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king_pellinorThe transcript of the PAC hearing is on-line: http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201213/cmselect/cmpubacc/uc716-ii/uc71601.htm
I've only skim-read it, as I could feel my blood-pressure rising as I did. Let me summarise it:
MPs don't ask questions so that the other person can give the answer: they ask the question so the MP can interrupt and fill in the answer they think ought to be given. Anything the interviewee sees fit to say should rightly be ignored as irrelevant.
MPs can't grasp the concept of a limited liability company as a person in its own right. As far as they're concerned any global group is a single entity, and thee are no circumstances under which any individual company can have obligations to any other.
The HMRC view of business seems to have infilitrated Parliamentary thinking: the only reason to do anything is to avoid UK tax.
No country outside the UK has any right to decide their own laws or taxes. Charging less than the UK does is illegal, somehow - the UK is trying to be competitive in its tax rates, which is entirely reasonable, but being more competitive than the UK is just immoral.
Profits should be taxed where the activity that gives rise to it takes place, but only if that place is the UK. If you live in the UK and sell to a someone in France, obviously you should pay tax on the sale in the UK because that's where the sale takes place. Conversely, if someone in France sells to you in the UK then obviously you should pay tax on the sale in the UK because that's where the sale takes place.
This is largely because paying for something is tax avoidance: a wholesaler should sell goods for the price it paid for them, and throw all the overheads in for nothing. If you spend years building up a brand name, you should let other people pretend to be you for nothing. Franchises are only ever run as charities.
The world is divided into the UK and Offshore. People only do business Offshore to avoid UK tax. Being Irish or Swiss should be a criminal offence, as the only reason to be born outside the UK is to avoid UK tax.
The fact that rules exist to govern behaviour, and that virtually everyone complies with them, is proof that those rules need to be invented to regulate the huge number of people who blatantly defy them.
I've only skim-read it, as I could feel my blood-pressure rising as I did. Let me summarise it:
MPs don't ask questions so that the other person can give the answer: they ask the question so the MP can interrupt and fill in the answer they think ought to be given. Anything the interviewee sees fit to say should rightly be ignored as irrelevant.
MPs can't grasp the concept of a limited liability company as a person in its own right. As far as they're concerned any global group is a single entity, and thee are no circumstances under which any individual company can have obligations to any other.
The HMRC view of business seems to have infilitrated Parliamentary thinking: the only reason to do anything is to avoid UK tax.
No country outside the UK has any right to decide their own laws or taxes. Charging less than the UK does is illegal, somehow - the UK is trying to be competitive in its tax rates, which is entirely reasonable, but being more competitive than the UK is just immoral.
Profits should be taxed where the activity that gives rise to it takes place, but only if that place is the UK. If you live in the UK and sell to a someone in France, obviously you should pay tax on the sale in the UK because that's where the sale takes place. Conversely, if someone in France sells to you in the UK then obviously you should pay tax on the sale in the UK because that's where the sale takes place.
This is largely because paying for something is tax avoidance: a wholesaler should sell goods for the price it paid for them, and throw all the overheads in for nothing. If you spend years building up a brand name, you should let other people pretend to be you for nothing. Franchises are only ever run as charities.
The world is divided into the UK and Offshore. People only do business Offshore to avoid UK tax. Being Irish or Swiss should be a criminal offence, as the only reason to be born outside the UK is to avoid UK tax.
The fact that rules exist to govern behaviour, and that virtually everyone complies with them, is proof that those rules need to be invented to regulate the huge number of people who blatantly defy them.
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no subject
Date: 2012-11-18 09:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-11-19 10:59 am (UTC)I don't expect all MPs to be tax experts, but I would like them to have some experience of life outside the Westminster bubble. Personally, I'd make any professional politician work in a call centre for a year and live on what they earn- it might give them a better sense of reality.
no subject
Date: 2012-11-19 11:30 am (UTC)Found myself blushing with embarrassment that the sample of our elected representatives who volunteered to be on an internet committee had no grasp at all of basic concepts like network routing or encryption, and apparently had not bothered to google them. As you say, I don't expect them to know everything, but why would they be on a committee when they are so obviously unqualified?