when you consider the tax brakes available 2mill is feck all. we have been bumping our gums for years over this along with the tax brakes for "shooting estates" and plenty of other land ownership issues.. Whats the media response? brain washed cultists this Nazi's that. benefit junky this and that. come on guys. get informed.
anyhoo. i only came down here to pick up me fugly and buy a quad (which i did) wonder if i can claim my vat back on it?
Probably. If you're wise, you'd have set up your off-shore company with a bit of paper, and then you could buy the quad with it. You could probably get the tax back as you're an overseas company. Or something. It's bullshit scams like that that are at work all over the show.
11'000 properties which are not going to be in Peckham. They are probably in Mayfair, Belgravia or the City. You're barely going to get a flat in places like that - a small one. I don't think it's right that companies who are so secretive that they have to be set up in the BVI should be allowed to buy up large hunks of the country's most expensive real estate.
There was an interesting chap on R4 PM a moment ago, he basically said that public enquiries etc is a waste of time, what you have to do is deter, introduce a catch all law on tax evasion and if you get caught you get roasted alive.
Simplify the rules, apply the rules and if you get caught the penalty is proportional to the size of the evasion. UK passport ? Then pay UK tax. Sorry @gliddofglood .
No. Income generated in the UK? Pay UK tax. I don't agree with a passport determining what tax you pay and where. It has no more basis in reality than these tax avoidance schemes do.
Tax on overseas income doesn't have to be punitive. The basis of reality is that a passport confers rights and privileges which have to be paid for. Should a rich person with a UK passport, living in the UK, or anywhere else, without any UK income pay nothing ? My answer is No.
Under Double Taxation agreements, the individual living in the UK on income generated abroad will likely be subject to whatever local income tax is due on those overseas earnings. Are you suggesting that the foreign tax that individual pays on that income be set aside in favour of UK income tax? How is that going to fly in that country? Turn the circumstances around, so that the foreign resident stops paying UK income tax on UK generated income? Still happy? Or would you prefer that the individual pays two different country's income tax on the same income? Is that far?
Tried. Not completed. By the way, do you consider people working in demolition to be warmongers? Just askin'.
The larger islands like Jamaica, Trinidad, Martinique, Bahamas, and (my own personal favourite) Barbados are perfectly viable as flourishing independent countries. My point was that the Caymans, Virgins, and Bermuda are much smaller, indeed so tiny they are barely sustainable. They have to import virtually everything. Unless they get a lot of money from somewhere to pay for imports, they will struggle.
That is a good point, and a good principle, for those individuals who live in countries which charge income tax. But there are some countries and territories which do not have income tax, including the well-known tax havens. UK citizens arrange to receive income there and get away with paying no tax at all. Therein lies the problem.
Those countries and territories may not charge income tax on earnings within their borders ... but what services do they supply to immigrant workers? Free healthcare? Free education? Free anything? Hmm. So it's equitable to live abroad in a country without public services, but pay UK tax for public services you don't use (because you aren't living in the UK)?
I was talking about people who arrange to receive their income in the Cayman Islands, not to people who actually live there.
"Receive their income"? That's a very imprecise term. Trust me. If you mean, for example, that a UK resident is receiving untaxed interest elsewhere in the world (eg Cayman Is) and should be subject to UK income tax, I doubt whether anyone here will disagree with you. A UK national who works at that Cayman Is bank, on the other hand, should not be subject to UK tax on those earnings (subject to the normal Residency regulations that apply to UK income tax and residency).
A mate of mine is American. He was at school with me and later at Oxford. I've known him since we were 13 or 14. He has never worked in the US (with a possible exception of a summer job in a bookstore about 35 years ago). In theory, he should have been paying US income tax all his life. Good news for him, he's not on their radar, so he never has. It is outrageous, I feel, that the US thinks it is entitled to tax any of its passport holders wherever they live and whatever they do. He's got a UK passport now, but he hasn't had it long. On the other hand, I have both a Swiss and a UK passport, but my voting rights have lapsed for UK elections as I emigrated in the mid 80s. I don't see why I should pay any UK tax. I'm barely ever there. I was working in the UK for a period a few years ago, but I was still domiciled in Switzerland (where I "own" my house) and I was being paid in Switzerland and not in the UK. I never thought I should be paying UK tax then either (all my bills were in Switzerland). Thankfully, I never did.
If the option exists to shelter assets abroad and not pay tax on those assets then people will take advantage of, and bend, those rules. IF ALL earnings have to be declared and tax paid, at an appropriate rate, with severe penalties for those who chose to not pay what is due, then the incentive, and opportunity, to evade tax is reduced. Clearly this is not a fully thought through proposal but as a principle to follow I think it is perfectly reasonable. Note I have not suggested any tax rates, merely the principle. It is the individuals choice to make regarding what passport they carry based upon their personal situation. It is perfectly possible for reciprocal arrangements to be made with some other countries but this idea that people can squirrel away assets in tax havens for the express purpose of evading tax is just not on. It should be made illegal.
Maybe not at the full rate, but I see no reason why they can't pay something. What next, people without children getting a tax rebate because they don't get any benefit from the education system ?
