Re: Kier Starmer : Tue Jun 01, 2021 1:43 pm  

Zoo Zoo Boom wrote:

Herein lies the problem with you lefties - you think all company owners are just arrogant egotists who see the people who work for them as disposable collateral. You are so wrong - the better the people you employ the better your business will be - finding and retaining talent is a very challenging task. Just to suggest if they don't like it go is quite frankly bullsh1t.

So I start a business it becomes very successful - what do I do then - I can't simply say I making more than I can ever spend so I will take my foot off the gas - because if I do that I soon wont have more money than I can ever spend. Unless I move faster than my competitors they will overtake me and then what happens I get smaller I lose all my good people and my business is terminally damaged.

The railways in this country were a laughing stock under public ownership - as was virtually every other public-owned business - out of date, inefficient, under invested, poor staff moral, union dominated etc - why would you want to return to this? May be I have been lucky but I cannot remember last getting a train that was more than 5 minutes late - yesterday I went to Manchester for the cricket trains on time - that was Transpennine.

I don't think the Tories his Corbyn's idea - there's is a very different vision - public owned infrastructure/tickets, private companies run the trains.

Oh dear
You do know that I've been a company director for over 25 years and own my business dont you ??

Just because I believe in people paying their taxes, based on their level of income and not ducking, diving and avoiding their share, doesn't make me a communist or loony leftie.

Some of us have a strong sense of equality and social responsibility and are not driven by GREED

Re: Kier Starmer : Tue Jun 01, 2021 2:37 pm  

wrencat1873 wrote:

Oh dear
You do know that I've been a company director for over 25 years and own my business dont you ??

Just because I believe in people paying their taxes, based on their level of income and not ducking, diving and avoiding their share, doesn't make me a communist or loony leftie.

Some of us have a strong sense of equality and social responsibility and are not driven by GREED

I think most people think like you in respect of people paying their way - at the top end the government is taking close to 50% of people's earnings same as Germany & France higher than the US, Japan - The top 1% pay 30% of all the IT take, how much more do you think is equitable?

The tax dodgers are few in the true scheme of events and it is primarily international businesses where the loopholes appear - so unless you are prepared have one taxation system across the world there will always be challenges.

Re: Kier Starmer : Tue Jun 01, 2021 3:16 pm  

Well, in a highly globalised economy, a global taxation policy wouldn't be an unreasonable proposal. IMO, the answer isn't necessarily a higher rate of taxation, but a fairer system of taxation. For example, you can move money anywhere you want in order to avoid tax, however, you can't move customers. So instead of taxing companies based on where the money is, tax them based on where their customers are. For example, If Amazon make £100m in profits in a year, and 10% of their customers are based in the UK, then Amazon would be required to pay tax on £10m at the UK rates of taxation.

Something like this wouldn't be that difficult to implement, it's just the political will is lacking, especially in this country where providing access to our offshore tax havens is one of the most appealing aspects of our economy to 'investors', and in many ways props it up.

Re: Kier Starmer : Tue Jun 01, 2021 3:54 pm  

Jack Burton wrote:

Well, in a highly globalised economy, a global taxation policy wouldn't be an unreasonable proposal. IMO, the answer isn't necessarily a higher rate of taxation, but a fairer system of taxation. For example, you can move money anywhere you want in order to avoid tax, however, you can't move customers. So instead of taxing companies based on where the money is, tax them based on where their customers are. For example, If Amazon make £100m in profits in a year, and 10% of their customers are based in the UK, then Amazon would be required to pay tax on £10m at the UK rates of taxation.

Something like this wouldn't be that difficult to implement, it's just the political will is lacking, especially in this country where providing access to our offshore tax havens is one of the most appealing aspects of our economy to 'investors', and in many ways props it up.

