Yeah, not a well put point on my part. Corporations will say that they do everything to maximise shareholder value, whilst doing it ethically. But at the end of the day, it's about maximising shareholder value. I think that corporations only try to behave as "responsible corporate citizens" where their activity is visible, and then only because they know that their consumers want to see it. The tax avoidance issue will not endear the corporations to their consumers, but they will weigh that up with how it affects their bottom line. Ultimately, it is all about the bottom line, not morals. Politics is ostensibly about philosophy and morals put into action - well, isn't that what we are voting for?
I'll throw this in then.....was it Goebbels? (I wasn't in that day) If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it
This is the financial equation that Starbucks has calculated just prior to their announcement to start paying UK Corporation Tax. I thought we voted on the basis of cuteness. That's right, isn't it?
Your speed in this case is irrelevant........If the speed limit was illegal, which it would be in the case I have outlined, you cannot be guilty, therefore you have every right to defend the charge (or if you wish, to use your words, use the loophole). Therefore apply the same thinking to the HMRC legislation..........If the rules aren't there, aren't clear or are ambiguous, then there is no reason why people (and organisations) should abide by a rule that doesn't exist. If Govt wants a 'catch all' policy, it is up them to write the rules, apply the rules and enforce the rules; until then, they should stop whingeing.
Your reasoning is so dodgy here, Al. You'd have to have very good proof that the greenhouse effect isn't real. The vast majority of scientists - the vast majority - is in no doubt about it. It doesn't matter whether you like it, or whether you are taxed on it. It's a fact. Read the books, do the research, don't just jump on every little piece of propaganda (ironic that - there are books on how it is produced) that supports what you'd like to hear. And don't believe that people who believe in the greenhouse effect are happy about it, or think it's beneficial. God knows, I'd love to have a massive gas-guzzling V8 that gets 8 miles to the gallon. But when I look at how the glaciers are shrinking (go and look at them) I couldn't buy one without feeling very guilty.
That's an interesting point. However, on topic, we are discussing the morality of legally circumventing existing laws, not discussing whether said laws are just. Pete is better able than I to discuss the issue of being "Not Guilty" by virtue of a law being "wrong". That sort of thing is Court of Appeal/House of Lords territory. With Corporation Tax, we aren't talking about unjust laws that are being broken, we are discussing inadequate laws that are being observed (at least, to the letter of the law).
There exist a large number of Double Taxation Treaties between various countries, the purpose of which is to be fair to people (or companies) who have earnings in one country and repatriate the money to another country. Essentially you only have to pay tax once, and under the Treaties you are let off having to pay tax a second time on the same earnings. This is all fair enough, as far as it goes. But in the light of developments highlighted in this thread, what we need now is a corresponding number of "Double Non-Taxation Treaties". The purpose of these would be to require that when earnings are transferred from one country to another (whether as transfer pricing, management fees, trade mark licensing, franchising, or whatever) tax must be paid in full in one or other of the countries - moving money without paying tax in either country would be contrary to the Treaties, and illegal. David Cameron recently mentioned this idea in quite sensible terms, surprisingly enough.
Or in other words, until it becomes 'law' there is nothing the UK can legally do about a company working within the rules that currently exist at the time.
Correct. As far as I can see. Several major European countries are doing their level best to stop their citizens squirrelling away cash in places like Switzerland to avoid paying tax on it (Germany and France to name but two). But so far, they have not shown similar zeal to get hold of the billions that corporations are squirrelling away. Whilst they may be doing this legally at present, there hasn't been (until the last few weeks) any political will to close those loopholes. We will get the same excuse:"If they have to pay our tax, they will simply go somewhere else". Too easy isn't it? May as well admit that the government is a spineless sheep that bends over at the first threat of blackmail. Or you might think that those in power look after their own.
No comment..........Other than 'scam'..........read the opposing literature and research. Three things for you to consider........1) Carbon Dioxide is not a greenhouse gas as it is purported to be....(It will only become dangerous when all the trees and foliage have been felled) 2) Why is the North West Passage called the North West Passage?.........It has been for a very long time, and is probably due to there being no ice present when some adventurous sailor managed to get his ship / boat through there. 3) Why are rising sea levels expected, because of melting ice; when schoolboy education taught us that water expands considerably when it freezes; yet shrinks when thawed? Don't bother to answer.....you won't change my mind and if I'm wrong I won't care what you call me, because I'll be long gone.
