Always look on the bright side

Nick.

Why should anyone believe this any more than the other absurd statements he has made since May ?

"I had no choice. I am duty bound."

Oblate spheroids! I refer you to my post 30 on the previous thread. The Liberals should have driven a harder bargain, and threatened to walk out when the backsliding started on day two. Or - we could have had a minority Tory government, where the Liberals in Parliament could have voted according to their consciences on individual issues.

True, the Tories might then have tried to call another election, but history has shown that this is a risky strategy. The electorate do not like being told by politicians "You got it wrong, now try again!"

If a country is divided, stable government is only possible if there is give and take. The Liberals have been taken hostage by the Tories: Clegg and others are now suffering from Stockholm syndrome!

"The day before I was elected leader, Mr Cameron suggested we join them.
He talked about a “progressive alliance”.This talk of alliances comes up a lot, doesn’t it?Everyone wants to be in our gang.So I want to make something very clear today. Will I ever join a Conservative government? No."

Nick Clegg
LibDem Spring Conference 2008

"I am incredibly proud that the Lib Dems have taken this really big, brave step."

Nick Clegg
September 2010

I rest my case...

His message or should I say massage is that he had no alternative, because of the labour Legacy. There are alternatives and he campaigned for them 6 months ago. Did they give up everything when they agreed to go into coalition? At the best they seem like a weak left wing of the Tory Party. He doesn't get the point of a coalition. There have to be tensions between the parties. Basically he has given the Tories carte blanche for the next 5 years, because he will never bring them down.

The basic policy on benefits is plain stupid. I have no problem with tackling the benefits culture that seems to have infected some - though I am not sure how wide it really is. But if you want to force the work shy into work, you actually need to have jobs for them to go to. The policies from the coalition on this matter are strangely absent. The best way to cut benefit is to have an expanding economy which is demanding a large work force. The best way to take the steam out of the Unions in the public sector is to have jobs for these redundant workers to go to. (I can hear comments about lazy, unrelaible etc coming from some who choose this blog for their Victor Meldrew inpersonations). Now to really push job creation would be a good LibDem policy which has not been taken up by the coalition. If every country is hoping for an export lead recovery we have to make sure that we are exporting what is needed better than other countries. Financial Services might make headline figures look good, but I can't seeing it providing employment on the scale that is needed to make a real cut in the benefits bill.

"Mr [Danny]Alexander, who was appointed on Saturday after the resignation of fellow Liberal Democrat David Laws, designated the property as his second home for the purpose of claiming parliamentary expenses but described it to HM Revenue and Customs as his main home.

Last night Mr Alexander admitted that he took advantage of a loophole to legally avoid paying CGT on the sale of the south London property for £300,000 in June 2007."

Daily Telegraph
30 May 2010



"Tax avoidance and evasion are unacceptable in the best of times but in today's circumstances it is morally indefensible."

Danny Alexander
19 Sep 2010

Who is Nick Clegg duty bound to? Certainly not those who voted for him. I for one won't make that mistake again. As a public sector worker I feel like he has mugged me in a dark alley. The party is metaphorically and literally over thanks to Clegg's betrayal.

Condemned is indeed a very interesting word. Could he mean condemned to take difficult decisions based on the position he has inherited?

Any in coming party is always going to be faced with shifting the political landscape to one they are more comfortable with. Would it be fair to say that this has been made more difficult by the economic situation that is all around us?

Time will tell if it is better to be in a group trying to influence and alter it's direction or to stand outside trying to get in.

Times are changing and maybe a bold approach will change the future for good.

I think that this is history repeating itself, and the Liberals will split. Clegg and his friends are like the National Liberals/Liberal Nationals from 1931 -1968. They started out thinking they were Liberals, but ended up as part of the Conservative party.

Sooner or later the LibDems will repudiate Clegg, or the party will die. My prediction is that by the next election a smaller LD party will end up with Kennedy as leader again, and that Clegg will end up in the Tory party. The first step in that direction will be the Tories not standing against him in Hallam.

According to the Wikipedia Article, on Clegg (which looks as though it was written by a "close friend"), "His Dutch mother instilled in him "a degree of scepticism about the entrenched class configurations in British society"

Fine words, but to quote from the Bible "By their fruits shall ye know them." (Matthew 7:16)

Condemned or not the LibDem leadership has made its choice so there is little to be gained by debating whether it was the right choice.

The thing that matters is whether Cameron and Clegg can sell this as a time of national crisis where we all must pull together (.. "all in this together"). That is the ONLY way they can survive the reaction when the cuts are announced.

For this reason I hope the tough on tax cheats, tough on benefit cheats is more than just "spin" (a fig leaf).

In relation to the "Major Clampddown on Tax Avoidance and Evasion" announced this morning my questions for Danny Alexander and Nick Clegg (indeed all LibDems) would be as follows:

1. Are there to be any particular legislative changes as part of the "MAJOR CLAMPDOWN"? For example, to close particular loopholes or to generally "tighten up" the system. Or is this simply some additional expenditure?

2. Is there any ongoing policy work being undertaken by HMRC looking at improvements in the efficiency and fairness of the tax system? If so what is the nature of this work and are there plans to release details to the public? If not, why not?

3. How much is it estimated the new measures will raise in each year of this parliament and the next parliament?

4. How was the budget for the $900 million extra expenditure determined? If the amount was doubled for example what increase could be expected in recoveries?

Nick if you get a chance do you think you could find out some answers to these questions?

Is there any point to voting Lib Dem? You vote them..but you get the Tories.
What can they offer as a party WITHOUT antagonising not only their own but the Tories as well. In a word..NOTHING.
If Cameron had won the election outright..then the Lib Dem would have been where they have always been..in the doldrums.
Whatever happens these next years..and if the Tories win outright..the Lib Dem will be the third party.
The fact that Clegg sold his party principles...just to be in government.

Since "Duty" can be seen as being a Care to do something as much as being Bound to do something, then Clegg has totally failed in any DUTY Of Care to carry out the pledges he and his Party made and outlined during the run-up to the last General Election.

This therefore in no way means that he is under any freedoms to Bound himslef without seeking and consulting his WHOLE Party before hand should he be inclined to ditch the previous Policies agreed by his WHOLE Party, otherwise we end up [ as we have ], in a position that now confronts Clegg whereby he himself along with his Front-Benchers are imprementing a Conservative Government Agenda with very little indeed in the way of Lib-Dem thinking or input being included within this current Con-Demned Government.

Clegg, is therefore showing himself to be a servant of and to
Conservative properganda, as in his New - Role as being his Masters Voice, and [ Camerons ] follower with his Job discription of that of a Butler figure to Cameron, he has fully allowed himself to be firmly Whipped into the Tory way of thinking.

This indeed, of course is a full betrayal of the Policies designed by the rank and file within the Lib-Dem Party, for not only has Clegg overriden the Will of his Party, but also in doing so has driven many previous Lib-Dems Voters away from this same Party, since they have betrayed ALL Themselves, The Party and the Country, and have shown everyone that as a Party the Lib-Dems will sell their previously held beliefs away to seek any level of inclusion in a Con-Demned Administration.

Time NOW, to Call a General Election to see if Clegg has a Mandate for his Actions by the Votes [ if any ] of Lib-Dem Voters.

Nick Clegg was a breath of fresh air during the election, promising the heavens...no tuition fees, no VAT rise, no cuts during this year, that his new- found bebefactor Dave Cameron is a Con man, a tricskter, who is now his best friend. Sadly,he is now the proud flag bearer of the impending cruel avoidable cuts which are just old fashion Tory cuts. We have lost all faith in his words. This endless pronouncements and lectures are no longer taken seriously. Sadly. the high and mighty Clegg has lost all credibity. We noticed whenever he is being interviewd TV or radio his trick is to monopolize the time, giving no chance for even the cleverest presenter to ask piercing questions. It is simpler Nick Clegg joins the Conservative Party. The LIb Dems need a new leader eg Charles Kennedy or Simon Hughes.

