Wonder how long this comment will remain up there?
Not really, no:
“It takes some chutzpah to organise one’s affairs to pay zero tax”
Because:
“but banks can use historical losses limitlessly to offset against any profits”
They all lost billions and billion only a few years ago. Hell, Osborne even mentioned this in a budget speech, that the banks just wouldn’t be paying profit tax for years to come because of past losses.
And yes, a profits tax is and should be charged on cumulative profits, thus allowing for losses.
And isn’t this just disgusting?
“Share give-aways as individual bonuses can also be charged against tax”
The wages of the staff are counted as a cost of the business, thus taken off gross profit before arriving at net taxable profit. Who could be so nefarious as to devise such a system? Why, we’ll be letting them deduct the rent, the telephone bills, the computers, as a cost of doing business next!
And, of course, those stock awards get counted as income to the staff: meaning the gross tax bill, including NI, is some 55% or so. Rather more than the 20% profits tax, isn’t it?
And yes, almost all of them are on PAYE, no they don’t get to dodge those taxes.
Wouldn’t it just be fascinating if Willy Hutton, the great prognosticator on how the world should work, showed any evidence at all of his understanding of how the world does work?
There are 13 comments so far Tim. You and one other bloke point out Hutton’s ignorance.
The rest show no sign of having read let alone understood the facts you have pointed out.
The Heart of Darkness indeed.
No wonder he ran than that organisation into the ground and completely fucked it up.
The man’s a buffoon.
Although, it has to be pointed out that in some countries losses carried forward are time limited under their corpoprate tax systems and expire so that there is no limitless set off as there is in the UK
“It takes some [i]chutzpah[/i] to organise one’s affairs to pay zero tax”
More subtle than Biden’s dog-whistle, that’s for sure.
The college Bursar must find him hell to deal with. Not that a college, being a charity, pays corporation tax, but still. He seems very versatile in his ignorance.
dearieme: The college Bursar must find him hell to deal with
Well yes, but the wonder is that the SCR hasn’t been invited him to pursue his career elsewhere.
“but banks can use historical losses limitlessly to offset against any profits”
Is this the case? I seem to recall that the ability of banks to do this was going to be limited (even more limited than the sense in which their historic losses are finite).
@ MBE
Quite correct, but Will Hutton had to abandon the need for accuracy when he started writing for the Grauniad.
I posted a very meekly worded comment suggesting that Hutton was defaming named banks by claiming “scam”, improper inter-corporate payments to evade taxes and an intentional pattern of cheating clients.
Analytical language, not a fucking profane word, I swear.
Disparu. Moderated.
Apparently community standards do not allow pointing out that Hutton is an ignorant and defaming loose lipped fool.