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Corporate taxation - a broken model?

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Comments

  • chewmylegoff
    chewmylegoff Posts: 11,469 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Combo Breaker
    CLAPTON wrote: »
    In what sense?

    I had in mind the situation with two companies basically providing the similar services to the UK market.

    One home grown that pays corporation tax and one foreign that doesn't.

    The former is at a disadvantage.

    Income tax and NI fail to properly tax anyone who manages to convince their employer to hire them as a full time contractor. An employee providing the same services gets taxed much more heavily.

    VAT threshold means a person with a low turnover can provide services much more cheaply than someone with turnover over the threshold.

    Stamp duty results in someone paying £1 more for a house paying far more tax.
  • Thrugelmir
    Thrugelmir Posts: 89,546 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Name Dropper Photogenic
    VAT threshold means a person with a low turnover can provide services much more cheaply than someone with turnover over the threshold.

    However is unable to reclaim input tax.

    If you are supplying B2B services then VAT is not so much of an issue as can be reclaimed.

    Sometimes people register to make themselves appear bigger than they actually are.
  • grizzly1911
    grizzly1911 Posts: 9,965 Forumite
    Thrugelmir wrote: »

    Sometimes people register to make themselves appear bigger than they actually are.

    Must be certifiable.
    "If you act like an illiterate man, your learning will never stop... Being uneducated, you have no fear of the future.".....

    "big business is parasitic, like a mosquito, whereas I prefer the lighter touch, like that of a butterfly. "A butterfly can suck honey from the flower without damaging it," "Arunachalam Muruganantham
  • Thrugelmir
    Thrugelmir Posts: 89,546 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Name Dropper Photogenic
    Must be certifiable.

    Why?

    If you supply services to a Company then they recover the VAT charged.

    By being registered then its possible to reclaim input tax paid. On stationery, phone bills, etc.

    Not difficult to do with basic accounting software package.
  • grizzly1911
    grizzly1911 Posts: 9,965 Forumite
    Thrugelmir wrote: »
    Why?

    If you supply services to a Company then they recover the VAT charged.

    By being registered then its possible to reclaim input tax paid. On stationery, phone bills, etc.

    Not difficult to do with basic accounting software package.

    The small businesses I know do everything they can to stay below the threshold. More an issue with the continuous returns , once started and the fact that they tend to be labour heavy rather than traders.
    "If you act like an illiterate man, your learning will never stop... Being uneducated, you have no fear of the future.".....

    "big business is parasitic, like a mosquito, whereas I prefer the lighter touch, like that of a butterfly. "A butterfly can suck honey from the flower without damaging it," "Arunachalam Muruganantham
  • Thrugelmir
    Thrugelmir Posts: 89,546 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Name Dropper Photogenic
    The small businesses I know do everything they can to stay below the threshold. More an issue with the continuous returns , once started and the fact that they tend to be labour heavy rather than traders.

    Depends who your customers are. As to whether its worthwhile or not.
  • Generali
    Generali Posts: 36,411 Forumite
    10,000 Posts Combo Breaker
    I used to charge VAT as I was close to the threshold and didn't want to have to go back and re-invoice people. My clients (big banks) were all VAT registered so they just put the invoices through their normal accounts system and reclaimed as part of their VAT return I would guess. Not my problem frankly and doing my VAT took about 10 mins a quarter.
  • grizzly1911
    grizzly1911 Posts: 9,965 Forumite
    Generali wrote: »
    I used to charge VAT as I was close to the threshold and didn't want to have to go back and re-invoice people. My clients (big banks) were all VAT registered so they just put the invoices through their normal accounts system and reclaimed as part of their VAT return I would guess. Not my problem frankly and doing my VAT took about 10 mins a quarter.

    I take it byou were contracting and only invoicing monthly or weekly at worst? On your rates

    I am sure you would hit the threshold run rate quite quickly;)

    Bit different if you are offering relatively volume services to the public who can't doge the VAT.
    "If you act like an illiterate man, your learning will never stop... Being uneducated, you have no fear of the future.".....

    "big business is parasitic, like a mosquito, whereas I prefer the lighter touch, like that of a butterfly. "A butterfly can suck honey from the flower without damaging it," "Arunachalam Muruganantham
  • chewmylegoff
    chewmylegoff Posts: 11,469 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Combo Breaker
    Thrugelmir wrote: »
    However is unable to reclaim input tax.

    If you are supplying B2B services then VAT is not so much of an issue as can be reclaimed.

    Sometimes people register to make themselves appear bigger than they actually are.

    True, but if you are essentially just providing your labour and you don't need much in the way of tools/equipment etc then you are much more competitive when providing services to the public.
  • N1AK
    N1AK Posts: 2,903 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts
    Corporation tax is a global issue; without a global solution there will always be issues with trying to stop people dodging it in one way or another. Personally I'm not confident it can be fixed any time soon.

    We might be better off accepting that and going with a system like bringing in a tax on revenue instead of profit; but that has various issues as well.

    It's harder to dodge revenue based taxation but it could increase the price of low margin commodities (meat, clothes etc) while decreasing the cost of luxury items with high margins.
    Having a signature removed for mentioning the removal of a previous signature. Blackwhite bellyfeel double plus good...
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