When politicians talk about making difficult decisions they mean decisions that they know most voters will not like, and that they will not be able to persuade them otherwise. In other words they believe that their own judgment is right and the majority judgment is wrong.

Nick Clegg should stop and think. Maybe the majority, who cannot see the sense in making cuts which will add to the already too large pool of unemployed, are right and he is wrong.

craig 1 & 3 & 5
i still dont think clegg realises what he has done to his party. he will find out though. even some of his own party realise that a centre right coalition just doesnt make sense long term for his party and they will pay the price for deceiving voters under a banner of "we had to do it for the sake of the country". many in his party know this and are unhappy with it. moreover they see the opposite of what their party stands for. As for alexander...well, once bitten twice as shy.
1.there is no specific detail in what he sais
2. it wont go far enough or be radical enough
3. i think alot of people, based on recent history will take anything they say with a pinch of salt.
(some people were even mug enough to vote for them)!
prediction (if the coalition goes the distance).
a) lib dems trounced in polls.
b) labour win a clear majority and immediately have to spend again reparing the damage caused to public services and welfare by over zelous austerity measures.

a sort of groundhog day from 97

how does this clampdown on tax avoidance tally with a reduction in HRMC investigators?

15. lefty10 wrote:

How does this clampdown on tax avoidance tally with a reduction in HRMC investigators?
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
It doesn’t, all this shows is that we have just as many short term thinking buffoons running the show as we did last time.
Currently, 42 Billion Pounds of Tax goes uncollected – that’s about 10%.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1312720/42bn-missing-taxmans-coffers-10-revenue-goes-uncollected.html

And that doesn’t include the Billions of Pounds that don’t get paid due to Tax Avoidance schemes.

Surely – in this case at least - it would be a good investment to increase the number of Investigators rather than reduce them.

When anyone speaks of "Painful Decisions", one should always ask "Painful for whom?" It will always be more painful for the person losing their job and home than for the person sipping their glass of Chateauneuf-du-Pape after a long week at the office.

It reminds me of the cliché of the old fashioned cane brandishing headmaster, saying "This is going to hurt me a lot more than it hurts you!"

Mr Clegg should beware: he might end up like Tony Blair, getting the face he deserves. I wonder what the portrait in the attic is looking like at the moment?

We shall see how the debate and discussions on the torture motion proceed this weekend. I for one know that ex anmbassador to Uzbekistan Craig Murray was heading for Conference to participate and mark Liberal credentials within the Party as important and basic to the Lib Dems, a counter balance to the Lez'faire few within or near the coalition.

Lib Derm values stand and should not be blown away by some second rate connective tissue, however thin it may be.

Unless torture by us, or third parties is condemned as being against internationally agreed European Human Rights, this Conference is not going anywhere important, bar the scratching that is.

Lets start with the provision that Clegg entered this Coalition with the best possible intentions in regards to the economic welfare of the country. Lets also assume that his change of mind in regards to dealing with the cuts was an honest one and not because the apple pie of power was set to cool in an open window.

History will judge this coalition, there were two accepted theories to dealing with the budget deficiet: cut now or cut later.

But his actions will be the death of the lib dems as a party for the following reasons.

1. The lib dem voter is typically a rebel. It is often more of a vote against labour and the tories more than anything else. They don't do mainstream.

2. Knowing that a vote for the lib dems is now essentially a vote for the conservatives will put off traditional lib dem votes who probably grew up hating everything thing they stand for.

The coalition cuts will either be the right or wrong decision for the country. It can only be a disaster for the Lib dem party.

Some unusually balanced comments about Danny Alexander and tax evasion/avoidance.

Tax evasion is and always has been morally indefensible - it is fraud.

Tax avoidance is much more difficult, not least because politicians have abused the term so badly. According to politicians (and probably HMRC) tax avoidance means using tax breaks passed by politicians in ways that they did not anticipate or more people using the tax breaks than anticipated even if entirely within both the spirit and actual wording of the legislation.

Short of eliminating all tax reliefs and tax breaks (which is an idea definitely worth looking at particularly if combined with much lower tax rates), there is no chance of eliminating tax avoidance as defined by politicians, at best we can only eliminate those type of tax avoidance which involve wholly artificial arrangements.

Lefty10.

What sticks in my craw is the way they pleaded with disenchanted Labour voters to "come to us..we carry the torch of progress."

But now there's no future for them in the LDs..."there never was."

A disgrace. Funny they didn't make their liberal vision more clear during the election.

I tried watching some of the conference this afternoon..boy oh boy...

Tax evasion.....among other things!

This government are seeking 70,000 volunteers for the coming 2012 olympic's.

Does Lord Coe and friends volunteers for free?

https://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23734352-lord-coes-pay-rises-by-a-quarter-to-pound-357000-for-overseeing-olympics.do

"Hey my name's Nick Clegg, these are my principles...and if you don't like them I have others..."

"In 2008 it was reported that while at university, Clegg had joined the Cambridge University Conservative Association between 1986 and 1987, with contemporary membership records citing an "N. Clegg" of Robinson College. (At the time, Clegg was the only person of that name at Robinson.) However, Clegg himself later maintained he had "no recollection of that whatsoever."

I see this dreaded Libdementia is not a recent phenomenom...

21. craig.
i remember working in a house and seeing a leaflet from the local lib dems dropped through the door. (seen the leaflet elsewhere aswell)
it said..
"in this area we are the only party to stop the tories"
a complete anti tory leaflet. it was completely anti tory from start to finish. now where i live there was no chance of labour getting in. tory heartland and always has been. but lib dem were close-ish. how many thousand voters thought anything but tory, voted tactically and voted lib dem. now all the smug grandstanding and sweet talk from clegg will not wash and he will get a bloody nose. i still dont think he even really realises the true extent of anger yet. he has shrouded himself in self importance and is blinkered by career gain and short sighted opportunity over principle and his own parties long term health and credibility. compromise for the sake of the country...sure......but he has underestimated the size of the pill being expected to swallow....
the left hook will be felt even harder as a result.

So the standing Government hope to prosecute tax 'evasion' and claw back £8 for each pound invested in HMRC? The HMRC, together with it's specialist partner Prosecution Office is indeed in recent history the only Public Department to turn a profit, but both are in the process of large scale reorganisation and planned shedding of highly experienced work force. So given the planned loss of enforcement resources I would suggest that the statement of intent over the financial return from detection and successful prosecution of tax evasion and fraud either accords with a highly misleading set of caveats and qualifications, or will require a rather more stringent interpretation of tax law, intrusion of privacy and rights of appeal than is currently possible. We await with interest the upcoming statements which justify further erosion of liberty and impact upon British society in the interest of reducing the 'all-important' financial deficit.

I do actually believe Nick Clegg that he had 'no alternative' ... that he was/is 'duty bound' and because it was/is in the 'national interest' .. although he didn't actually say this (national interest bit) ... if Andrew Marr had had more time .. perhaps this might have been Nick Clegg's underlying reason for 'doing his duty'.

Can someone please define what the 'national interest' is or should be ... as this must be the ultimate politician's 'get me out of jail' card?

Perhaps the House of Commons and/or lords can spend thousands of hours debating what the 'national interest' is or should be ... since the UK does not have a written constitution that is binding upon our elected politicians?

It seems that many Libdems would have preferred Clegg to have done a deal with Labour and others, keeping Gordon Brown, Mandelson, Balls and Campbell in power and a totally split, spent, minority Labour party to finish the job of totally wrecking Britain. Alternatively, he could have allowed the Tories to rule with a minority government and gone back to being leader of the wasted vote party.

Nick - I'm sure you will have a chance to question Mr Clegg - and other leading Liberals over the next few days.

You would be doing a great favour to the electorate if you put craigmarlpool's points to him, (and them), in particular @23 from the last thread:

"If you supported Labour in 1997 because you wanted fairness...Turn to the Liberal Democrats.We carry the torch of progress now."

