The Last Ditch by Tom Paine

12 responses to “Another way of looking at the tax avoidance fuss”

1. 

   Suboptimal Planet

   December 6, 2012

   True, though the US government isn’t exactly friendly to entrepreneurs.
   Perhaps Americans just have a better tradition of working around it, e.g.
   https://mises.org/daily/6096/How-Amazon-Survives-the-State

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2. 

   Suboptimal Planet

   December 6, 2012

   Of course, endemic corruption in the US makes workarounds easier …

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3. 

   cascadian

   December 6, 2012

   I would add a couple of other reasons,
   c. The notion of providing pleasantly decorated, clean stores, where seats, floors and washrooms are maintained is foreign to most retailers or the British managers they employ.
   d. British retailers have never progressed beyond the second world war rationing mentality and believe that everybody should queque to pay for their purchase at all times. Till operators must be surly and inefficient, customer service is a foreign concept and must never be tried.

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4. 

   Mark

   December 7, 2012

   I agree
   plus
   e) The trouble with Britain is that they actually insist on enforcing the laws other countries simply ignore (not sure about America though)…
   f) Britain is a rather small and fairly stupid country in which anyone with any intelligence involves themselves in the financial or legal cartels wringing money out of the rest of us rather than producing something useful for others.

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5. 

   Tomsmith

   December 7, 2012

   The most pathetic thing about this issue is the phony narrative of evil multinational corporations hiding their ill gotten profit from the heroic British taxman. Any business facing increasing costs will pass them on to the consumer, reduce wages, reduce shareholder dividends, or reduce capital expenditure. The result is that individual people actually pay the tax while the media cheer a fake victory.

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6. 

   cuffleyburgers

   December 7, 2012

   There was another discussion of this on the Daily Politics and nobody seems able to make the point about tax incidence ie. that the idea that companies somehow pay corporation tax is totally false, and in fact the incidence of the tax falls squarely on the shareholder and the consumer, therefore, the problem is not how much amazon, starbucks etc are paying or not paying in corporation tax, the problem is how much the government is pissing up the wall buying the votes of the hard of thinking.
   A stunningly simple point but one which is never made on the BBC. For obvious reasons of course.

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7. 

   cascadian

   December 8, 2012

   The most dismal commentary on tax avoidance you will read:
   http://underdogsbiteupwards.wordpress.com/2012/12/06/the-tax-man-cometh/
   Read also the comments to get some idea of the scope of the problem.
   Slightly off-topic it does not relate to corporation tax directly.

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8. 

   Moggsy

   December 10, 2012

   Call me dumb, but I read ages back that Starbucks has been ploughing practically all their profit in the UK into expansion in the UK.
   So they really might not make much profit in the UK just now. They do provide lots of jobs and collect lots of tax (vat) to the state.
   I get a bit sick of all the fake moralising the government is helping stir up to increase it’s tax take. It’s not like paying tax is a moral obligation anymore than giving a mugger your wallet is.

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9. 

   Tom

   December 10, 2012

   Quite. And in ploughing back money as capital investment, rather than distributing taxable profit to shareholders, they are responding as intended by politicians to incentives known as capital allowances. The politicians supporting the infantile UK Uncut campaign are monumental hypocrites. The trade unions bankrolling their infantilism would be on an equally rancorous rampage if capital allowances were abolished because then there would be less job-creating investment. Essentially this is all unicorns-farting-rainbows grade economics.

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10. 

    james higham

    December 10, 2012

    Pardon me if I patently misunderstand but they didn’t actually illegally avoid tax, did they? They just minimized, which anyone does, at least anyone good in business. Therefore their offer was another business move to appease customers.
    Can’t see the problem.

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11. 

    Tom

    December 11, 2012

    They have complied completely, yes. So the appeasement is the only problem. For Polly and her merry band of idiot Marxists are attacking the central concept, the very keystone, of civilisation – the rule of law. Of course they have always hated it as an obstacle to absolute power. They want the word of the Party, the great helmsman or the fuehrer to be the only law.

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12. 

    Tomsmith

    December 11, 2012

    Tom, have you read any of the writings of John Hasnas? An interesting one here if you have the time:
    http://faculty.msb.edu/hasnasj/GTWebSite/MythWeb.htm

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