowed to order our affairs so as to reduce the taxman\’s take of our property.
7 Meh.
8: we already have this. It\’s called obeying the law. If you obey the tax law then you are tax compliant. If you don\’t obey the tax law then you are tax evading. What the Murph really means is that tax compliance is what he thinks the law ought to be, not what Parliament said it is.
18. Secrecy jurisdiction banks and financial services
institutions should be regulated from major financial
centres such as London if that is where their parent
company headquarters are located.
Oh my, so now we\’re off to pierce the corporate veil are we?
The rest of it is his blog rehashed. Boring.
Does he really think saving money in an ISA and illegally doing so offshore is the same?
G Orwell, he probably does not because he thinks tax avoidance is only bad if it is done by the rich.
The man is impossible. I was talking to a lawyer in the Caymans the other day about issues in that jurisdiction and the contempt for the TJN, and Murphy, is so total that you could sell it in a bottle.
What an odious little man Ritchie is. I suppose it’s typical of someone who thinks the state can spend the money that we earn better than we can.
If he’s doing work for Caroline Lucas, does that mean I’m paying for him as well? That’s a saving right there I’d like to make.
The man is a wicked, insolent, arrogant buffoon.
The time for either avoidence or evasion is passing. Let the future be brazen defiance coupled with whatever measures are needed to keep our hard-earned money out of the hands of thieves and would-be statist/socialist tyrants like Murphy.
“Tax evasion, tax avoidance,
crime and corruption cannot be differentiated:”
Ok, I’ll buy it. In that case his own words and actions show that Richie evades tax. He’s a crook.
Tax avoidance is a crime? Twat.
Point 7 is classic Progressive egotist policy making. Look! Let’s do something stupid and exciting so the whole world can admire us! Twat again.
Giving up smoking becsuse the taxes on smoking make it too expensive – tax avoidance- CRIMINAL!
Point no. 5: he wants to stop me living abroad and thus avoid paying UK taxes because I am a helot of the State. It’s gone beyond the point where I merely want him ridiculed and is fast approaching the point where I want him dead.
My views on Ritchie are well-known, but I think you’re misinterpreting point 5 – fairly sure he wants a US-style system where, unless you break all your ties with the UK, you’re taxed on worldwide income with credit for tax paid overseas. Not a Soviet-style system where you’re not allowed to leave.
@johnathan: the fact that lawyers in a tax haven hate Richie is hardly proof of his ineptitude or wickedness, more the fact that he wants to destroy their jobs. As it happens, Richie is inept, but that’s coincidental.
“Tax evasion, tax avoidance,
crime and corruption cannot be differentiated:”
Has anyone every confronted Mr M about how he seeks to MAXIMISE his tax liabilites. Because surely, in his book, anything other than maximising your own liability would fall into “tax avoidance”, which automatically falls into “tax evasion”?
@sturoy: A while ago it came out that RM is running his ‘business’ from his domestic premises, and not paying any business rates on the rooms thus used.
When confronted with these facts he then proceeded to quote all sorts of rules and legal precedents as to why he shouldn’t have to pay any business rates for the rooms that he used for business purposes.
Thus you see that while the spirit of the tax law on business rates is quite clear – business premises should pay business rates and domestic premises should pay council tax, RM is quite content to take advantage of specific rules that permit people to circumvent that spirit in certain circumstances.
Its a case of ‘what I do is within the spirit of the law’, whereas ‘what you do is immoral tax avoidance, and should be (if I had my way) illegal tax evasion’.
john b: perhaps I misinterpret the the thrust of Murphy’s argument; notwithstanding, if that is indeed what he wants then fuck him six ways from Sunday. The statute that enables the IRS to levy taxes on US citizens not domiciled within its borders is one of the most repellent examples of governmental overreach I can think of. Murphy never saw a penny (or a cent, or a pfennig, whathaveyou) that he did not covet. He is a disastrously evil cockroach, and no opportunity should be missed in which one can stamp upon him.