Nick Clegg
23 Sep 2009

"I totally understand that some of these people are not happy with what the Lib Dems are doing in coalition with the Conservatives. The Lib Dems never were and aren't a receptacle for leftwing dissatisfaction with Labour. There is no future for that, there never was."

Nick Clegg
20 Sep 2010

I, and I suspect millions, believe that he and the LDs have obtained votes under false pretences.

If he answers that he meant the ultraleft, then that will be a piece of dishonest sophistry. The people whose support he has lost are the moderate left-inclined people whose votes he courted, but now don't understand, for example, why their services should be cut whilst Osbo's friend Vodaphone get a £6-BILLION tax bill written off.

Also ask him how weakening the tax authorities (Jim@26) is going to help cut the deficit.

Remind him that many people waiting for an answer are at least as well educated as he is, but with more experience of real life.

I have a great idea that we make the same percentage MPs from each party redundant as the general population. So if 5% of the working population is out of work we have %5 Tories, Libs and labour MPs all made redundant. As the population of unemployed increases so do number of MPs. Let's all feel the pain!!

I fail to understand the whiners on this blog ranting on about Nick Clegg. I also disagree with the rhetoric that a vote for lib dem is basically a vote against labour or conservative. Does that not make them irrelevant? I have voted lib dem and conservative in the past BASED ON THEIR MANIFESTO. There are government actions being taken which do point to the lib dem influence and if they had refused to enter a coalition and just agreed to support a minority conservative government none of those policies would be there because Cameron would not have got them past the far right. The increase in capital gains and raising of the income tax threshold for a start. They are supporting radical reforms so of course they will be unpopular with some but they need to hold their nerve. In five years time people can make their judgements then.

#29 Sasha Clarkson - It was HMRC under a labour government who let vodafone off the 6 billion tax bill not Osborne.

31.

I for one merely point out that Clegg has said whatever he needs to at any particular time for his own benefit...and this involves some quite startling inconsistences...see my previous posts.

Now, after courting the votes of those disenchanted with Labour during the election campaign he now gives an interview to the Times dismissing them as having no future in the party.

If I was one of those voters I would (with some justification) feel just a tiny bit miffed. It seems many have...hence 23% at the GE and as low as 12% in many polls now.

If you cannot see why many find Clegg's behavior disgraceful your failure to understand is excused.

Whatever difficult decisions Nick Clegg thinks his Party and the Tories are ConDemned to take, there is certainly one that they will duck for as long as possible - namely, reducing the National Debt - which I see has crossed the £950,000,000,000 threshold during the past week.

Nothing short of printing money wholesale, aka Quantitive Easing (QE) will now stop the National Debt exceeding £1,000,000,000,000 by Christmas.

Looks and feels like the mother-of-double-dippers is well on its way, which is going to make politicians from right across the political spectrum very popular - not.

Plenty for them all to chat about during their conference season - but I expect the political head will be wedged firmly up the collective backside.

The 'solutions' need to be much more radical than we've seen so far.

@30 - Eddythered.

You are far too kind. MPs are from the public sector, and it is from there that the cuts will come (at least initially - the knock-on effect to the private sector will follow soon after.) So let the MPs suffer the same percentage cuts as the public sector. The victims should be selected at random, by a lottery, and ALL names, including ministers and the PM, should be entered into it. Then we should look at the rate of home repossessions, and confiscate and sell the properties of a suitable number of MPs too. Or should these measures only apply to those MPs who vote for the cuts?

Perhaps ministers who have private wealth should be encouraged to serve for nothing, like the Olympic volunteers they're seeking, pour encourager les aûtres? Though, to be fair, it should be noted that Olympic supremo Lord Coe is being paid rather more than Mr Cameron.

@31 Juliet - re Vodaphone, yes and no - it's a case of "business as usual", or worse.

https://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/cd1f1618-abcb-11df-9f02-00144feabdc0,stream=FTSynd,dwp_uuid=e78ced54-d0bd-11dc-953a-0000779fd2ac,s01=1.html

As usual, Private Eye dissects the real meaning of the words in issue 1270.

As for your insulting other bloggers for "whining" - you obviously think it's ok to say one thing before being elected, but another thing afterwards? That is what Mr Clegg has been caught - in flagranté - doing.

32 craigmarlpool

"If I was one of those voters I would (with some justification) feel just a tiny bit miffed. It seems many have...hence 23% at the GE and as low as 12% in many polls now"

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

I am quite amused by the situation.

Lib-Dems are in favour of PR, PR gives rise to coalitions, coalitions involve compromise over policy.

Be careful what you wish for!

Clegg can say all he likes but he told Nick Robinson in an interview that before the election he supported the Labour timescales for cuts,but that during the general election he realised that the cuts needed to be those planned by the Tories although he never told the electorate until afterwards.

Jon Sopel had Vince Cable squirming today on the same issue, although Cable at least tried to argue that his miraculous conversion was after the election.

Its possible to forgive politicians who make mistakes but not when they dissemble. I can never trust the party again.

32 Listening to Clegg at the conference this afternoon I understood him to say that he does not want the party just to become the receptacle for dissatisfied labour voters not that they had no future in the party and again I would say that people should look at the manifestos when they vote. The polls for both conservatives and lib dems are down because people are concerned about how the cuts will affect them.

All of the leaders made comments during the election I am sure they would rather not have made and Clegg is no different. At the moment the only thing I find disgraceful is that the previous government left our economy in such a dire state, something I predicted a good five or six years ago even before the banking crisis.

28. At 8:43pm on 19 Sep 2010, mikerophone wrote:
It seems that many Libdems would have preferred Clegg to have done a deal with Labour and others, keeping Gordon Brown, Mandelson, Balls and Campbell in power and a totally split, spent, minority Labour party to finish the job of totally wrecking Britain. Alternatively, he could have allowed the Tories to rule with a minority government and gone back to being leader of the wasted vote party.

/////////////////////////////////
I cannot speak for "many Libdems" but my preference would be have been for Clegg to stand up for Liberal Dem policies.

Instead of colluding behind closed doors he should have let Cameron form a minority Tory Government. In the interest of some stability he should have promised Cameron publicly that his party would abstain on motions of no confidence for an agreed period. It would then have been for Cameron to enact legislation that carried the majority of the House.

37. At 11:00pm on 19 Sep 2010, juliet50 wrote:

All of the leaders made comments during the election I am sure they would rather not have made and Clegg is no different. At the moment the only thing I find disgraceful is that the previous government left our economy in such a dire state, something I predicted a good five or six years ago even before the banking crisis.
//////////////////////////////////
You predicted this is 2004? With foresight like that you should have stood for election yourself.

Danny Alexander has shot a massive hole in his credibility by lumping tax "evasion" and tax "avoidance" in the same category.

"Evasion" is basically fraud, where people use illegal practices that go against tax law so that they don't pay tax. That should quite rightly be stamped on hard.

"Avoidance" is the simple act of using existing valid tax law to not pay tax when you don't have to.

Tax "avoidance" is not immoral; it's actually the duty of every citizen to avoid paying tax that they don't have to pay.

Not paying tax on the first few £k of your income is "avoidance", but it's something that accountants, and the government itself, wants/expects everyone to do.

When the law says "here's a way that the government has created which is designed to stop you from paying tax in this situation..." then you're supposed to use it; it's not immoral, it's how tax and the law works.

You can't punish people for "avoidance" because, by definition, tax "avoidance" is something that is perfectly legal, and expected/valid.

Also, people who use "loopholes" in the law is the same as people using "avoidance" - if there's a loophole in the law then by definition using that loophole is perfectly legal and you can't punish someone for it.

What you can do, however, is change the law to close such loopholes, which will then turn some aspects of what used to be "avoidance" into "evasion" going forwards, but you can't retrospectively punish someone for "avoidance" when they were following legal procedures that were there at the time.

