Andrea Leadsom - please stand for leadership!

[Millyonthefloss2]

Anyone agree?

It was in 2012 - www.cityam.com/244816/energy-minister-andrea-leadsom-proposed-scrapping

reaction.life/was-andrea-leadsom-really-such-a-city-hotshot/

Eureka! I knew it. I spent Saturday searching out her post-Brexit plans and they were so vague and naive I couldn't believe she had any real city experience.

That would explain why the treasury found her such a poor junior minister.

She's not a person. She's a Tory automaton that's been programmed with a few stock phrases.

Exactly.

On the Leave Debates she ended every single comment with

''that is why you must vote leave on.....''

like a bloody stepfordwife robot churning out, as you say, stock phrases.

No, the public are not that confused, they just don't approve of all forms of tax avoidance. That is not the same thing as thinking it is illegal...

It's quite easy to spot what is generally acceptable: the government encourages savers to have pensions and ISAs. The government wants tax off people when they die if they haven't given their assets away or spent their money well before then. Simples.

Or at least, that's what the government allows the plebs to think. In reality, it wants financial,advisers, lawyers, accountants and bankers to help the wealthy avoid all this tiresome simplicity.

The 7 year rule is designed to prevent inheritance tax avoidance.

Unless you think it is wrong for parents to make gifts to their children and think that gifts should be taxed (maybe you do?) then the rule is a reasonable means to stop people from giving all their money to their kids at the point they know they're not long for this world.

The government has double taxation treaties with other countries, the govt passes legislation that gives tax breaks to x, y and z, etc., etc

Everything is created in good faith and then clever accountants and lawyers find a way to use it that sticks to the letter of the law but will enable their clients to pay less tax.

The solution would be well written, well thought through tax legislation but I am beginning to wonder if the best brains don't work in government??

It's the pension thing that is the really cunning ruse - it makes us all co-conspirators in excessive greed. However artificially, we have to keep on ramping up company profits and inventing money from nothing so that our pensions don't suffer, even if we are effectively harming ourselves as taxpayers and thus future generations.

Tax avoidance = bad - possibly illegal, definitely against the spirit if the law, if not the letter of the law. The terms you need are tax management (good) or tax planning (very good).

And everyone tax plans if they have any savings at all.

I am beginning to wonder if the best brains don't work in government??
best brains probably gravitate to the best money?

but surely tax legislation is deliberately obscure so that those clever accountants and lawyers that you mentioned can make a profit and enable their wealthy clients to protect their wealth

it's a racket innit

The solution would not be well written legislation - that is a game of cat and mouse that will go on forever if unscrupulous people continue to deliberately flout the known intentions of the legislators and get away with it on technicalities. Bureaucrats exist in order to try and keep the unscrupulous under control, not because anybody loves red tape.

Tax avoidance=legal. Tax evasion=illegal.

ISAs are 100% legal tax avoidance which are positively encouraged by the law makers.

If you need lots of tax planning advice, you are likely to be considering more complicated and potentially dubious methods than those which are blatantly advertised.

Tax avoidance=legal. Tax evasion=illegal

It's not that simple, particularly in the digital age.

Some things, like the re-routing of online sales transactions through other countries was legitimate in the UK and now it isn't. But even after the 2015 'diverted profits tax' it's not actually illegal, it's just that if you do so you have to pay an extra 25% tax.

At the same time as the dpt came in, there was also a government decision to clamp down on complex accounting manoeuvres to recycle tax advantages from tax losses, which, again were previously legitimate; and new criminal offences for tax evasion and fresh penalties for advisers who assist in evasion. So some activities that were legal became illegal.

There's a general tendency to exploit legal loopholes, or areas where the law is unclear. I've been offered schemes by tax accountants that start 'its not technically illegal but...' Which I always avoid.

So, I think there can be genuine confusion over what is legal and what isn't.

shining - yes - considering that rather a lot of MPs come from legal/financial backgrounds, it's not surprising we have such ridiculously over-complicated tax laws.

Manon - yes I just read that too. Interesting she's been as creative with her cv as she was with her Brexit promises.......

Rather perturbed that she happily believes in God despite no evidence of his existence, and yet required "persuading" on climate change despite a multitude of scientific research confirming it.......

Maybe she would understand climate change if someone described it as God getting a bit cross, then.
Tax avoidance and evasion are still simple to understand - they didn't apply the law changes retrospectively.

People aren't necessarily aware of the law changes, or what they actually mean.

Those that need to be aware are generally aware - I don't think it would cut much ice if a multinational corporation claimed to be ignorant of the law. As for the general public, they would have disapproved whether or not the activities in question were legal,mbecause they are more interested in what they perceive to be "right" than what the letter of the law says.

Oh nooooooooooooooooooooooo definately not

Theresa May is going to win. and i dont like her much either, but shes the lesser of all the evils.

Is this really the lady you want in charge?????? www.politics.co.uk/news/2016/07/05/minimum-wage-maternity-pay-scrapped-plans-andrea-leadsom

People working for the UK's smallest businesses would be stripped of their right to a minimum wage, maternity leave and protection from unfair dismissal, under plans previously backed by one of the favourites to become next Tory leader and prime minister.

Speaking in 2012, Andrea Leadsom told the House of Commons that she would like businesses with three employees or fewer to no longer have to comply with any employment regulations.

"I envisage there being absolutely no regulation whatsoever," she said.

"No minimum wage, no maternity or paternity rights, no unfair dismissal rights, no pension rights—for the smallest companies that are trying to get off the ground, in order to give them a chance."

I can't find an up-to-date list of who voted for who. Anyone know where I can see?