Should a referendum on Scottish independence only include people living in Scotland?

[Richard 1234]

16 minutes ago, Big J said:

My point was relating to the amount of tax being underpaid by large corporations trading in the UK. They use aggressive accountancy to reduce their declared profit, and then use further loopholes to reduce the tax they pay on their declared profit. 

 

Businesses on our level pay proportionally more tax than businesses like Amazon, regardless of whether you compare it to turnover or profit.

Turnover is still meaningless. You don’t get taxed on turnover.

they do however employ at lot of people who pay tax paye.

moaning about them isn’t going to change it. I’ve no doubt you would use all the loopholes if you made enough to warrant the expense of the accountants finding them

[Big J]

42 minutes ago, trigger_andy said:

Is that any different than all the self employed folk on here, yourself included Id imagine? Or do you tell your accountant to not apply for certain things? 

 

41 minutes ago, Richard 1234 said:

Turnover is still meaningless. You don’t get taxed on turnover.

they do however employ at lot of people who pay tax paye.

moaning about them isn’t going to change it. I’ve no doubt you would use all the loopholes if you made enough to warrant the expense of the accountants finding them

 

I of course utilise my accountant to minimise my tax bill. Anyone in my position would. 

 

It's a question of scale. The tax I pay makes little difference to anyone. I make a fairly modest income from my business. I am not in the position of someone like Jeff Bezos, where annual income is measured in billions. With that kind of power, comes responsibility and a moral duty. I am in no way suggesting anything akin to Corbynism, only that proportionally that they pay their fair share, which demonstrably they avoid doing.

[trigger_andy]

 
I of course utilise my accountant to minimise my tax bill. Anyone in my position would. 
 
It's a question of scale. The tax I pay makes little difference to anyone. I make a fairly modest income from my business. I am not in the position of someone like Jeff Bezos, where annual income is measured in billions. With that kind of power, comes responsibility and a moral duty. I am in no way suggesting anything akin to Corbynism, only that proportionally that they pay their fair share, which demonstrably they avoid doing.

It is not a question of scale but one of principle. How you can write that it’s ok for you to try and minimise your tax exposure but a company bigger than your own can’t without a hint of irony is baffling. Practice what you preach before expecting anyone or any entity to follow suit.

[Mull]

 
I of course utilise my accountant to minimise my tax bill. Anyone in my position would. 
 
It's a question of scale. The tax I pay makes little difference to anyone. I make a fairly modest income from my business. I am not in the position of someone like Jeff Bezos, where annual income is measured in billions. With that kind of power, comes responsibility and a moral duty. I am in no way suggesting anything akin to Corbynism, only that proportionally that they pay their fair share, which demonstrably they avoid doing.

It is not a question of scale but one of principle. How you can write that it’s ok for you to try and minimise your tax exposure but a company bigger than your own can’t without a hint of irony is baffling. Practice what you preach before expecting anyone or any entity to follow suit.

Of course scale is relevant!

Hundreds or millions?

If someone owed me a tenner and someone owed me a grand...which would hurt me more?

[Richard 1234]

1 hour ago, Big J said:

 

 

I of course utilise my accountant to minimise my tax bill. Anyone in my position would. 

 

It's a question of scale. The tax I pay makes little difference to anyone. I make a fairly modest income from my business. I am not in the position of someone like Jeff Bezos, where annual income is measured in billions. With that kind of power, comes responsibility and a moral duty. I am in no way suggesting anything akin to Corbynism, only that proportionally that they pay their fair share, which demonstrably they avoid doing.

They obviously pay what they have too or they would be in court.

its no good blaming the company.

the government needs to close the loopholes. I do think that amazon (as an example) would simply raise prices if they were made to pay more.

[Mull]

They obviously pay what they have too or they would be in court.
its no good blaming the company.
the government needs to close the loopholes. I do think that amazon (as an example) would simply raise prices if they were made to pay more.

I think ‘closing the loopholes’ is what J is suggesting? And now you too?

[Guest Gimlet]

What loopholes, specifically? There is no such thing as tax avoidance; it's called financial planning. Who in their right mind volunteers to pay more than the legal minimum? 

Why not just pay your entire income to the state and live on a universal dole returned to you by the government? It's a system that has been tested to destruction with monotonous repetition over the last hundred years and we can see for ourselves it has worked brilliantly everywhere it's been tried. Embrace the people's revolution and do away with elections, choice, free will, aspiration, personal responsibility, privacy, private property, hope and all the other evils that have caused all the trouble in human history.  

 

Edited December 28, 2019 by Gimlet

[Stubby]

See if you can get Amazon's accountant to do your books J ?

Edited December 28, 2019 by Stubby

[Big J]

8 hours ago, Richard 1234 said:

They obviously pay what they have too or they would be in court.

its no good blaming the company.

the government needs to close the loopholes. I do think that amazon (as an example) would simply raise prices if they were made to pay more.

They do find themselves in court though:

 

US appeals court sides with Amazon in $1.5 billion transfer pricing dispute–MNE Tax

MNETAX.COM

---

A US federal appeals court on Friday affirmed the Tax Court's decision in Amazon, ruling that cost sharing buy-in payments made by Amazon's Luxembourg subsidiary to . . .

 

9 hours ago, trigger_andy said:

 

 

It is not a question of scale but one of principle. How you can write that it’s ok for you to try and minimise your tax exposure but a company bigger than your own can’t without a hint of irony is baffling. Practice what you preach before expecting anyone or any entity to follow suit.
 

 

 

We need an accountant in order to organise our accounts and present them to HMRC. I don't ask him to do anything untoward, anything nefarious, simply to offset the machinery  I've bought against the tax I pay. We set ourselves up as a LTD earlier this year to lower our tax bill as we would have ended up paying a lot more as a sole trader. This is just basic stuff. No one in their right mind as the sole income provider is going to willingly give away £20-30k extra to HMRC. 

[Richard 1234]

35 minutes ago, Big J said:

They do find themselves in court though:

 

US appeals court sides with Amazon in $1.5 billion transfer pricing dispute–MNE Tax

MNETAX.COM

---

A US federal appeals court on Friday affirmed the Tax Court's decision in Amazon, ruling that cost sharing buy-in payments made by Amazon's Luxembourg subsidiary to . . .

 

We need an accountant in order to organise our accounts and present them to HMRC. I don't ask him to do anything untoward, anything nefarious, simply to offset the machinery  I've bought against the tax I pay. We set ourselves up as a LTD earlier this year to lower our tax bill as we would have ended up paying a lot more as a sole trader. This is just basic stuff. No one in their right mind as the sole income provider is going to willingly give away £20-30k extra to HMRC. 

If you are saving 20-30k in tax you are not making an average income as you claim to be.

and you have just said no one in their right mind will pay too much tax yet in the same breath you would say the big corporations should willingly pay more......