Danny Alexander's approach on this front is a bit frightening; if he doesn't know the difference between evasion and avoidance, then he's in for some very costly court cases, most of which he'd lose at great cost to the tax payer.

The difference between avoidance and evasion exists in every country in the world, and all courts in the democratic world will protect someone who "avoided" tax but will punish people who "evaded" it, because that is the very nature of how tax and the law is intended to work.

You can't say to people "you don't have to pay tax on the first £5k of your income", and then after a few years turn back to people and say "oh, no, I didn't mean you, I meant these people, sorry I didn't mention that before...pay the money back"

By all means stamp down hard on evasion, and also close loopholes to reclassify more aspects of avoidance into evasion going forwards, but leave people who "avoided" tax in the past alone, because "avoidance" is perfectly legal/expected and moral.

I have been listening to some of the Speakers at the Lib-Dem Conference, and the thing that has struck me is that time after time People have got up to explain what they saw in their prior vision to the Country Run-Up of last May's General Election, which was from the sounding of things was indeed the last time they as a Political Party were somewhat within their Comfort - Zone.

One Person said that the Lib-Dems should NOW bring ALL their Talents into Government, for this begs the Question as to how bad doe's things stand out within the Rank and File, to the failures currently representing them in Government Speaks Volumes in terms of had badly many in this Party now feels that they have been badly mis-lead and let down, or in other Words, - Speaking in Code so as not to give the Game away as to how the Majority in the Lib-Dems within the Rank and File NOW today feel.

Clegg however at best sounds like General Custer at his Last Stand, by trying to find any workable gaps that he alone thinks dictates the differences between his Party and his preferred Con Party, while others are doing Lip-Service to the tune of "We must tell People how our Policies differ from those of our Conservative Partners in Government", when in fact it is the Gallery whom should be dictating the Parties Terms of reference in Government towards the Floor.

Others of course within this mis-match of a Political Party are making the most of things by sounding like some Second - Rated grouping of add -ons to the Conservative way of thinking, since they are giving only themselves the impression ( and no - one else ), the impression that they do fully understand what Conservative Policy in Government is ALL about, and if have got this far and worked - out what the Conservative message is for a fairer Britain then I would suggest that they off - load this enjoyment of knowledge into the Conservative Party Camps, as they ( The Cons ) for sure don't have one Single clue as to either what they are doing - ( other than making the Rich and Elite even Richer ), while the rest of us including the majority of Lib-Dems Supporters are totally Clueless as to where ALL these un-wanted Cuts in Public Expenditure is taking us, or indeed why ALL these Cuts have to be made in ONE go.

Expect therefore, more Coded Messages to be given by whats left of the once faithful in-crowd at this Weeks Lib-Dem Party Conference.

@35 Actually, PR could mean more minority governments which can't impose laws and policies which 60% of the population voted against. It depends upon how principled the politicians choose to be.

PR or not, parties which are perceived to betray the trust of those who voted for them will get trashed, and rightly so.

@37 Ah the sophisticated approach - never mind what he said, what's important is what YOU understood him to mean. But, looking at your blogging history, I'd wager odds of 100-1* that you voted Tory anyway. IF so, it's your party which has benefitted from Cleggs duplicity, so you wouldn't be "whining" or "ranting" would you?

As for your comment "At the moment the only thing I find disgraceful is ...Blah" A multiple of wrongs make a right do they? In any case, your subsequent statement would be hotly contested by some. Diversion, special pleading, and more. I would commend RH Thouless "Straight and Crooked Thinking" to you. Appendix 1 describes "Thirty-four dishonest tricks in argument." You have, no doubt unconsciously, used several of them.

*the wager being with a higher authority - I respect the secret ballot.

LabourBankruptyedUsAll @ 40 I originally the post was an attempt at satire. I then realised just how pleased I would be if this government does follow through and crackdown on both tax avoidance and tax evasion.

Your attempt to draw a clear distinction between tax evasion and tax avoidance may help to salve your conscience but is entirely naive. The point of the new Coalition policy will be

- to make tax avoidance much more difficult/risky; and

- to catch and punish more tax evaders.

If I had my way HMRC would be taking a VERY close look at your recent tax returns.

re 43. At 00:00am on 20 Sep 2010, Cassandra

Tax "avoidance" is perfectly legal and valid.

eg if you worked part-time last year and only earned £5000 then you were technically guilty of tax avoidance because you would have been under the tax threshold; ie you avoided paying tax on your income, and you did this because that's what the law told you to do, and that's what the government told and expected you to do.

Tax avoidance is where you don't pay tax because you're not required by law to pay it. It's completely legal, valid, and moral.

If the government has told people not to pay tax in a given instance (either explicitly, or implicitly by creating lazily-defined laws) then that money has gone forever and can never be reclaimed.

That is how tax and the law works.

You can't make retrospective changes to tax law and then demand money back from people who were told at the time by the government that they didn't need to pay it.

What they can/should do is change the law to close loopholes and to stop avoidances that are unfair/unexpected.

"Avoidance" by definition is perfectly legal.

"Evasion" is illegal.

It's up to the government to change the law to turn relevant "avoidances" into "evasion" going forwards, but they can't do so restrospecticaly.

My recent tax returns are perfectly valid/fine, and I'd be happy for HMRC to do a full audit on my situation if they wanted to, because I haven't used any "avoidance" measures other than using my basic tax-threshold that everyone in the country uses.

You're confusing someone who's defending a basic right on the grounds of fairness and legality, with someone else who might be defending their own actions of avoidance. I don't use tax "avoidance" measures other than the basic threshold, but I'll defend the rights of others to use it because "avoidance" is valid and legal; it's down to the government to draft laws properly if they think that an "avoidance" measure needs to be invalidated going forwards.

If a 2 year old has been given £20 by a grandparent and put it in their child bank-account and got 20p interest, and not paid tax on that interest, then the 2 year old is guilty of "avoidance" too; would you want to send the 2 year old to jail for not paying the tax on 20p of interest on a total annual income of £20?

Tax avoidance - perfectly legal eg Phillip Green's wife getting substantial sums from their companies paid into overseas accounts (according to a report I saw). If he wants to be part of the Big Society and is helping the government clamp down on waste, shouldn't he be acting in a way that recognises that a large bulk of his profits are made in this country?

In that respect he is worse than many bankers who at least are making profits overseas and bringing money into this country, even if they take a lot of it out in tax avoidance.

In the US there is a tradition of giving to charities (whilst not leaving yourself exactly poor), perhaps those who see large scale tax avoidance as an OK thing to do (morally) could start off by giving large sums to the third sector. There are large numbers of charities which are dreading the spending cuts as they rely on support from public funds, especially those that work in our more deprived areas.

The big society shouldn't be just middle class parents creating the schools that they want. It should be about those with wealth helping the less well off. Large scale tax avoiders should be in the vanguard of this. They probably do this in a small way, but how much money do you need? The interest on Phil's savings would keep a whole range of projects going.

41.

The LDs have a fundamental problem within their party. In the south and west they are right leaning...an alternative to the Tories. In the north they lean much more to the left and appeal to disaffected Labour voters.

Now, it appears to me that the leadership comprises (on the whole) the former...those from the now infamous Orange Book school.

For the moment it seems they remain giddy on power. I do not feel it will be long before rank and file follow voters.

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

Its even more interesting that the party members are referred to by a journalist as "storm troopers". Immediately puts a negative spin into our minds...

Mind you, with some of the party die-hards, its not far from the truth. It is a problem that is all parties suffer from, particularly Labour, but the Tories are also pretty bad...

"If a 2 year old has been given £20 by a grandparent and put it in their child bank-account and got 20p interest, and not paid tax on that interest, then the 2 year old is guilty of "avoidance" too; would you want to send the 2 year old to jail for not paying the tax on 20p of interest on a total annual income of £20?" - 44

Personal allowance (I think?) so toddler in the clear. But if not, well maybe a case to answer. Still no jail, however, since below the age of criminal responsibility. Maybe go after the grandparents. Not quite Philip Green though, is it? Touch of the reductio ad absurdums. Still, yes, your point holds - forget "morality", it's about the law.

