Norman Lamont suggests that the NIC tax grab was a rookie error. He has a point. Gideon resisted the poison being dripped in his ears by the mandarins at the treasury – for tax grabs of any sort give these people wet dreams. A large state stealing the profits of the productive is what they want. It never occurs to any of them that they should be seeking to reduce taxation by making serious inroads into the function of the state.
Then we get bleats about fairness – even a Conservative Prime Minister is parroting this fuckwittery. I’m sick of hearing various people talking about fairness in taxation. There is no fairness in taxation. There is what the law demands and we are obliged to pay not one penny more than that. There is no morality involved and there is no fairness involved. The law tells us what is required and that’s it.
Equally, in this context we get people whining about tax avoidance and equating it with evasion. Avoidance is perfectly legal. It is not immoral. Given the way the state wastes money, it is a sacred duty to minimise what we let them have. Evasion is illegal because the state has passed laws making it so. If people and organisations can mange their affairs to minimise their exposure to the avaricious greed of the state within the law, then that is a good thing.
Tax is theft in all its forms. It is the taking of money without consent and using the violence of the state to enforce it. There is an argument that we need things collectively that we cannot fund individually. I would accept that argument if the state limited itself to just those things and no more. So, sure, raise taxes to fund defence and a judicial system. I’m ambivalent about health and education – I can accept using the state as a mechanism for raising the funds, I am not convinced that the state should run them, however.
Yet what we have is an obese state with various parasites clinging onto the fatty tissue, greedily devouring what we are forced to provide. These organisations are not a common good, they are little more than lobbying groups intent upon reducing our liberties while at the same time ensuring their own continued access to our money. Then there is foreign aid. The state is in debt. It is borrowing hand over fist and paying huge amounts of interest and yet it still gives away 7% of GDP. This is not only immoral, it is obscene.
Those who campaign on tax fairness will argue that large organisations are getting away with avoidance – again, trying to equate it to evasion. “Look,” they say, “Starbucks et al aren’t paying their fair share!” This is nonsense. Corporations do not pay tax. People do. That is; the owners, shareholders, employees and customers. In other words you and I. If, as we have seen, such organisations take advantage of tax competition to pay corporation tax in a more conducive environment, that is a good thing, for they are reducing that exposure for their shareholders, employees and customers – that is, you and I. In the meantime, when they sell products in this tax jurisdiction, they are paying all those other taxes, such as NIC, VAT, and via their employees, income tax and depending on the product any other specific taxes due. So, er they are paying tax in this country (rather a lot of it, in fact), they are merely making the most of the opportunities available to them to minimise their exposure and so they should, as this is fiscal responsibility and due diligence towards the relevant stakeholders – that is, you and I.
Of course, tax competition is a bad thing according to the leaders of these various avaricious states. That’s why they are attempting to create a cartel; for tax competition will drive revenues down – as it should. If revenues fall, the state must cut its cloth and so it should, for there is plenty we can cut. Not that this ever occurs to them.
The recent NIC outrage was in part fuelled by those who think that PAYE and self-employment should be the same because both have the same benefits. They don’t of course, so those who benefit less should pay less, hence the outrage. But there is a better option. Do away with PAYE. If all those who currently never see the money had it in their hands and then had to hand it over, they would realise just how much the state demands. And, when you start a new job, how do you feel about having to pay not only this year’s tax, but next year’s on account based upon what you think you might earn? How does that little scam appeal? That’s right two years tax on one year’s pay.
They won’t do it, of course, because if the masses had to actually write a cheque there would be outrage at just how much we hand over. Far better to pick people’s pockets while they are distracted and don’t notice. Looking at the swipe on a pay packet is not the same thing as having to actually hand the money over.
And avoidance? Well, the state doesn’t actually believe this is a bad thing when it introduces taxes designed to modify our behaviour such as duty on tobacco, alcohol and more recently, sugary drinks. In this instance, the state is actively encouraging tax avoidance – if they weren’t there would be no point, would there?
So, to summarise, there is no morality in taxation; merely theft that we have a duty to minimise and there is no such thing as a “fair share” only that demanded by law and no one should ever pay a penny more than that demanded by law.
When a tax is introduced it often falls more heavily on businesses organised or structured in particular ways. Tax avoidance usually consists of nothing more than people restructuring or reorganising to achieve the favourable (or more often less unfavourable) outcome others have. A truly artificial restructuring (defined as having no commercial purpose, but done ONLY to avoid tax) already fails under English law so many that the Revenue can tax as if it never happened.
