The Rich According to the Guardian

[Judy1234]

www.guardian.co.uk/money/2008/aug/04/workandcareers.executivesalaries

What about the Child Trust Fund? If you are too stupid/lazy to decide which vehicle, the government will choose one for you. Forcing your child into a moral crevass, on his first birthday.

The law pertaining to non-doms works in exactly the way that it was intended to. It's actually quite fair. I know you don't think it is, but I don't think you understand the position (sorry for being rude).

If you look at the fact that the non-dom will be paying tax somewhere in the world on those funds, the law was actually quite reasonable.

I am not a non-dom. Incidentally you cannot pretend to be a non-dom, other than by engaging in truly fraudulent activities. These people are just managing their tax affairs in the way in which they are legitimately entitled to.

No it would not be bending the rules. Not at all. It is using the rules exactly as they are intended to be used. Rather like when you or I stick some money in an ISA.

Everyone's definition of 'bending the rules' is going to vary. Some people don't like the fact that people earning 500k can still claim child benefit, and believe they should not claim it on principle.
Just because you don't like something, doesnt make it illegal, or unfair. And there have been countless references on this thread to 'unfairness'.

I don't think I understand how unfairness is being used in this context. What is unfair about our tax system?

We could have been born in sub-saharan Africa into dire poverty, struggling with famine, aids etc. Instead we live in a one of the richest countries in the world, and one moreover with a welfare state. Now that's unfair.

There has been much debate as to whether a presumption of anti-avoidance should underpin all UK tax law.

Until they do this, Tax avoidance is effectively ncouraged by the complexity of tax legislation. Over 40% of tax legislation is introduced to tackle anti avoidance. Unfortunately a lot of tax legislation is not carefully researched and has uninteneded consequences and further legislation is required to plug the holes created. Anyone with a decent whack of money will employ a tax specialist to research the best way forward. Unfortunately they will often come up with horribly complex schemes that are legal but sometimes audacious.

Quattro - Are you sure you aren't intimate with a non Dom? At least sleeping with him, even if not for profit?

Well clearly we need to defer to you Dittany, on what the intentions of Parliament are!
The legislation is quite clear, and as long as people are acting within the law, then it's ridiculous and illogical to describe this as 'wrong'.
Incidentally, I don't agree that means testing is degrading. I would be tempted to ask you why you think that way, but I honestly don't know if I have the energy to hear the answer!

Swedes

Oh would I be able to benefit from advanced tax avoidance simply by sleeping with a non-dom?

Dittany, I really think we should stop the argument here. You say "If you can come up with any evidence that parliament believes that everybody should pay income tax except the richest amongst us who can afford to set up tax avoidance schemes I'm willing to be persuaded otherwise, but until then your argument is simply wrong."

Legitimate tax planning is well known about by parliament, and enabled in plenty of successive income tax acts. You're determined to find all non-doms either guilty of fraud (they are not) or immorality (ditto). The way they are taxed is perfectly reasonable. What is astonishing and ill-informed is how they have been demonised in the popular press.

putting money in an ISA is available to everyone with any money at all citizens of the UK. Not paying UK tax on your income is only an option available only to those citizens who call themselves non doms. The poor (or indeed any of the rest of us) don't have the option to pay our taxes to another country. We live here, we pay our tax here. Non doms live here, send their kids to school here and can stay here as long as they like, yet can avoid paying normal UK taxes. Legal it may be, fair it isn't.

The poor don't have money to put into an ISA. So by your argument, that isn't fair either?

That's not my argument at all. That's irrelevant. Given exactly the same transaction with the same money, one small (and wealthy)group can escape paying any tax at all just by calling themselves non-doms. That's what's unfair. And it is why no other country allows it.

As SWC says you have conflated a lot of different things in your argument, Dittany.

If you are thinking that it is unfair for non-doms not to pay tax on income earned outside the UK, then that is indeed written in the tax code, and does not involve any fancy-pants tax planning. It is just there in the law, as it was always intended to be, EXACTLY like setting up an ISA.

I'm a non-dom. Could you explain to me how I can get out of paying income tax? Because I can't see a legal way of doing it. I earn income in the UK and taxed via PAYE. I cannot change that.

Even if you are a non-dom, you can't legally avoid paying income tax with PAYE.

I have money in a foreign account (the country I was born in), but it is money that is earning interest in a foreign country, and is subject to the tax rules of that country. If I bring any of that interest into the UK then I will be taxed in the UK. Seems pretty straight forward to me.

To me as well potoroo but to Dittany you are IMMORAL and clearly destined for hell ...

Well I just thought of another tax avoidence thing I have done. DH and I set up our wills such that if one of us dies, half the estate goes into trust so that if the other person dies then the DCs get the full inheritence tax threshold from both of us.

Didn't consider it immoral at all... but there you go.

(Note this is not a non-dom thing, anyone can do it).