The BBC's "Growing up poor". Poverty seen up close

grizzly1911

GeorgeHowell wrote: »

If you believe that the number of tax evaders and aggressive avoiders is small (esp among the self employed) and that the number of those drawing benefits who never want to work, or benefits that they are not entitled to is small (esp within the black economy), then I'll have some of whatever you are smoking please.

Operative word is "relatively".

Can you quantify how many fall into each camp? Can you show it is large?

http://www.jrf.org.uk/publications/cultures-of-worklessness

grizzly1911

John_Pierpoint wrote: »

Aggressive tax avoider = benefits scrounger = reprehensible and immoral

To me there is a subtle difference:

A benefit scrounger does nothing to earn his income, he is just working the system to get his hands on someone else's money.

The tax avoider is working the system to hang onto his own money that he created; be it by hard work, foregoing immediate satisfaction in order to create capital, a superior intellect, choosing the right parents, or pure luck.

Or money that they should have declared as taxable and paid the corresponding rate of tax as legislated for.Submitting returns knowing they may not be wholly correct and in the spirit of the law. Therefore no different to the real scrounger who submits false claims or claims that are not in the spirit of the system.

I agree that the tax system and policy can penalise those that are prudent, foregoing immediate satisfaction. Can you choose your parents?


At least a banker, unless he is fiddling the odds LIBOR style, is playing a game of skill / intellect against the other players in the casino?

The banker in the traditional sense, managing risk/reward yes but in the casino style they are simply gambling and reliant on their luck, hoping somebody doesn't withdraw with the pot before they can. Considering the rail crash that was/is the banking crisis skill and intellect were in short supply in many quarters.

BobQ

John_Pierpoint wrote: »

Aggressive tax avoider = benefits scrounger = reprehensible and immoral

To me there is a subtle difference:

A benefit scrounger does nothing to earn his income, he is just working the system to get his hands on someone else's money.

The tax avoider is working the system to hang onto his own money that he created; be it by hard work, foregoing immediate satisfaction in order to create capital, a superior intellect, choosing the right parents, or pure luck.

The sad thing is that in the above list the punter who got lucky with a tax raising system called the National Lottery is the most admired and envied by a lot of people.

At least a banker, unless he is fiddling the odds LIBOR style, is playing a game of skill / intellect against the other players in the casino?

A moral defence of tax avoidance. Its not as bad as a benefits scrounger. Love it.

John_Pierpoint

Some people on here are not very good at "doing irony".

I deliberately ordered the sources of wealth in reverse order of "morality" - the sad thing is that those who get-rich-quick through little or no talent or commitment of their own, seem to be the most admired in our celebrity lead society.

Of course nobody can choose their parents any more than they can choose their country of origin.

Presumably most people posting on here are lucky enough to have INHERITED a massive legacy as a result of being born in the nation on whose empire the sun never set. How do you think that the wealth that you enjoy (a national health service and a six figure education) was accumulated?

Yes you have got it partly by the efforts of your ancestors and partly because they went round the globe, fired up with moral superiority, grabbing resources from the local population. Slavers to the African people and armed drug runners to the Chines empire?

How much of that legacy should you be giving back to assuage your highly developed moral conscience? 1% 2% 20% 50% of your income?

Is there any moral difference between the north side of a border and its south side? Is it an arbitrary line drawn on the globe between two gangs of "rulers".

Similarly is there any moral authority in the arbitrary line drawn in the economy between a 40% tax rate and a 50% tax rate? Both are set by a gang of rulers who think they know better how to spend the individual's money than that individual does.

Perhaps they do perhaps they don't, I think the difference between me and the "taxes are moral" brigade is that I believe the individual and family have a primary responsibility to support themselves and that is the message they should get from an early age.
The funny thing is that even in the people's communist socialist society of China, where they even call the currency "the people's money", that message seems to have been absorbed by the majority of the population.

I am happy to debate the morality of government spending, but any business man who is making money for our nation, who turns to the politicians and says "here is my wallet help yourself", is an idiot and soon will be out of business.

Once upon a rime, an entrepreneurial group of a manager and 4 likely lads, lived in a country, where the government was running out of other people's money to spend, because it had been struggling with debt and a tax base of only 27% of GDP. So they described their condition like this:

Should five percent appear too small
Be thankful I don't take it all
'cause I'm the tax-man
Yeah, I'm the tax-man

Perhaps they felt a bit miffed, that they had set up a business that earned more foreign exchange that the car industry and got to keep 5% of the profits, unless they employed good accountants to steer them through what is now the world's second most complex tax code ?

Generali

BobQ wrote: »

A moral defence of tax avoidance. Its not as bad as a benefits scrounger. Love it.

What's wrong with following the tax laws? You appear to be arguing that living off other people because you're too bone idle to work is the same thing as putting money into a pension or ISA or buying a bottle of duty free spirits on the way back from holiday.

Fella

There's nothing moral about paying extra tax.

The recent populist blurring of the difference between tax evasion & tax avoidance is insidious & very wrong. Tax evasion is illegal & immoral. Tax avoidance is sensible and in the case of Businesses, they're required to do it wherever possible, anything else would be a failure to their shareholders.

The UK Government has more than enough power to close down tax avoidance loopholes. They prefer not to.

ruggedtoast

ukcarper wrote: »

I'm not sure employment in the south east is as good as people imagine. My wife's firm advertised a minimum wage job and had over 100 applicants and I know of a couple of young people who found it very difficult to find jobs who could only find part time jobs.

And yet in other threads you've stated that the young people you know are all saving thousands and easily buying houses, and anyone who doesnt do the same is a shirker.

Interesting.

ukcarper

ruggedtoast wrote: »

And yet in other threads you've stated that the young people you know are all saving thousands and easily buying houses, and anyone who doesnt do the same is a shirker.

Interesting.

That's the ones who have good jobs I've always said the main problem facing young people is the lack of good jobs.

Domfrizby

ukcarper wrote: »

That's the ones who have good jobs I've always said the main problem facing young people is the lack of good jobs.

This trend will continue as unemployment keeps going up.

N1AK

ukcarper wrote: »

That's the ones who have good jobs I've always said the main problem facing young people is the lack of good jobs.

This.

For young people who got into work things are fine (comparatively). My partner and I, and our friends who graduated in the middle of the last decade are all doing well. Graduates from just 2-3 years later (2008 onwards) who are just as capable are doing far less well; Some struggled for over a year to find work, they've had to take lower paid or lower level roles and the prospects haven't been as good.

I honestly think being born just 2-3 years later would have cost someone like me around £100k+ in lost income by the time I'm 30 on average; and would harm future earning potential as well.