To think Gary Barlow is worse than a benefits cheat?

[Roshbegosh]

People cheating on benefits do at least need the money .... What he has done is hard to excuse IMO

Ah yes Victorian times, ManWithNoName! quick, send me back there!

I have heard a lot of people say that he should keep his OBE because he gives a lot of money to charity. But aren't charitable donations tax-deductable?

I agree that he's acted stupidly, but he's not broken any laws. It is the laws that need changing to discourage this. My mother gives her grandchildren money annually - it's a legitimate and popular way of avoiding tax on her death, so no different from what he's done, just on a miniscule scale.

frosty a more appropriate analogy would be your mother inventing a grandchild who she said she gave money to.

For me, the key issue is that the tax system is not fair. I think very rich people should be taxed extra. Talent should be rewarded, but not to that ridiculous extent. We have become a nation of extremes, and it is growing.

So I don't blame him for trying, as an individual, but he should have to pay it back. And more. So shoot me.

Inventing a grandchild is fraud which is not the same at all.

YABU, tax avoidance isn't illegal but cheating the benefits is. Benefits cheats do not need the money it's genuine benefits claimants who need it.

Don't get me wrong I think that many of the tax loopholes should be closed.

I don't know if Gary Barlow knew the ins and outs of this tax scheme. He was professionally advised it was legal probably that was enough for him. Personally I don't care for him butm orally I find him no more culpable than anyone who actively avoids paying the right amount of tax including tradesmen who get paid in cash and don't declare it.
Everyone at work was getting into a froth about it- despite the fact they buy stuff off Amazon all the time, knowing full well about their taxation status.
I can't see how the amount of money makes you more guilty in moral terms.
He could just bog off and live in Switzerland like all the racing car drivers to avoid paying UK tax at all.

Owl this scheme manufactured losses. Not even losses. Apparent losses.

Gary Barlow has not broken the law. Benefits cheats are breaking the law.

I think the law in this case is an ass. Avoiding tax should be illegal IMO.

Gary B should give back his OBE. And just pay his fucking taxes.

He hasn't done anything wrong. The tax loophole existed and he quite legally, took it.

Are you saying if you could pay less tax you'd say 'oh, no thanks, take more of my money please!'

He's only done what loads do (and are still doing.)

It is the equivalent of manufacturing a grandchild, if the Revenue hadn't yet got round to mentioning that you are not permitted to invent grandchildren

He hasn't done anything wrong.

If this is the case then why is he having to pay the money back. If it was all fine and dandy then he wouldn't have to.

This and the Jimmy Carr hysteria are just ridiculous situations. I think most people are just jealous that they can't do it.

Most 'self employed' people or limited companies will be advised on what best way to avoid tax. That's just life. People can't be blamed for seizing opportunity.

I don't know if it's been said already but it just goes to show that whatever your station in life is, people will always try to maximize their own wealth sometimes at the expense of others i.e cheating the benefits system or avoiding tax. Take away wealth and status most people are the same deep down

While Gary Barlow hasn't broken any laws at the most basic level his accountant or legal team must have said we have this scheme that will save you loads in paying tax, so while not breaking any laws perhaps can be construed as being morally duplicitous. Unless he is like Charles Scaatchi or Elton John who seemed to have no fucking clue what their accountants where up to in their name but Gary seems a bit too gimlet eyed to allow that

dexter, I guess it's more accurate to say he hasn't done anything illegal; but that's what I meant about the law being an ass. Just because something's legal doesn't necessarily mean it's OK (and in this case, as you say, it's NOT OK otherwise he wouldn't have to pay it back).

I think if you have to jump through very torturous hoops to avoid paying tax, that's a good sign that it's dodgy.

georgie, I don't know about others but I'm pretty sure I'm not jealous. I'm self-employed and an accountant once told me about a way to reduce my tax. It involved becoming a limited company and paying a salary to someone else, preferably someone retired or otherwise without an income; they would then give me the money back.

It sounded rather underhand to me, and too convoluted. I decided not to do it. I'd rather not involve anyone else and just pay my tax the easy way well it's not that easy; doing my tax return makes me cry every time without fail

That's a good example, onlylovers. - a better example than my T&O on the previous page.

So someone sets themselves up as a company and trades and therefore pays corporation tax, instead of practising as a sole trader and paying schedule D income tax. It's common practice and hundreds of thousands of people have done it. Tax paid is therefore less than it would be. That is a way of avoiding tax. It's legal. It's not even immoral. It's accepted practice.

This whole argument is about a spectrum of measures and where the cut off point is.

Beck, as well as it being convoluted I think I didn't like the idea of it implicating someone else. It seems to me to be of a different order to the small things I DO do to help my tax bill (mainly offsetting the VAT on things like my home workspace and work materials).

I'm not jealous, I'm pissed off. The poor,sick and disabled are bearing the brunt of the cuts while people like GB and his ilk, are avoiding paying millions in tax. If the tax loopholes were closed there wouldn't need to be cuts. It really isn't fair.

Next time you hear you have to work until you are 70, pensions are being messed with, we can't afford drugs to keep people alive, schools are run down, the Forces are being stripped back and disabled people are being chucked out on the streets because of the benefits being stopped, remember GB and his mates and their tens of millions of unpaid tax!

So, if you had an accountant who said to you here is a (currently) legal way to reduce the amount of tax you pay would you take the moral high ground and say no? Many of these tax avoidance schemes were deemed legal at the time and its only retrospective cases which have deemed them illegal. The real issue here is the hugely complex nature of our tax system which results in all these loopholes. Rather than bleating about accountants playing the system politicians should be focussing on reforming our tax laws to make the whole thing more robust and less open to abuse.

exactly. "his share" is determined by the law. If he can legally reduce it, then it's the law that's at fault, not him.

Loopholes benefit the rich who can afford solicitors and accountants. Close them.

I think its very funny thay when people play the system to get more benefits, because they won't get of their lazzy arses And work for a living, THEN it's the systems fault.

But when people who work for a litvng and play the system to pay less tax.. not no tax. Their net contribution is still vastly mote than the averages. Then they are terrible people and it is not the system fault is their fault.

Double standards and hypocrisy is rife on MN.

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andmy, a lot of people are not saying that but are saying that it IS the system that's at fault. There are calls here to change the law and close loopholes to stop people being able to exploit them.

Incidentally, people who 'won't get of their lazzy arses And work for a living' are very, VERY few and far between. I know that the current government would have us believe otherwise, but it simply isn't true.

the law was a bit of an ass in this case, so the law has been changed. This is good. Let the good work continue.

as for the 'Victorian times no tax' thing - yep, if you couldn't work in those times, then you STARVED.