Tuesday 24 July 2012

Gauke's Moral Crusade



Yesterday our old friend David Gauke said that the government will name and shame wealthy people who use "aggressive" tax avoidance schemes. Gauke went on to say that companies offering such products will be forced to hand over details of their clients.

Today he continued with his "moral crusade", by stating that it is morally wrong to pay tradesmen cash in hand in the expectation of receiving a discount of the tax evaded.

Quite how he intends to stop that I don't know.

However, whilst he is so keen on moralising about the behaviour of others he might care to look to his own domestic arrangements.

Guido Fawkes points out the following:
"Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury David Gauke writing in The Times this morning says that they are going to name and shame tax dodgers. He also gives examples of what is fair and what is not:
Legitimate use of reliefs, for example taking out a tax-free ISA, is not tax avoidance. Buying a house for personal use through a company to avoid stamp duty, on the other hand, clearly is. Morally repugnant practices such as this are where the Government is cracking down.
David Gauke MP claimed £10,248.32 expenses back from taxpayers to avoid paying the stamp duty and fees involved in the purchase of his home in London. Not only is that in his own words “morally repugnant”, it is beyond hypocritical to lecture others against doing what he himself did. It is shameless."
On the subject of companies that offer tax avoidance advice, Gauke may care to have a word with his wife. Guido Fawkes notes the following:
"Gauke’s wife Rachel is a professional support lawyer for Lexis Nexis, a company which boasts of its ability to “support every tax practitioner on the front line as they deal with the tax collector“. 

According to her personal profile Rachel “specialises in corporate tax law…and has advised on corporate restructurings, M&A, investment funds and finance“.
As I stated in June, avoidance is a perfectly normal human thing to try to do, the politicians are not in a position to lecture the rest of us on "morality." A politician lecturing us on morality is as natural as a cat walking on its hind legs.

Tax does have to be taxing.




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4 comments:

  1. Really fecks with my conscience paying my window cleaner in cash FFS!
    Is he supposed to ask for a cheque(remember them?) or is the poor sod supposed to get a swipe card machine and be charged extortionate fees by some tax-haven based organisation for the "privelidge".
    Gauke is a joke and the fact that he ignores his own immoral approach to taxation beggars belief.
    Its one happy family for them and feck you for the rest of us.
    He'll be gone soon and another hypocrite will take his place.

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  2. and ten grand expenses.. on a house where only he will benefit from the capital gain.

    It's not the paying in cash is the problem as such. It's paying in cash to avoid paying the VAT and where the tradesman pockets the money but the job doesn't appear in his accounts.

    A little black economy keeps the world turning!

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    Replies
    1. Taking the money and not declaring the tax is simply tax evasion.Paying cash to any tradesman or retailer is not.

      It is not, as yet, the responsibility of the consumer to demand a tax invoice as in France.The onus lies with the provider to declare any tax due at the right time and in the right amount to HMRC.
      It is then up to the taxman to check or otherwise verify the credibility.

      Seemples.

      Dozy Gauke should have kept his trap shut.
      Perhaps he would like to criticise the banks caught out money laundering recently in the US. Are they connected to banks in the UK, do they take from the public purse?

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  3. Question: what is really going on here?

    Answer: behind the moralising bullshite is a very dark agenda. Visa and Mastercard who already control almost 90% of EU based payments are trying to outlaw cash. Without Debit/Credit Cards there is no need for anyone to have a bank account. Think about that! Guess who owns the banks if 90% of the transactions go through cards?

    Already small traders are losing out as the costs of machines and transaction fees bite into dwindling margins and it is against the Law in the UK and your terminal agreement to charge those fees and costs back to your card user.

    What is happening in the UK is that the Card Issuers and the Banks are charging a tax for the use of their cards and accounts that goes straight ofshore. Think about what this means globally. There is not a sovereign country that can actually issue and control its own currency. There is not a sovereign country that does not pay a tax to the banks and card companies for the use of their own currency!

    Who runs the world?

    The Bankers.

    Who ensures the system stays this way?

    The Governments.

    Figured it out yet?

    Watch the movie In Time and call it In Money. There is hope yet though.

    Bristol has just issued the Bristol Pound pointing out that 80% of the money spent in a multinational leaves the area if not the country. That does not included the Transaction Fees on Cards which are exactly the same thing money spent with a multinational.

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