If you forbid legitimate avoidance then you unfairly favour some businesses over others. You may even kill some because they can’t compete with their luckier (or more favoured or served by better lobbyists) competitors. That’s just nuts. As you say, when governments tax stuff they don’t like they EXPECT taxpayers to modify behaviours to avoid tax.
Tax evasion is criminal. Tax avoidance is a logical, nay virtuous, response to government incentives. They are often perverse incentives of course but that’s not the taxpayers fault is it?!
And I am rigorous in using every possible legal avenue open to me to reduce my exposure to tax. It’s a moral duty and I take it seriously.
Given my political philosophy and views on the wastefulness of much government, I personally do not have moral objections to tax evasion. I was talking to someone who was buying a village shop and was keen to buy an EFTPOS system. I suggested that it wasn’t such a great idea. In response to his enquiry as to why, I merely pointed out that having an electronic record of everything you buy and sell reduces your’ flexibility’. The tax man has a view of what profit margins are typical for different businesses, for village shops I think, if memory serves, that it is between 17% and 21%. Clearly, you need to be showing a profit of just over 17%, having a profit of 21% or more is not showing enough ‘flexibility’.
Given my political philosophy and views on the wastefulness of much government spending, I personally do not have moral objections to tax evasion. I was talking to someone who was buying a village shop and was keen to buy an EFTPOS system. I suggested that it wasn’t such a great idea. In response to his enquiry as to why, I merely pointed out that having an electronic record of everything you buy and sell, and at what cost, reduces your’ flexibility’. The tax man has a view of what profit margins are typical for different businesses, for village shops I think, if memory serves, that it is between 17% and 21%. Clearly, you need to be showing a profit of just over 17%, having a profit of 21% or more is not showing enough ‘flexibility’.
Sorry for double post, last second editing seemed to upset system.
That’s the Rothbardian approach. You woudn’t tell an armed robber how much you have – at least, not willingly – and the state is no different as it is a contravention of the non aggression principle. So, although I do not evade tax as I really don’t want the problems that go with it, I do not have a moral issue with it either.
And here we have a classic example of how the government is pissing your taxes up against the wall:
Serious questions are raised today over hundreds of millions of pounds of British taxpayers’ money being ‘wasted’ on climate change projects such as an Ethiopian wind farm and Kenyan solar power plant.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/03/12/hundreds-millions-british-aid-wasted-overseas-climate-change/
Bloody ‘Climate Change’ again. How much more of our money are these fuckwits going to flush down the drain before they realise that trying to change the climate is as futile as Canute trying to hold back the tide. Canute at least knew his efforts would come to nothing. Would that the ‘Climate Experts’ had a similar level of awareness.
As doubtless you know:
“No man in this country is under the smallest obligation, moral or other, so to arrange his legal relations to his business or to his property as to enable the Inland Revenue to put the largest possible shovel into his stores.”
– James Avon Clyde, Lord Clyde, Ayrshire Pullman Motor Services and Ritchie v. IRC (1929) 14 TC 754.
And that sums it up perfectly. All this fair share bollocks is just so much cockwaffle.
I feel that I should warn you to have your blood pressure pills handy before following this link:
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2017/03/13/hundreds-of-millions-of-british-aid-wasted-on-overseas-climate-change-projects/#more-26779
I don’t think that there can be many worse examples of the government wasting our hard earned cash than this, it just ticks all of the boxes.
Mmm. See Nisakiman’s comment above. He pipped you to the post. Point stands, though.
Foreign Aid is 0.7% of `GDP not 7%.
Indeed it is. Typo. My bad.
It is also worth pointing out that there is foreign aid and foreign aid. Effectively, we really ought to be aiding foreign powers in becoming less of a threat to our interests, and less of a potential problem to the world.
So, knowing what we know now one good use of foreign aid would be to further the cause of Womens’ Rights because this inevitably reduces the birthrate of a country, which in turn makes it less prone to bouts of starvation and also skews the population age demographic towards older citizens.
Older people breed less, fight less and tend to be easier to get along with, not to mention being generally wiser as well. Our foreign aid should therefore be aimed at making foreign countries less aggressive in this way.
Stormin’ Norman? He still alive?
Well, yes, obviously.