But wee Jimmy down the street living on the dole is the issue, he’s the true scrounging criminal we need to be worried about. That 400 quid a month is a travesty.
And when you buy something on Amazon UK, the invoice has this at the bottom, funny that!
“Amazon EU, Société à responsabilité limitée, 38 avenue John F. Kennedy, L-1855 Luxembourg. Share capital: EUR 125.000; Registered in Luxembourg; RCS Luxembourg No: B 101818; Business Licence Number: 134248; Luxembourg VAT Registration Number: LU 20260743.”
“Barclays avoids almost £2bn in tax via Luxembourg scheme”
Then get rid of corporation tax, and put it on employer’s National Insurance.
Profit shifting schemes won’t work then, and the tax will be targeted correctly – reducing job offers by the private sector for workers who can then be hired by the public sector for the public good.
Additionally those firms who use labour sparingly and prefer machines flourish, improving our productivity and standard of living.
All very simple once you realise that tax is there to release the manpower required by the public sector, not raise money.
Awwww think of the poor shareholders. How will they survive in this economy, imagine having to decide between eating caviar or lobster everyday.😢
> Cumulatively, Barclays’ Luxembourg operations have made £6.6bn in profits since 2013, according to annual tax documents released by the bank. Thanks to the generous tax arrangement, it has paid only £46m on those earnings, or about 1%.
>Barclays could have been taxed between 25 and 30% had it not taken advantage of rules allowing it to offset losses linked to $9bn-worth of shares acquired through the sale of its Barclays Global Investors (BGI) business to the US fund manager BlackRock in 2009.
Vodafone had a similar scheme. They created a sister company in Luxembourg. This company loaned the parent £6b. The parent paid the sister company back before tax. The sister company only paid 0.25% tax.
It is legal. It’s tax avoidance not tax evasion. It’s morally reprehensible but good business sense.
There is an industry of financial institutions (like E&Y) who are looking to sell these loopholes as “financial solutions”. There was a documentary, I think it was Rupert Everett, where he secretly filmed these financial advisors touting for his business, saying you need never pay tax again.
The press concentrate on the end beneficiary (Barclays, Vodafone, the Queen, David Cameron), but to stop it we should be looking to the Government to close the loopholes. However parties from both sides have promised this in the past and neither has delivered. The tax laws have just become ever more complex & complexity means loopholes.
I recommend switching to a more ethical bank, like Triodos ([triodos.co.uk](https://triodos.co.uk)). They at least claim to only invest in sustainable projects and have gotten multiple certificates and awards for their social and environmental practices. Not sure about tax avoidance, but I would hope that they would be better.
How are there still tax havens in the EU? They are against it, no?
Back to David Mitchel’s rant about how, for the rich, we only tax how moral you want to be in this country.
10 comments
……… really
But wee Jimmy down the street living on the dole is the issue, he’s the true scrounging criminal we need to be worried about. That 400 quid a month is a travesty.
And when you buy something on Amazon UK, the invoice has this at the bottom, funny that!
“Amazon EU, Société à responsabilité limitée, 38 avenue John F. Kennedy, L-1855 Luxembourg. Share capital: EUR 125.000; Registered in Luxembourg; RCS Luxembourg No: B 101818; Business Licence Number: 134248; Luxembourg VAT Registration Number: LU 20260743.”
“Barclays avoids almost £2bn in tax via Luxembourg scheme”
Then get rid of corporation tax, and put it on employer’s National Insurance.
Profit shifting schemes won’t work then, and the tax will be targeted correctly – reducing job offers by the private sector for workers who can then be hired by the public sector for the public good.
Additionally those firms who use labour sparingly and prefer machines flourish, improving our productivity and standard of living.
All very simple once you realise that tax is there to release the manpower required by the public sector, not raise money.
Awwww think of the poor shareholders. How will they survive in this economy, imagine having to decide between eating caviar or lobster everyday.😢
> Cumulatively, Barclays’ Luxembourg operations have made £6.6bn in profits since 2013, according to annual tax documents released by the bank. Thanks to the generous tax arrangement, it has paid only £46m on those earnings, or about 1%.
>Barclays could have been taxed between 25 and 30% had it not taken advantage of rules allowing it to offset losses linked to $9bn-worth of shares acquired through the sale of its Barclays Global Investors (BGI) business to the US fund manager BlackRock in 2009.
Vodafone had a similar scheme. They created a sister company in Luxembourg. This company loaned the parent £6b. The parent paid the sister company back before tax. The sister company only paid 0.25% tax.
It is legal. It’s tax avoidance not tax evasion. It’s morally reprehensible but good business sense.
There is an industry of financial institutions (like E&Y) who are looking to sell these loopholes as “financial solutions”. There was a documentary, I think it was Rupert Everett, where he secretly filmed these financial advisors touting for his business, saying you need never pay tax again.
The press concentrate on the end beneficiary (Barclays, Vodafone, the Queen, David Cameron), but to stop it we should be looking to the Government to close the loopholes. However parties from both sides have promised this in the past and neither has delivered. The tax laws have just become ever more complex & complexity means loopholes.
I recommend switching to a more ethical bank, like Triodos ([triodos.co.uk](https://triodos.co.uk)). They at least claim to only invest in sustainable projects and have gotten multiple certificates and awards for their social and environmental practices. Not sure about tax avoidance, but I would hope that they would be better.
How are there still tax havens in the EU? They are against it, no?
Back to David Mitchel’s rant about how, for the rich, we only tax how moral you want to be in this country.