Your idea sounds great on the face of things.
However, business is not straight forward, especially for companies trading and with bases in different countries.
For instance, if you had a base in the UK and one in the USA and one of these businesses was losing money, with the other making a reasonable return, would you allow that company to mitigate it's losses in the other country and referring this to your example of Amazon, how would you allow them to offset investment costs in new territories against well established bases elsewhere.
As I said, far from straightforward and where would you go with businesses that relied on their sister companies as far as manufacture was concerned. Say a car manufacturer, pulling in components from multiple parts of the company to manufacture vehicles in a particular country.
Where should they take any profit and where should they pay their tax ?

Re: Kier Starmer : Tue Jun 01, 2021 5:57 pm  

If you base it on total global profits for the company overall, it wouldn't matter if the company had bases in different countries. The only factors are the total global profit and the percentage of the company's customer base in each country.

Re: Kier Starmer : Wed Jun 02, 2021 8:06 am  

Jack Burton wrote:

If you base it on total global profits for the company overall, it wouldn't matter if the company had bases in different countries. The only factors are the total global profit and the percentage of the company's customer base in each country.

Nice idea.
However, the Americans are already kicking up a stink at a potential 1% levy for on line sales in the UK.
There isn't a hope in hell of them sacrificing potential tax contributions form some of their US based global companies.

Re: Kier Starmer : Thu Jun 03, 2021 8:41 am  

Jack Burton wrote:

If you base it on total global profits for the company overall, it wouldn't matter if the company had bases in different countries. The only factors are the total global profit and the percentage of the company's customer base in each country.

Not a chance - say you are a big Pharma and all your R&D is in the UK - these costs can be billions so how do you correctly redistribute those costs to accurately reflect them in the cost of the drugs - accrual concept for those accountants amongst us? When drugs go in to manufacture the profits are huge so the profitability looks great but you must include the development costs to get a true reflection. Transfer pricing is a very tricky subject and get the correct balance is an unenviable task.

Re: Kier Starmer : Thu Jun 03, 2021 10:32 am  

So is moving money through a web of 100s of shell companies in order to avoid tax and launder money, yet it's at the heart of our current financial system, and companies bend over backwards to do it.
There are things we can do to make our financial system fairer without raising taxes, it all comes down to political will. Sadly, the politicians are as culpable as the bankers, accountants and criminals that perpetuate this system.

Re: Kier Starmer : Thu Jun 03, 2021 11:52 am  

Jack Burton wrote:

So is moving money through a web of 100s of shell companies in order to avoid tax and launder money, yet it's at the heart of our current financial system, and companies bend over backwards to do it.
There are things we can do to make our financial system fairer without raising taxes, it all comes down to political will. Sadly, the politicians are as culpable as the bankers, accountants and criminals that perpetuate this system.

There are a minority of legitimate businesses that behave in the way you suggest - it is expensive and is not without risk. Illegal businesses are doing this stuff all the time - their profits are huge and they have to afford the skills required to make these actions pay.

If all you were dealing with were internal companies I would agree - unfortunately that is not the case and it is these bigger international companies who stand to gain most from internal shifting of costs. Our needs as a nation are not the same as say Germany or Japan so to deliver what is a very reasonable suggestion all would need to be aligned and that will never be the case. Even in the UK - Guernsey, Jersey and the Isle of Man all have different tax regimes.

Re: Kier Starmer : Thu Jun 03, 2021 11:59 am  

Jack Burton wrote:

So is moving money through a web of 100s of shell companies in order to avoid tax and launder money, yet it's at the heart of our current financial system, and companies bend over backwards to do it.
There are things we can do to make our financial system fairer without raising taxes, it all comes down to political will. Sadly, the politicians are as culpable as the bankers, accountants and criminals that perpetuate this system.

Its everywhere though ,take your average construction site ,90% will be self employed working for the same companies using ir35 or limited company status ,its all tax avoidance
Your small to medium company owners will use the most tax efficient means possible ,ie low weekly wage with dividends paid and taxed at corporation tax levels