The Super Rich

[malificent7]

I watched two tv programmes on them last week. Many living in one of their many opulent palaces all saying they didnt think they should be taxed more.
Then all the news about off shore tax evasion. If i dont pay my taxes i get a court order from the council while i sit in my tiny rental.
Aibu to feel a tinsy bit annoyed? Nothing will change though will it?
Perhaps i nedx to work harder.

Nicholas witchell cocked it up too.

Tax avoidance is legal, it is using the system to put money where it doesn't attract tax. Such as an isa.

It is also what is done by Amazon, uber, Starbucks and many others. I assume you don't use any of those.

Yanbu op. As for it being "sour grapes" and "envy" these are easy (but pathetic and lazy) responses. I don't mind being called sour and envious in return for a few people stepping up. Sports Direct just as one example, has made the boss wealthy beyond the dreams of avarice but has workers fearing for their jobs on zero hours contracts. Clear proof that trickle down economics is utter bollocks.

Moral high ground is jealousy with a halo.
The offshore accounts are a legal way of protecting wealth.
Trust funds are a legal way of protecting wealth.
Charitable status of independent schools is a legal way of protecting wealth.
Making your adult children directors of your company so you can use corporate funds to pay tuition fees is a legal way of protecting wealth. Making your holiday home a ‘business’ so all renovation and repairs are tax free is a legal way of protecting wealth.
Loan notes to spouses in lieu of salary are a legal way of protecting wealth.
Why are people surprised that the wealthy want to retain their wealth and grow it further? It’s why people invest, use high interest savings accounts and buy properties to let.

They have benefited greatly from our societal stability. It is not out of order to ask them to contribute to this society.

Tax avoidance encompasses all of the perfectly legal ways to avoid tax, such as taking out an ISA

Nope - that’s tax planning. Using a vehicle as it was designed to be used. Avoidance is legally exploiting a loophole I think. Evasion is illegal. Often a grey area between the second two, hence high profile court cases.

Once you have £100 million or £1 billion what more could you possibly need? I think people who have wealth over a certain amount become (or perhaps they always were and that is how they were able to get so rich) sociopaths and psychopaths obsessed with greed and power. I mean, how many multi-million pound yachts or homes or supercars can you have to find true happiness?

These people are all dangerous imo, have way too much power and influence yet they rule over everyone else. We are all being fed a big fat lie about equality and how if we just work hard we will accumulate wealth when most of it seems to be accumulated by lying, bullying and corruption.

Moral high ground is jealousy with a halo.

Witicisms will not help societal stability. We must all contribute if the structures are to function.

I honestly don’t think it’s human nature to protect as much of your wealth as possible. I personally don’t want to live in a society with terrible schools, a crumbling health service, potholed roads or vulnerable people struggling. I also understand that in order to ensure this doesn’t happen, I have to pay my fair share of tax.

I also believe that some people have such a massive sense of entitlement that these rules about a decent society don’t apply to them. Phillip Green are you listening? It’s hard to imagine having three billion pounds in wealth and not thinking you have to contribute anything. And I don’t buy that guff about the companies of the super rich employing people and paying PAYE and corporation tax, as if that somehow exempts them from personal taxation. It’s the individuals that pay PAYE out of their wages and many of those on minimum wage have to claim additional benefits to survive. Corporation tax is paid by companies who generally try to minimise it through implausibly legal means.

These people would also be the first in the queue complaining about knowing their rights if they ever by some disaster lost their wealth and had to rely on state aid.

I can’t get hysterical about people accepting the odd cash in hand job. But anyone who thinks taxes don’t apply to them really needs to look at themselves in a mirror. They may not like what they see.

I am not sure this one is allowed actually "Making your holiday home a ‘business’ so all renovation and repairs are tax free is a legal way of protecting wealth" - that would seem to be to be evasion not avoidance. I agree with you on the others.

You can certainly employ family members in a business. Eg some women on mumsnet work for their husband's company doing the admin and that is not illegal and nor is having student children working in a company. However if those students do not actually do the work that is a crime and is evasion. We need to be very clear where the lines are drawn so tax payers know where they stand too.

