To increasingly feel like a bit of a mug

[TinklyLittleLaugh]

DH and I are working class made good, first in our families to Uni, blardy blar.

We have a business that makes a lot of money. We have never lied on our tax returns, personal or business, never done anything dodgy off the books, never even fiddled our returns to get Uni funding for the kids (and I know loads of self employed people who have done that). We pay a lot of tax.

But all around us politicians, celebrities and sportspeople are shoving their money through every tax loophole they can find. No one seems to think they have any responsibility to help pay for health or education or welfare or anything.

To be honest I'm starting to feel quite stupid for not joining them.

You think English taxi is complicated try the Italian one .... And the politicians are much more corrupt than ours

In the UK we have a redistributive tax system. A tiny group of wealthy people are net contributors to the state, their money goes to fund a large group of people who are net recipients of state funds. (Obviously there must also be a middle group who roughly break even.)

The reason this system exists is nothing to do with morality, it's because we are a one-person one-vote democracy. The power of the ballot box allows the large number of poor to gang up on the small number of rich and take some of their money.

If using the law to take money off the rich was about morality, then instead of a social security system and an NHS, we would spend the money on foreign aid in much poorer countries, where the law of diminishing returns (inversely applied) would dictate that it would do far more good.

I can't even get very upset about criminal tax evasion. Those who go that far are are morally if not legally equivalent to people who don't want to hand over money to a mugger. (Except to the extent that we believe it is necessarily immoral to break the law. Which, having grown up in a country where the law institutionalised immorality, I don't.) If UK tax evaders were failing to pay for the army or police I might object, but I don't blame them for not wanting to pay for other peoples social security benefits and healthcare.

Rich people paying tax is the same as being mugged by poor people who have ganged up on them thanks to democracy... ok then...

I was listening to DC on the radio the other day 'answering' the question re if he has benefited from the money his father sheltered in Panama.

All DC did was list his UK assets (house, savings account etc...). Interesting answer I thought.

Did he benefit from the sheltered assets? I don't know, but I hedge he did (perhaps...)

• cash gifts
• deposit on house
• school fees (himself/kids)
• standard of living growing up with access to education/lifestyle benefits - tangibles/non tangible argument.

I suppose what I'm trying to say is we are not responsible for how our parents conduct their affairs. However, we are responsible for how we benefit from them as adults, especially when those people are politicians apparently legislating for 'tougher rules for tax dodgers'.

See George Osbourne - also fudging the questions re offshore family trusts.

I would question the underlying reason anyone would take their assets offshore. What can that offshore company do for you (your money) that a UK based company can't.

Answer: hide assets/hide names of beneficiaries.

Theoretician - im sorry are you genuinely trying to state that the wealthiest in our society care for our poor through their mammoth taxes that they don't pay???

To be fair a lot of folk if told 'listen I can save you thousands in tax and it's all legal' are going to go for it. It's just a lot of creative accounting but it is wrong.