I gather the manifesto under which most Tories ran in the GE in 2017 was "advisory", too. Hmmm - there's a logical argument that would indicate that maybe laws and regulations are possibly advisory, too.
What is wrong with avoiding paying tax? Legally, nothing. Morally, plenty, as someone else will have to pay tax in your stead, unless you don't want any police to deal with knife crime or are happy for social services to be rubbish and the the NHS underfunded and and and .... list too tedious to continue with. The tax havens are used, almost exclusively, by people trying to avoid paying tax or by criminal enterprises. If you let the corrupt stash their cash offshore, you are just perpetuating rubbish situations in third world countries and then complaining when the citizens of those countries migrate to places, like Europe where they think things might be better. People complain about drug cartels or tut tut when they hear of people being chainsawed to death, but there is no problem helping them wash their money and without that, they don't have a business. People complain about house prices in the UK and London and how their children can't get on the housing ladder but they have no problem with some massive amount of housing being bought by unknown and unaccountable companies registered in tax havens: "Some 97,000 properties in England and Wales were held by overseas firms as of January 2018, a quarter of them owned by entities registered in the British Virgin Islands (BVI), according to Land Registry data."). Those won't be council houses by the way, just the nicest properties. This gross inequality is what is driving populism, Brexit, Trump, the rise of the right, the conspiracy theories, the Yellow Vest protest etc. But when noises are made about levelling out the playing field and requiring the internet giants and multinationals to start contributing to the societies they are happy to manipulate and rob, all you hear are squeals: "I've never understood why the EU are so hell bent on having a uniform corporate tax rate across the entire EU, unless it's part of the grand project master plan; the complete removal of individual countries sovereignty. First they take away the right to decide interest rates, then they impose a uniform VAT rate (with a very small margin for local decision), now it's corporation tax, next it will be income tax. More & more they want power to be consolidated in Brussels where it is used and administered by unelected technocrats." But if you come from the mindset that the EU is like some malign entity sitting at the heart of a Death Star, then you aren't going to understand, are you, ever?
Soooo, remoaners are at 6% to remain now on our forum poll, so feck your majorities - dreadful showing - lower than the Lib Dem’s at the last election
The binary is strong in this one. Either we have the EU, or we have financial inequality! Them's your choices! : o D
But what is wrong with that? It's not illegal. It's sound business practice, to maximise distributable profits for the shareholders that own the company. If there were a uniform CT rate across the EU it wouldn't stop this from happening, it would just occur in another jurisdiction somewhere else in the world. There is nothing, in law, at present, to prevent any other EU member state from having a similar rate of CT to Ireland (12.5%). However, economically, other countries cannot afford to lower their CT rates, hence pressure is applied through the EU to make "tax havens" like Ireland increase their rate. To me it smacks of kids in the playground going 'it's not fair' and then the teacher makes everyone toe the line; a bit like school sports days where no single child 'wins' the race, they all win. Politically correct, socialist bollox. The EU was initially, and still is, a means to facilitate peace across all European sovereign nations. IMO correctly so, it morphed into a trading block, that is a good thing. Attempting to get those nations that trade together to have similar if not identical standards is also sensible, to a degree. However, I fail to see what having uniform tax rates across the EU has to do with the stated aims of the EU. It has more to do with the unspoken aims of the Project, a Federal Europe.
I watched a lib dem party conference recently, it was like watching the thriller video, but with less choreography.
It would probably be better if the G20 moved on the issue, but I'm not holding my breath. If one country makes it harder for the thieves, they'll just move to another - like Ireland in the instance of internet giants. If you don't get a consensus, you aren't going to change anything. The EU has produced a lot lot consensus about many many things. That sort of what it does. If the EU really clamped down on dirty money, the Russian oligarchs and gulf sheiks would probably have to move out of London. And I'm in favour of that. The post-Brexit vision is to encourage more of them to come. Lewis Hamilton will be pleased, probably. He'll be able to come home with Philip Green.
Am I permitted or allowed to go and sit in a cardboard box until this farce is all over, what a shower of useless to**ers.
