can only speak for the trades men i know, being self employed, you relay on your accountant to do the right thing.
I am self employed too. My accountant can only submit the figures I give him. If anyone does cash jobs and doesnt declare them accountants can't submit the correct earnings figure. So your reply about accountants doing the right thing is a bit disingenuous. Fortunately I never get paid in cash so there is never any temptation. But I can understand the concern over the cash economy. From masseurs to osteopaths, taxi drivers builders and mechanics they're all at it and it costs the exchequer £40bn a year, which PAYE mugs like me (I pay as I earn on my pension income and still work self employed) have to make up with a penny or two on my tax. Even pensioners have to make it up if their pensions go over £10k, so a lot of people are mugging old ladies. Not good!
Easy. I do too. Are you really saying everyone who lives in London earns more than £67k? That's patently not true so it must be possible to "live" in the capital while earning less than that. As I said I do too. Less than half that since I became semi retired actually! And I run a Multistrada, a Speed Triple and a Golf.
The figure of circa 25k as an average is only based upon paye payments, therefor not correct as an average of all income. 25k is much touted by the media and government, and also business as a means of negotiation. The true figure I would estimate to be around 30k. There seems to be a huge in the population. Many on 15k or less, many on 40k or more and a very sparse middle ground.
First time I've heard criticising tax avoiders/evaders described as right wing! Fess up Fin, do you declare every penny of cash you take on your tax return. Do you always charge VAT (if you're VAT registered) and pass it on to the exchequer? Many many leftie friends think nothing of working for cash and give nothing to charity, whereas I pay every penny I owe and give loads to charity. Who are the hypocrites and thieves Fin? I ask you that? Stealing from the exchequer is stealing from everyone, not no one. Those same cash-deal merchants also hammered Jimmy Carr et al. Made me laugh - then cry. They can't see that they do ANYTHING wrong!!
Still haven't answered my question. Many are investigated I grant you but many more are not. As for me being disingenuous about my job (no way is it a profession) I'm semi retired but edit the sports pages of a national Sunday paper for four hours on a Saturday as a staff member and have done for 12 years. I also pick up what freelance work I can on magazines and newspapers, national and local. I have wide-ranging skills and that work has included finance, news, sport, arts and news. My picture, however, never appears anywhere and hasn't done so for 20-odd years as because I'm a backroom boy I'm now too far down the food chain for that! So your friends aren't too well informed about how the print media works. If I was THE editor I'd be the public face of a publication. As AN editor, or more accurately a sub editor, I'm entirely anonymous. Please don't call me a liar though or I will have to sue you for defamation! :Kiss::Kiss::Kiss:
My last word on this: as an idealistic 27-year-old I reported on two massive frauds: one was perpetrated on the Welsh Development Agency and another was a corporation tax fraud. That experience convinced me that tax evasion was disgusting. To see already wealthy men lining their pockets at taxpayers' expense was truly vomit-inducing. But they didn't regard themselves as wealth you see ... and neither does my plumber, electrician, mechanic etc. However their day rate - cash, sorry I don't have any receipts left guv - is far higher than mine and I am on PAYE. Go figure Fin. I've had five years of education post-18 too when they were out earning money. Ok wrong career choice if I was just in it for the money and I accept I will earn less for doing what I enjoy. But I don't want to be penalised again because people don't pay their dues, especially now that a significant proportion of my income comes from pensions and I am being taxed in them too. Sorry for the rant but I get pissed off with champagne socialists and lefties who don't pay all of their taxes "because it's a Tory government" but still use the NHS and schools. Please tell me why I am wrong. I am all ears. I can pay all my taxes and pay £50 per month to charity by standing order. Why am I so different to them. Why should I effectively pay for their dishonesty? I'm close to dobbing some in and will do if they keep on boasting about how they pay less in tax in a year than I do in a month.
ok . sue me for defamation best of luck to you. for defamation and my comments on here your gonna need it. you silly old man.(bit milder than me surgeon mate) i might read your other posts once i am done screwing the tax man as you sugested. you have been hanging about with scum for to long. like i said i enjoy your posts. :Hilarious::smile:
Average earnings figures based on PAYE employment don't reflect reality when applied to pro-rata pay rates or a single year's net income for someone who is self-employed. Income for the self-employed can fluctuate wildly. One good year can be more than off-set a bad one. They don't get sick pay, holiday pay or overtime. They incur material and labour costs in procuring work and administering their business. And they're not paid appearance money. If a job is not ready to commence for reasons not covered by a contractual agreement they go home and earn nothing, they don't get paid to turn up. If their work is weather dependent and it rains, they also earn nothing. Those in full time PAYE employment are effectively indemnified against these costs and potential income losses by their employers who, if they wish to keep their work force, iron out these fluctuations and recover the costs jointly from the wages they pay their employees and the prices they charge their customers. Of course the tax system takes account of the additional costs incurred by self-employment and some of those costs are off-set through allowances. If you pay an accountant to calculate and claim on your behalf all those allowances to which you are legally entitled you are not avoiding or evading taxation you are simply practising basic business management. A single year or season, or whatever it may be, cannot be relied upon to give an accurate indication of earnings when you're self-employed. The self-employed need to earn more to achieve a comparable net income to someone in full time PAYE employment.
I never suggested you screwed the taxman and I have no evidence you have ever done so. What's your view on tax and cash deals though. Pray tell. I am interested.
I agree with all that and I have self employed earnings too, from which I deduct expenses. Even the capital expense of my Ducati, which I use as work transport. What I'm talking about are undeclared cash earnings.
Agreed, I run a small engineering consultancy business. The companies main source of turnover are the biotech and pharma industries. Though I did a bit of advisory consultancy for major audit firms on capital projects expenditure a few years ago. Interesting subject is capital expense.
Most of London I wouldn't want to live in. Sure, I expect that £67k is quite enough if you only have yourself to support. But what about a wife and family? I don't see how, thesedays, you pay off your mortgage and go on holiday, buy a new car and go to the odd restaurant and support a wife and kids comfortably unless you are well paid. Sure, people survive on a lot less. If that's what you want to do - survive - no problems. But then I assume that these people are not buying £20k motorbikes for a hobby. What you normally find is that families have two incomes coming in, which enables them to live the consumerist lifestyle, because if you only have the one, it's not easy.
Glad that you don't want to live in London. It's the most exciting city I know - and I've travelled more widely than most - but it's too crowded already! Though BoJo still wants it to grow. What is this relatively new obsession with growth at all costs? I'm semi retired. Live off less than half that £67k mooted, run two bikes and an old car and have a good standard of living. Ok. My kids are grown up and I bought them a flat to live in while I was working so they are no longer a financial burden on me, and I won't be liable for as much inheritance tax. Apart from the bikes, I don't have anything like a consumerist lifestyle either. That's a choice people make. No one has commented on why, if it's impossible to live on less than £67k per year, we pay pensioners who fought for our freedoms as young people less than one twelfth of that sum annually.
People like cab drivers. I know one. Apparently - he tells me - HMRC accepts that he earns £25k after expenses, whereas the real figure is around £70k.
I'm single now and much, much richer than when I was a husband and the father of two children in education. Have you any idea how much it costs to put children through university? Pleeeeeese!!!