Evasion versus avoidance. Challenge is:

1. Catch all evasion.

2. Rewrite the laws such that the avoidance which is really evasion, to all intents and purposes, becomes that.

3. Back to 1.

I heard on Radio 5 this morning that the Government is having to borrow £450 million a day because of the reckless spending by Labour.

£450 million evry single day.

Somebody could lead a reasonably comfortable life for the rest of their life without ever having to work if they had one-half of one percent of what the Government is forcedto borrow every single day.

How can anyone possibly pretend that cuts are not needed?

"Will Nick Clegg stop at nothing to rouse his party's storm troopers? "

Wrong question. Real question is "is there anything Clegg and his colleagues in the top layer of his party (and it can't possibly be only him who's leading the party in this despicable sellout) won't stop at to grab, hold and keep their position in government?"

I foolishly voted Lib Dem last time because of the promises about poilcy made on the leaflets of the local parliamantary candidate. Not as single one of those is being followed through, so I reckon I was either lied to by that candidate or they didn't have the backbone to stand by their promises when their party leader offered them a tiny sliver of 'power'.

Either way, that's a party I will never, ever support again in any way, shape or form.

"Rewrite the laws such that the avoidance which is really evasion, to all intents and purposes, becomes that."

Hmm, I see, so keeping within the law but not in the way you'd like. We could apply that to speeding. You could stand at the side of the road in a 30 mph zone and if someone was travelling at 29 mph but not in the way you like (perhaps you could tell just by looking at him that he voted Conservative) you could fine him anyway. Nice one!

But go on then, Saga, give us an example of this avoidance that is really evasion.

I mean to say, it's easy and trite to just say "if I was in charge I'd make everything alright and everything would be great" but we've already seen under Labour that impossible promises are really just a dishonest election tactic and a betrayal of the electorate.

On tax planning. I always think it's worth listening to people who have experience and know what they are talking about (sadly few and far between on here) so here's a couple of quotes:

"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. The Inland Revenue is not slow - and quite rightly - to take every advantage which is open to it under the taxing
statutes for the purpose of depleting the taxpayer's pocket. And the taxpayer is, in like manner, entitled to be astute to prevent, so far as he honestly can, the depletion of his means by the Revenue". Lord Clyde in Ayrshire Pullman Motor Services & Ritchie v CIR

"Every man is entitled, if he can, to order his affairs so that the tax attaching under the appropriate Acts is less than it otherwise would be".
Lord Tomlin in IRC v Duke of Westminster

The first quote (including the taxman doing everything he can to get as much as he can) is pertinant at the moment where I work. A client company of mine didn't keep any records of their use of 'pool' cars (and there isn't actually a statutory duty to do so) but it means that they can't PROVE that the pool vehicles were never used for private purposes (it being very difficult to prove a negative) so HMRC are taking the line that as my client can't prove the vehicles weren't used privately, the company and the Director are to be assessed to tax. To accept the case made by HMRC you'd have to believe that at one point the Director had six company cars. To fight the case in Tribunal would cost upwards of £25,000 in fees, the cost of giving in is £30,000 in tax and interest. Since there's no absolute guarantee we'd win, he's giving in and paying £30,000 he knows damn well isn't due. All on the technicality of not keeping records there isn't actually a statutory duty to keep.

Anyone who thinks HMRC play by the 'spirit' of the law and so the taxpayer should as well is deluded.

So excuse my client if he decides to use technicalities of tax law in the future to avoid paying tax. Hopefully we can find around £30,000 worth of savings.

Can anyone tell me what Nick Clegg should have done?

We could have had a Lib/Lab coalition.....which wouldn't even have a majority...?

Or maybe a rather impotent Conservative minority Government?

I'm not sure why either of those would have been better. Can anyone explain?

I am amazed that there is so little coverage of the final push for the Labour leadership. Even Mandy's snipe at Edd the brother made little inroads into the LD coverage. Is this down to the fact that very few are interested or that the press think it is down to the big block voters now.

What do we think the odds are now;

David Miliband - was odds on favourite now slipping into second position Partly due to his Nu Labour loyalty.

Edd Miliband - was seen initially as a long shot but has now become favourite with the rank and file of Old Labour.

Edd Balls - Falling back due to his belligerent attitude and continuance to his spending policies, which are now even seen as unsustainable by even the far left.

Andy Burnham - Mediocrity at its best, a rank outsider with a defined set of followers / supporters. Appears to many as too far to the left with swinging tendencies.

Diane Abbott - Well all great races have a grannies favourite and Diane is surely this.

So there we have it, all the runners and riders. Edd Miliband now appears to be the favourite but his brother is still in a close second position. As was said to me me last Friday "the true contest is between Old Labour (or New Nu Labour as some are calling it) and Nu Labour". We could be witnessing the death of the great experiment and the resurgence of Old Labour. Viva La Difference as I think they say......

I understand that four out of ten of the people who voted liberal would not do so again due to the issue of supporting the tories.

Both in terms of people I meet and what I see in the media, the crunch point is for people who voted liberal to keep the tories out only to find that Clegg had cut a shabby deal to let the tories in.

Should we be using the word BETRAYED ?

"Edd Miliband
Edd Balls"

Chris at 55. I'm intrigued at the additional "d". Is this some Labour affectation or another sign of their innate desire to expand everything they have control over?

I actually find the whole thing quite funny and for once I'm going to quite happily quote Gordon Brown.

"I agree with Nick"


Nick Robinson, that is.

Anybody who seriously believed that the Libs were any different to the existing duopoly, that they'd actually be different and do what they said they would and not be troughing with the rest of them and pandering to the established vested interests.....??

Mugs, the lot of them. Just how naive are they?? Hah!

Nick R's previous blog, I am happy to say, was 100% absolutely cast-iron, nailed down fact which I cannot disagree with in any way. Get over it. Over the next 4 years, the middle ground will slowly be seen by the electorate to be what it really is. A squalid, facile, empty attempt by those at the troughs to be everything to all voters, in order for them to maintain their place in the heirarchy.

By the time 2015 comes around, the third way will be history and the main parties will gravitate back towards their more "natural" political positions. The middle ground will be left to the LibDems and by that point, as has already been contemplated by conference - they're not going into a joint campaign, but cant slag the tories off for what they are failing to prevent going through parliament, they cant advocate their own way forward because their voters will wonder why the hell they didnt do it when they were in power - all in all a huge strategic gamble that will almost certainly go wrong and leave them even worse off than they were before.

UNLESS...

They choose to try and maintain an alliance with the conservatives to push Labour even further left back to the unelectable policies of the 1980s. This would potentially make Labour a third force, would further marginalise the more extreme backbench elements of both Libs and Cons and could - not necessarily will - could, possibly deliver government by consensus.

Knowing what British party politics is like though, at least two of the three mainstream parties will push the self destruct button and you, the voters, will be left picking up the pieces. For a change.

56 "I understand that four out of ten of the people who voted liberal would not do so again due to the issue of supporting the tories.

...

Should we be using the word BETRAYED ?"

Dunno. Maybe six out of ten people voted Liberal in order to keep Labour out.

Maybe if those people looked, they'd see Liberal policies (increase in personal tax allaowances taking 900,000 out of tax altogether) which wouldn't have been implemented otherwise.

Besides, as I pointed out at 54, what else should Nick have done? Should we have had another election? With Labour's wanton spending carrying on in the meantime (during 2009 the number of public sector workers went UP by 47,000 despite the recession)?

Interesting take on that, Nick.

I wonder if in three, maybe six, years time Nick Clegg will be saying more openly and specifically: Labour wanted a bad deal for the Lib Dems, the Conservatives offered something better. The final alternative was an autumn General Election with nothing being done in the meantime to deal with the Nation's problems. And at that GE the LibDems may have fared no better and perhaps would suffer badly.

