Thursday 21 June 2012

Some Thoughts On A Scandal

The scandal of the day is that comedian Jimmy Carr has been avoding paying large amounts of tax. Really? Him and thousands of others!

I'm not here to either condemn or condone tax evasion, in fact is it actually tax evasion or simply creative accounting? Whatever.............the "facts" seem to be that the financial scheme in question was not illegal and Mr Carr's accountant was doing exactly what accountants are paid to do. If you have tax laws that are riddled with loopholes big enough to drive a truck through, then you shouldn't be surprised if individuals and major corporations load those trucks to the hilt with cash before driving off!

Whether it is morally acceptable or not depends on the state of your morals. Personally, I don't like paying taxes but I do accept that you don't get anything for nothing, and besides, I neither have the sort of money needed to make these schemes work or the sort of money required to pay an accountant to operate them, If I did, who knows which side of the moral fence I'd chose to lean against.

Was David Cameron right to name Jimmy Carr? Absolutely not, technically at least, he has done nothing wrong. If the PM chooses to close the loopholes in the tax laws and make such schemes illegal, only then should he be allowed to name names.

Of course the press feeding frenzy has already kicked in, Gary Barlow has been named as being involved in a different, but presumably, equally lucrative scheme. In his case, however, his user friendly image seems to have protected him from the PM's wrath. Watch out for more names to hit the tabloids over the next few weeks.

Interestingly, it has also been reported that the Cameron fortune was founded by his father who headed up a company that specialized in creating and managing this type of tax scheme!

The pots and kettles are getting decidedly darker day by day LOL

3 comments:

  1. Interesting that our Chancellor, Mr Osbourne, said a few months ago that he was surprised how little some of his rich friends paid in tax, but did not name them. Jimmy Carr gets both barrels from Tory Boy PM.
    I agree with you, I have no views; I once had a job that made me tax-exempt, and so got a full refund. Mr Carr and the rest have done nothing illegal; best close the loopholes, but that would affect their rich friends.

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  2. The economist John Maynard Keynes said "The avoidance of taxes is the only intellectual pursuit that carries any reward". Perhaps these people are brighter than we give them credit for!

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