I don't even like husbands giving cash savings to wives so less tax is paid on the interest! Even making sure husband earns £10k a year and wife £10k rather than just one of them £20k (to ensure less tax is paid) is avoidance (but is not evasion as long as both of them are actually there doing work - if they are just pretending to work that is a crime and is illegal evasion).

I wish people would understand the difference between the two and not mix and muddle, much as Dame Margaret Hodge just did on the BBC.

No she didn't, she very clearly expressed a view that aggresive avoidance whilst not illegal isn't fair.

As for people comparing agressive avoidance schemes with an ISA or a pension - what a laugh!

The only wonder is that he ground doesn't swallow Hodge up for her arrant hypocrisy - she was in power and did fuck all about this but now thinks it's time to act. No doubt if once more in power, she would once again do fuck all.

How do people who are not rich and on a PAYE salary get to legally avoid tax so they only pay 10% of whatever the super rich choose to pay?

I am not envious. I believe that all citizens of a country need to pay in for the common good - for things like the NHS. Those with a ton of income above what's needed to subsist can afford to pay in more. I say this as a higher rate tax household.

Sick and tired of seeing tons of stories about "benefit cheats" when tax avoidance is an exponentially bigger issue in terms of lost revenue.

Oh come on! It is outrageous that a billionaire can pay less tax (in percentage terms) than someone on £30k PAYE.

I wonder why it isnt illegal though...hmmmmm.
just because something isnt illeval dosnt make it right or fair.

They can't. Except with relatively small amounts that you can put in an ISA. To take advantage of tax havens you have to have millions under management, not £1500. And these "super rich" are not dealing with their money individually - they employ whole firms (I once worked for one) to manage it. One family - not famous at all - had four people working on their "wealth management". There were countless family members who just lived on the proceeds of this trust.

I agree with others that bashing the "rich" per se is silly, but it is unfair that those on PAYE are continually clobbered for tax - simply because the government of the day can access it easily.

On MN posters get thoroughly worked up about someone on £100K - but that if that person is on PAYE they will be paying a shedload of tax and NI. Do not lump that worker together with a non-dom billionaire paying tax nowhere.

"The only new information is who is actually using these 'structures'."

Which is quite a lot of new information, isn't it?! Giving people case studies of folks like Lord Ashcroft or THE FUCKING QUEEN basically not paying in is quite a powerful way of illustrating the problem.

There are things that would be quite easy to put in place that would make a difference.

I don't object to people with vast and complex financial portfolios managing their assets across multiple jurisdictions, but if they want to own property here and benefit from our safe society, then they need to pay tax on their worldwide income here. It seem to me that the most obvious thing to do is to restrict property purchases in the UK to people who are permanently resident here for tax purposes (not non-doms).

"Some twat who is only rich because of an accident of birth is quite happy to sit in their arses while others starve"

It's not really as simple as that though is it? Apart from the international billionaire set, most people who come into wealth in the region of say £10-£100 million are entrepreneurs following the sale of a company. Many keep this kind of money within a company, therby only having to pay corporation tax on it and not income tax. If you suddenly come into £20 million, £10 million in tax will seem like a big hit, when you can preserve that money for your families future. It's very dubious that any ofthe money will actually make a difference to the health service or to those using food banks. Most of it will be swallowed up in the bureaucracy of the cumbersome and inefficient system that is the state sector. People may prefer to give directly to charities.

Does it make me strange that I'm happy to pay tax on my modest income? Do people just want to have more money than they can ever possibly spend because they can? It's bizarre. Just because something is technically legal doesn't make it 'okay'.

Very true, GinUser and crumbs1.

Stop electing Tories.

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/04/28/labour-accused-hypocrisy-blocking-measures-crackdown-86billion/

I get fed up with hearing that tax avoidance or 'tax planning' is not illegal, which I well know. But those laws didn't write themselves - they were written by people who appear to be extremely greedy.

People like Gates, who does give a lot away, in the spirit of the old philanthropists, are the exception.

Tax avoidance makes us all poorer.
I have never understood the mentality of anyone who can comfortably afford several homes, exotic holidays and the best of everything trying to avoid taxes. They are a far bigger problem than so called benefit cheats.
They should be sneered at and looked down on as the selfish greedy bastards that they are.