Or will he still be tight lipped?

56. At 09:02am on 20 Sep 2010, jon112dk wrote:
I understand that four out of ten of the people who voted liberal would not do so again due to the issue of supporting the tories.

Both in terms of people I meet and what I see in the media, the crunch point is for people who voted liberal to keep the tories out only to find that Clegg had cut a shabby deal to let the tories in.

Should we be using the word BETRAYED ?
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Did the Pollsters ask - after getting the answers from the 4 in 10 - will you vote Tory?

I wonder if all would say no?

re #57
Chuckle of the Day Award already!

re #5
Sigh! SIGH!

If only Danny read these Blogs!

He would know that avoidance is legal and is created by the Chancellor and evasion is illegal and done by the taxpayer. [Then there is the grey area for grey men in grey suits - MPs]

I accept that he does not have a financial background. But as First Secretary to The Treasury he should have been better briefed by his officials.

re #24
Chuckle of The Day Award - Joint Winner

44. labourbankruptedusall wrote:

You apparently do not understand the difference between tax avoidance and tax evasion.

In all your examples no tax is due therefore nothing has been avoided or evaded.

A more suitable example to your case would be deciding to save in an ISA instead of saving in standard deposit account. Tax on the interest has been avoided by this simple measure - perfectly legal and as intended by Government to encourage saving. Had you saved only in a deposit and eschewed an ISA then you would voluntarily be paying tax which you did not need to and therefore not be avoiding it.

The immoral aspects of avoidance which are referred to I believe are those where specific measures or structures are devised to offshore taxable income/profits (i.e. activities for which income is earned in the UK which you might expect to be subject UK tax but is through artificial structures offshored).
e.g. A UK registered company uses a subsiduary registered in a tax haven to own UK base operation and derive an income from these activities in the UK - the ultimate beneficial owner of the subsiduary are British, the income is earned in Britain yet the only thing not British is the money which becomes non-taxable until (or if ever) it is returned to the UK.
Or you can take the Dublin lark - where companies have moved to Ireland for corporate tax (10%) with just a small nominal head-office that is just about all that has moved, all the operations remain in the UK only the income and profit has been moved, all perfectly legal in certain conditions but all clearly avoiding tax.
or you can take the very common practice where companies submit "management" fees to nominal ownership companies held in tax havens (Caymans, BVI, Monaco) etc. which, from personal experience, are nothing of the sort just offshoring mechanisms for profits earned in a particular company. Again all perfectly legal avoidance measures.
Or you can take UK companies selling goods to UK consumers through their UK websites which for some items inform you that in fact you will be buying it from a Channel Islands based company, so as to avoid VAT. Again perfectly legal however the result is lost revenue which would have derived had the same goods being bought instore at the same company in the UK. Both consumer and company are consiring to avoid a tax.
Or you might consider having your UK compnay take out huge loans and then pay out these loans as a dividend to a non-UK resident i.e. relatively tax free. The UK company now pays interest on the loans which is tax deductable thus reducing the tax due from the UK business in future.
Or the 'flipping' ruse used by many MPs of switching designations of primary residence to avoid CGT on 2nd home sales.
All perfectly legal avoidance but is it really moral?

These are the typical immoral uses of avoidance(IMHO) - however business is not about morals - it is totally amoral in many cases (not all), these are the rules and how best to make use of them, it's not immoral or moral in their view - so long as it is (or is advised to be) legal then it is OK.

Evasion is simply breaking the rules deliberately - or following legal action having the particular ruse deemed to be solely for avoiding tax and therefore evasion.

The UK tax code is simply too complex which provides opportunities for avoidance by switching earnings from income to capital (the favoured approach) as the rules allow. A simple example is the difference between a cake and a biscuit or a crisp or a potato based snack - both cases where large amounts of legal resources have been used to have a product declared on thing or the other to best suit tax avoidance measures.

It is indeed a good thing that the Libdems are highlighting this aspect of losses to the tax take rather than the much lower losses which are due to scroungers on the benefit system. This offsets the redtop attempts to blame all the ills of the country on benefit cheats which rather ignores the wider picture.

One person's "selling out" is another's "compromising". If Nick Clegg had refused to broker a deal with another party or parties after the election, he would have been accused of getting his priorities wrong and putting his politics before a country in financial trouble. He's doomed to be damned whatever he did or does it seems. He brokered a deal with the Conservatives and must make the best of that. And who knows how much bargaining is going on behind the scenes, and what is yet to come from the coalition. They've hardly been given a chance to get started before the criticism started.

59. At 09:18am on 20 Sep 2010, AndyC555

Besides, as I pointed out at 54, what else should Nick have done?
===================

Fundamentally did he have a mandate from his voters for either (a) putting the tories in office (b) the cuts. This would need him to tell the voters what he intends to do before the election and then they vote for him anyway.

I did not see this - hence the word BETRAYED.

What could he have done? SNP suggested that he form no permanent coalition and the liberals vote with their conscience on each individual issue. If the tories then have to go back to the polls he could at least say he did the right thing according to his conscience and the people who voted for him.

Putting the party of evil into power, just for the grubby gain of a few years of personal power, is sure to come back to haunt him.

#45 Boilerbill wrote:
"The interest on Phil's savings would keep a whole range of projects going."

Not if he left the country of course.

65#

Neil,

Good points well made, but who is their targets? The corporates who are behaving in exactly the way you highlight, or is it a mere sop to the left-leaning elements who wish to bash the rich - or those they perceive to be rich?

Do we have any real indication that the LD's intend to be any more forward thinking on this subject? Or is it just going to be more of the same red meat for the angry villagers, if you pardon the mixed metaphors.

#46 craigmarpool wrote:
"The LDs have a fundamental problem within their party. In the south and west they are right leaning...an alternative to the Tories. In the north they lean much more to the left and appeal to disaffected Labour voters."

Yes, I've also regularly pointed out the LibDems strategic problem.

The self-image of most LibDem MPs and activists is progressive and left-leaning. It's their identity, and that's why coalition with the Tories is an existential crisis for them.

However, many of their seats, and the seats in which they came second are Tory/LibDem marginals in prosperous parts of the country (Richmond and Twickenham, for example). On a relatively crude class analysis, MPs from these areas will ultimately not support a transfer of economic resources from middle to poor because it is not in the interests of the type of constituents they represent.

LibDems will be "progressive" and reform-minded on non-economic issues because doing so supports their chosen identity and does not threaten the economic interests of their constituents. But in economic matters, after much huffing and puffing, they are more likely to support the Tories (or a New Labour manifestation of the same thing).

This strategic contradiction is masked by opposition, as the right turn of phrase can gloss over the problem. But access to Government requires decision-making, and that's exactly the kind of thing LibDems didn't join their party to do.

So my advice to the LibDems at the next election is this: go back to your constituencies and prepare for permanent opposition You will be much happier there. And leave real politics to real political parties.

67#

Yet at no point did you question whether any prospective alliance with Labour would have been good for either the Lib Dems or for the country either?

Yes.

In answer to my previous question, yes, you really are that naive.

What a sucker.... LOL.

Whistling Neil - great post. Does anyoe think it is "morally right" to use the mechanisms described to avoid tax liability? Isn't this just another form of scrounging from society for personal gain?

33. JohnConstable

Yes indeed, & it makes all of the discussions on cuts “drop in the ocean stuff" when compared with the bigger issues you mention.

Oh, BTW Jon, considering you're going on about Betrayal, do you remember this far back, by any chance? This time last year???


https://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/sep/18/nick-clegg-liberal-democrats-spending

Whilst not in any supporting its morality, I suspect certain types of tax evasion (cash in hand to builders, for example, but not tax havens) actually encourages economic activity.

But of course we should be encouraging lower tax rates, not illegality.

"Tax evaders are the unsung heroes of the domestic economy".