The Double Taxation Relief Regulations are indeed there to prevent individuals from being taxed twice on the same chunk of income. In simplistic terms, if your marginal rate of tax in the UK is 40%, and your marginal rate in say, France, is 30%, you only pay UK tax on the difference, 10%. If your UK tax is at 30% and French tax at 40%, you pay no UK tax. It's vastly more complicated than this, but it breaks down to what I outline here. None of this covers the situation where your UK marginal rate is 40%, and you artificially reduce your UK profit to nil - by raising your French liability by a corresponding amount, taxable at 30%. The benefit is obvious - you pay tax at 30% instead of 40%. You don't care that you are paying this to the French Government, you just care that you pay less. So yes, a Double Tax Deduction Treaty needs to be incorporated into our DTR regulations.
It very rarely happens that guilt or innocence in a criminal trial depends on a law being "wrong". If an Act of Parliament is deficient or ambiguous, it is for the courts to decide what the law is, unless and until Parliament passes another Act clarifying the position. More commonly, a prosecution fails because the prosecution case is missing crucial evidence. E.g. For a speed limit to apply, the law requires certain legal steps to have been taken by the authorities for the speed limit to come into force; if equipment is used to provide prosecution evidence, the law requires the equipment to be approved, tested, calibrated etc in certain ways. If these legal requirements have not been complied with, the prosecution case has an evidential hole in it - and if that raises a reasonable doubt, it must be resolved in the defendant's favour. That is the law being complied with, not something "wrong" with the law.
Actually Pete, you are missing an important point. If a speed limit has been imposed by the wrong Section of The Road Traffic Regulations Act and consquentally signing is incomplete or incorrect, then the speed limit is illegal and consequentally unenforceable. (I know this for fact......I won the case) The same could equally apply to HMRC legislation.
Oh for heaven's sake! If ice piled up on land melted and ran down into the sea, that would cause sea levels to rise. If ice already floating on the sea melted, it would not - but nobody has ever said it would. Whatever your views about climate change etc might be, making schoolboy howlers in elementary physics does nothing to strengthen your case. But they do give us a good laugh, so please carry on.
This is the point I am getting at. The question regarding what speed you were travelling at is independent of any legal interpretation. It's Newton's Laws, not Her Majesty's. If the law is incapable for any reason of making a determination, it needs looking at and any possible steps to improve it need to be taken by legislators. In the case of law governing financial transactions, everyone knows what the purpose of taxation of income is - a levy upon taxable profit. It shouldn't be a shock to a business or an individual that they should pay tax upon their profits. They may think that they can circumvent the law by creating artificial scenarios but in the end, it should be all about income minus allowable expenditure equals accessible profit. "Allowable expenditure" needs to be interpreted sensibly and with reference to reality, not along the lines of, "Ooh, it says here that ...".
What on earth are you talking about? The law is never incapable of making a determination. Every case is always determined - and obviously the determination is always not to someone's liking.
There is not one climate scientist that believes climate change is not man made. i have a mate who is a senior bod at SEPA. A while back I attended one of his talks on the subject. He quite openly said, if you don't believe it, you are an idiot. He is supposed to be diplomatic. the way things are going, hundreds of millions of people are going to die, from a variety of causes, the main one being the oceans food chain collapsing. In simple terms, ice melts, the sea is less alkalinic, crustaceans cannot form shells, then die out. Much of what lives on the, dies out and so on up the food chain. It is already being seen within coral. Global Warming and Coral Reefs - National Wildlife Federation
If ice is floating on the surface (i.e. above the level of the sea) and it melts, then obviously it will no longer be above the level of the sea because it will have become part of the sea. If the volume of the sea has increased, then the level has obviously got to rise. Hasn't anyone here got O level physics? I have to admit that I am very unwilling to accept anyone's view of climate change (a complicated subject) if they can't even master what happens to the level of water in their bath when they get into it.