I could also have said heroine, but somehow my mental picture of a tax evader is always male.

65 - The Dublin 'lark'? That would be where a seperate country from the UK lowered its Corporation Tax rates to encourage inward investment create jobs and were succesful in so doing? Wonder what we can learn from that? Perhaps we could ban other countries from having lower tax rates than our own. That would be interesting. We do already have transfer pricing legislation to police cross border transactions, so the idea they are all a sham doesn't really hold water.

If the management of a company genuinely exists in another country, then it is entitled to a share in profits. If the management has genuinely moved off-shore to take advantage of lower tax rates, what do you suggest we do? Ban companies from doing so? If it isn't genuine, let's police it better.

VAT....small value imported goods (I think the figure is £17) are exempt from VAT, hence the channel Island DVDs & CDs. Why? Primarily because collecting the VAT would cost more than the VAT collected. Again, what would you solution be? Collect all VAT at whatever cost? Ban overseas countries from sending small value goods to the UK?

As for your 'borrow huge sums & pay out foreign dividends", I assume you've worked out a way round the country's 'thin capitalisation' rules which would disbar such interest from being a CT deduction?

'House Flipping' is an area where some reform is needed although to me the real scandal wasn't the CGT angle but the 'expenses' part whereby MPs did up a property on taxpayers' money, 'flipped' to a second property and then did that up as well. As is usually the case, the tax angle isn't well understood. If a property is your private residence, you don't pay CGT on it. If you have two residences you can elect which is treated as your private residence. But you can only have 1 private residence at a time. The 'abuse' angle is that if a property has at any time been your private residence, the last 3 years of ownership are treated as private whether or not they actually are. so if in year 1 you buy a second property, elect that it is private, elect back 1 month later and then sell after 3 years you have (effectively) had 2 tax free CGT properties for 3 years (all bar 1 month). The time period USED to be 1 year, simply to allow for situations where someone had to buy a new property (say for work reasons to relocate) and then there was a delay in selling the original property. It was extended to 3 years during the housing slump in the late 1980s/ early 1990s as properties were taking ages to sell. I could never understand why Labour didn't change it back to a year after they got back in power when the housing market was so bullish. The answer became clear when we found out how many Labour MPs benefited from the old, out-dated rules.

"72. At 10:40am on 20 Sep 2010, Cassandra wrote:
Whistling Neil - great post. Does anyoe think it is "morally right" to use the mechanisms described to avoid tax liability? Isn't this just another form of scrounging from society for personal gain?"

yes and no.

See my post at 53.

Is it 'morally right' that HMRC are squeezing £30k out of my client for not keeping records that there's no statutory duty to keep?

Let no-one be in any doubt, you get something wrong in your tax afafirs and HMRC are down on you like a ton of bricks. No morals, no "well we know what you MEANT to do so we'll let you off".

Why should the taxpayer be hanstrung by morals that HMRC wouldn't recognise if they tripped over them?

75. johnharris66 wrote:

"Whilst not in any supporting its morality, I suspect certain types of tax evasion (cash in hand to builders, for example, but not tax havens) actually encourages economic activity".
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

No John, all it does is encourage the Gov’ make those of us on PAYE pay more in tax to make up the difference.
This in turn leaves me with less money to spend & therefore has a negative effect on the economy.

I’m afraid it’s a bit like a shoplifter convincing themselves that they really aren’t stealing, whilst neglecting the fact that the cost of the stolen good gets passed onto the legitimate customers instead.

Also, on international tax planning, let's have people's decision on this....

Big Corp Inc comes to you and says that they're considering a couple of optios:

Either

They come to the UK, create 10,000 jobs which results in far more PAYE tax and NIC being paid than they'd ever be likely to pay in Corporation Tax, only they don't much like CT anyway so are probably going to organise their affairs so they don't pay much in CT

OR

They don't come to the UK. No 10,000 jobs, No PAYE tax or NIC, no CT at all.

So there you are, Minister, bearing in mind that income tax and NIC accounts for 48% of all tax receipts and CT just 9% anyway, what's your choice?

AndyC555 I suspect I would often not agree with you but @76 I do agree with your statement about tax cheats:

"If it isn't genuine, let's police it better."

That is exactly the same attitude that should be adopted with benefit cheats.

Seem to me we spend a lot of our time talking about benefit cheats when there is a lot more money in going after tax cheats and their actions are just as morally reprehensible.

Hello! everyone.

Could I say that I agree with Andy. What could Nick Clegg have done? Had he failed to do a deal with the devil, the need for a second election would have been blamed on him and may have been reflected in Lib votes migrating to tory votes giving them a majority in their own right.

The coalition is unlikely to last as the differences cannot be reconciled with-in a FPTP electoral system.

Best outlook is for the libs to keep it going until the real effects of public spending cuts take hold, unemployment rising, home repossessions rising, schools deteriorating, the list will grow, and then withdraw in a principalled way.

An election will be called and Labour will be returned with a promise of a referendum on electoral reform, which Ed Balls will deliver.

You know Andy C555 @ 77 you sound just like this bloke in my local who spent much of last night whingeing about how the government cut his benefits because he did not show up at two interviews.

79#

And I guess thats realpolitik and why the loop hasnt been closed at all.

The 9% though mate - is that what is actually received, taking into account what is avoided in situations like these?

Shouldnt it at least though get to a blinking contest - if they do want to come to the UK, then it must be for some reason for something that they cant get anywhere else - is it the favourable CT regime, is it the availability of a trained workforce? There must be something that gets them to the point where this question is asked. I guess the return question is why? Why do you want to come here? It cant just be that we're a CT soft touch, there must be lots of those around the world.

Part of me - quite a big one - would be tempted to say, well you either play it by our rules or you sling your hook. I think I'd rather be faced with the shortfall of kicking them out than to end up in the situation we're in where they take the mickey.

also Andy, is the disproportion in PAYE/CT to do with the rates charged? Would that change if there was a simpler, flatter structure that wasnt 9000 pages long?

"An election will be called and Labour will be returned with a promise of a referendum on electoral reform, which Ed Balls will deliver."

Ed Balls couldnt deliver chuffin' pizza's door to door, let alone reform!!

Labour may well be returned, depending on how the scurry away from the political centre ground goes over the next 4 years - and if they are returned, the public will get everything they deserve for having done so. A good reason to stay abroad, methinks!

Will Clegg and his sidekicks who complain about Labour expenditure please set out clearly what they disliked (eg the Iraq war) and show how loudly they complained about it before May's election. They did not complain about Building Schools for the Future (nor did the Tories) yet it was quickly shut down by the coalition.
My take on all this is that Clegg was so desperate to be in Government his personal vanity was spotted by the Tories and pandered to by giving him a meaningless title and all the goodies that go with it. In return he sold his party lock, stock and barrel.

AndyC555 @ 79 - in your notional example will the company provide a written commitment to provide 10,000 jobs over X many years?

"82. At 11:41am on 20 Sep 2010, Cassandra wrote:
You know Andy C555 @ 77 you sound just like this bloke in my local who spent much of last night whingeing about how the government cut his benefits because he did not show up at two interviews."

In what way? My client didn't do something he didn't need to do. Your bloke didn't do something he was supposed to do.

If you're going to draw comparisons, you might at least draw valid ones.

After all, it would be slightly unfair of me to compare you to some drunk down my local near closing time who is incoherently trying to talk about a complex subject they clearly know nothing about.

Where I disagree with Andy is that his approach is based on the manipulation of an existing system which international capital successfully exploits.

The part that andy ignors is that, the money that is spirited away to off-shore accounts is earned by people who work in this country, people who are paying their share of tax and in fact are paying more than their fair share as some of the money they generate is taken from them by these arrangements and not taxed.

The money that Green apparently recieves from his companies in Britain, but has paid to his wife outside the Uk is generated by workers in this country. It should be kept in this country and taxed accordingly. Giving a larger pot for us to provide services to the very people who make the money in the first place.

"also Andy, is the disproportion in PAYE/CT to do with the rates charged? Would that change if there was a simpler, flatter structure that wasnt 9000 pages long?"

I agree a simpler flatter tax system would be beneficial. I think it's now over 11,000 pages long (around 5,000 pages in 1997 before Gordon got hold of it).

But the disproportion between PAYE/NIC is inevitable when you think about it. It's very difficult for a company to make higher profits than its wage bill and in any case, many businesses are not corporate so all profits are taxed to IT & NIC.

"86. At 11:57am on 20 Sep 2010, Cassandra wrote:
AndyC555 @ 79 - in your notional example will the company provide a written commitment to provide 10,000 jobs over X many years?"

Yes, they would. This wouldn't be the sort of situation we had when Kraft duped Labour over the jobs at the Keynsham Cadbury's factory, we're assuming a Government that knows something about business.

#84 FS

Don't hide behind an election result to explain your preference to live abroad, if you left because of Labour, but won't return with a tory government, we all conclude that you just prefer to live where you are, it's nothing to do with the colour of the government. Just be honest, you live abroad because you want to, regardless of which party is in power.

The curious thing is that the fear of our involvement in the EU is the damaging effect of state intervention in everyday life, so how is it for you? What do you enjoy about living in Europe?

One last thing, what do you have against Ed Balls?

69. At 10:31am on 20 Sep 2010, Fubar_Saunders wrote:
65#

Neil,

Good points well made, but who is their targets? The corporates who are behaving in exactly the way you highlight, or is it a mere sop to the left-leaning elements who wish to bash the rich - or those they perceive to be rich?

Do we have any real indication that the LD's intend to be any more forward thinking on this subject? Or is it just going to be more of the same red meat for the angry villagers, if you pardon the mixed metaphors.

================================================

As with any political message it is a balance - it does not seem to me to be an overt meat feast for the rich bashers since it simply identifies an area where money which we are short of is lost to the general national pot.

The relatively modest target and small amount of money (whilst continuing with the overall cuts programme for HMRC) suggest that like with all these cases - they recognise the difficulty of addressing these schemes which are perfectly legal but are percieved to be morally wrong and expect little progress.

It was I think more intended to balance the meesages which have been coming out on the cuts - i.e. welfare cuts are needed because they are all lazy cheats - which of course the media find the most egregious examples of morally wrong abuse to justify the overall cuts which will affect vastly more simply poor disadvantaged but basically honest people in addition.
The balance which is that there are those on the other side who simply avoid or evade tax was lost - the scales are vastly out of kilter - when you read that one company avoided a tax bill larger than the annual losses due to benefit fraud and incorrect payments, it puts a fairer picture and this is a valid attempt to provide balance.

This balancing was certainly what I hoped from the Libdems in the coalition - to offset the propaganda from the right wing which would blame all ills on the poor - ignoring that certainly there are the 'rich' who also have not helped the countries situation in just such a deliberate fashion.
That there is some attention with a limited ambition to attempt to address some of this 'lost' tax is positive - however the limited ambition is very obviously because these arrangements are difficult and expensive to prove. I would expect that most caught will not be the types of example I gave but more along the lines that AndyC555 identifies in his post 53.

In terms of indications of where the LD's intend to be more forward thinking the push to equalise capital and income tax rates (only partly successful thus far), the higher income tax thresholds (what on earth is the point of taxing people you then give benefits to, to offset the tax they have paid other than admin costs?) and this attempt to balance where fingers get pointed are all more sensible approaches which I think show some benefit of them being in coalition.

Switching Capital and Income about are regular 'morally dubious IMHO' ways to avoid taxes for example. It recognises that so long as differential rates apply people will always be able to seek ways to move monetary income into capital gain to avoid taxes - a fairer way is to tax both equally rather than engage in pointless haggling over individual rates.

Whilst the Conservative bootprint is still visible on the LibDem face - this at least is a start point to showing what the benefit of the coalition can and should be and why this is vastly more prefferable than a solely Conservative one.

AndyC555 @ 87

Of course you don't see the similarities - fortunately a good proportion of the population can see it.

And you are right I do not know the detail of tax system but then again seems to me you don't understand much about politics. You probably studied law or accountancy or some other similar vocational course.

#90 andy

The government didn;t sell Cadburies, the shareholders did. They couldn;t give a damn about the security of jobs, keep your sniping aimed at the proper target.

Are you saying you believe the government should have stopped the sale?

93 - "Of course you don't see the similarities - fortunately a good proportion of the population can see it."

Do elaborate.

"And you are right I do not know the detail of tax system"

Agreed.

"but then again seems to me you don't understand much about politics."

Do elaborate. Where have i demonstarted this, other than having opinions different to your own.

"You probably studied law or accountancy or some other similar vocational course."

Good grief no. Classical Civilisation. Hardly vocational.

88#

Fair enough stance, albeit a little predictable.

So, what would YOU do then? Show Green and Topshop/Arcadia the door and tell them to get lost? Along with all those jobs down the pan?

Or try and work out a different solution?

Put yourself in Andy's hypothetical ministers shoes. What would you do?

"94. At 12:48pm on 20 Sep 2010, eye-wish wrote:
#90 andy

The government didn;t sell Cadburies, the shareholders did. They couldn;t give a damn about the security of jobs, keep your sniping aimed at the proper target.

Are you saying you believe the government should have stopped the sale?"

I never said they did sell Cadburys, only that they were duped over it.

There were warnings about what might happen.....

"The government must secure meaningful pledges from Kraft, and police them so that Kraft cannot again walk away from a UK workforce.

"Ministers must make it abundantly clear that closures and mass redundancies will not be accepted by the British government or the British people."

That was Jack Dromey of Unite at the time. I wonder if he and Harriet had a chat about it.

Lord Mandleson met the Chief Executive of Kraft and said that he had been told to expect "Britain to be a net gainer in manufacturing output and employment" after the takeover. Hence my use of the word 'duped'.

I agree there might have been little that could be done, although the fact that Kraft got its funding for the takeover from the then largely state owned RBS was rather annoying.

Seems funny to me that prior to the election, Clegg and the libdems new exactly what to do. Post election they suddenly realised they were wrong and decided they had to do what the torys want them to do. I'm sure The tory party machine will make sure poor old Cleggie is condemned to death eventually. The best part moment of the coalition was seeing Cameron and Clegg trying to be the last one to pat the other on the back as they walked through the door of number 10, ask the behavioural scientists about that.

94#

Hmmm.....


https://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/dec/04/cadbury-bidders-will-face-opposition

https://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/jan/19/cadbury-accepts-kraft-bid

Same promises were made by Kraft when taking over Terrys of York...

"Union leaders called today for company takeover laws to be strengthened in the wake of the sale of Cadbury."

"Jack Dromey, deputy general secretary of Unite, said after the hearing: “Parliament has exposed the truth - Kraft lied. The 6,000 Cadbury workers will never trust Irene Rosenfeld [Kraft's chief executive] again unless she personally meets the workers and guarantees no factory closures or compulsory redundancies."

"The lasting legacy of this shameful saga must be a Cadbury law, banning hostile takeovers, clouded in secrecy, of successful British companies."

And what happened? What did Mr Harriet Harman do? What did Mandelson do? What did Brown do?

Squit. Nada. Nowt. Nothing.

Oh, apart from allow an 84% STATE OWNED BANK - RBS - to give the US firm the financial leverage to be able to carry out the takeover that is!

Further to my last, yes, shareholder responsibility is paramount. They are only going to ever have one outcome though and that is in their own interests and everyone, but everyone has their price.

But for the last Government incumbents and their union paymasters to make a whole heap of noise from the sidelines shouting about dont do this, dont do that, protect the workers, whilst at the same time allowing a state owned bank to provide the leverage for the sale is so pitiful it is almost laughable. It is not possible to take the slightest thing that they say seriously.