Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[Josquius]

Neidle uses a different and tighter definition of tax avoidance than the one I have been using. I have been assuming that buying a bottle of whiskey at the airport or making ISA investments are tax avoidance; in plain English they are ways of avoiding tax but it seems that the legal definition involves "what parliament intended". I don't like that because how is someone to know what Parliament intended?

I think a big risk we run is Reform winning the next general election and forming a government with utterly inexperienced ministers who will have no grip over their departments. Then we will get civil service rule and the slow decline will continue...not good.

So I reckon they need some of the experience that the more right wing parts of the Tory party could bring over. At which point the "same old Tories" line will have some force as you say.

No, you had it right the first time. Tax avoidance is just that, structuring your affairs in a way that avoids the pain of taxes.  There is nothing illegal or an immoral about doing that.  Not avoiding taxes is just plain stupid.

Why would anyone pay more tax than they are legally required to pay.

What I am seeing in this thread is some people having a misunderstanding of what a tax system is. 

A lot of people would disagree with you. There's been lots of research to show a significant chunk of the population find exploiting tax loop holes to get out of paying what you fairly should be paying to be wrong. When the person in question is rich, as Farage is, this becomes stronger still.
e.g. https://fairnessfoundation.com/posts/tax-and-fairness
Hell. In the article in question it mentions Farage himself condemning the practice.

I am sure, or at least I hope, that everyone here claims all the deductions that are available to them when they fill out their tax returns.  You are all engaging in tax avoidance.

Most people aren't rich enough to need to fill out a tax return.
On those occasions where I've had to (due to the daft way child benefit is handled with middle earners) the only possible deductions were to avoid mentioning sources of income in the hope I'm not found out (which I didn't do).

[Richard Hakluyt]

If you are a higher rate income tax payer and make charitable donations then you can claim money back because gift aid is only applied at the standard rate. You can spend the money saved on beer or give it away to the charities you support. So it is worth filing a return if you fall into that category. I suspect that a sizable percentage of people fill in returns for that reason (and higher rate tax kicks in at quite modest incomes these days).

[crazy canuck]

The difficulty with your argument Sheilbh, is it all hinges on one's view of what the intent of tax legislation is.  Your argument also ignores the jurisprudence regarding taxation laws which assumes that if the legislation provides for a way to avoid taxes, that result is prima facie intended.

If the legislation provides a mechanism for people to structure their affairs in such a way as to lawfully reduce their taxes, then how can it be said providing the mechanism was not the intent of parliament?

Or, put another way, if it was not the intent of parliament to provide that mechanism, then parliament can simply amend the legislation to eliminate that mechanism.

[Tamas]

I mean, if you put effort into various (legal) trickeries to reduce the tax you pay, you do go against the intent and spirit of the tax law. You most certainly lose ethical ground, for example in saying or demanding that the state spends more on one cause or another.

[Sheilbh]

The difficulty with your argument Sheilbh, is it all hinges on one's view of what the intent of tax legislation is.  Your argument also ignores the jurisprudence regarding taxation laws which assumes that if the legislation provides for a way to avoid taxes, that result is prima facie intended.

If the legislation provides a mechanism for people to structure their affairs in such a way as to lawfully reduce their taxes, then how can it be said providing the mechanism was not the intent of parliament?

Or, put another way, if it was not the intent of parliament to provide that mechanism, then parliament can simply amend the legislation to eliminate that mechanism.

I'm not sure what you think the argument I'm making is because I thought I was agreeing

I'd add I'm not a tax lawyer but Dan Neidle is which is that framing of those steps from lawful tax avoidance to tax evasion with various steps on the way. I think it's in part because of the "general anti-abuse rule" which is basically a statutory power that allows HMRC to crack down on tax avoidance which is within the letter of the law but not intended by parliament.

It was brought in in 2013 and is why the space for "successful" tax avoidance is pretty narrow now. There were a lot of lawful tax avoidance schemes being sold by accountancy firms and law firms before then and one of the challenges was that there was a degree of whack-a-mole to crack-down on specific artificial structures etc at budgets. So a lot of that power sits with HMRC now and there aren't many lawful, successful tax avoidance schemes left beyond the ones where the tax avoidance is the purpose (agricultural land and inheritance tax, ISAs, pensions etc).

But also I know companies spend a huge amount of time, for example, working on exactly what Farage is doing and whether or not someone is truly acting as a consultant or if they should actually be on the payroll. The rules were really tightened on that over the last few years - in part (at the top end of the market) because of concerns about tax avoidance and in part (at the bottom) because of workers' rights issues and gig economy jobs.

I mean, if you put effort into various (legal) trickeries to reduce the tax you pay, you do go against the intent and spirit of the tax law. You most certainly lose ethical ground, for example in saying or demanding that the state spends more on one cause or another.

FWIW I think this is part of why even with a bigger tax issue Farage and Rayner would land differently. Farage's is that only a fool would voluntarily hand over a single farthing to the revenue. Rayner attacked Sunak's as a tax dodger and Nadhim Zahawi's tax avoidance and did so on the grounds that every tax not paid is hurting public services. If that's your politics you've got to make sure you're paying your taxes.

[crazy canuck]

I mean, if you put effort into various (legal) trickeries to reduce the tax you pay, you do go against the intent and spirit of the tax law. You most certainly lose ethical ground, for example in saying or demanding that the state spends more on one cause or another.

What do you think legal trickery is?

edit: and actually, what do you think the spirit of tax law is?  To pay as much tax as possible?

[crazy canuck]

The difficulty with your argument Sheilbh, is it all hinges on one's view of what the intent of tax legislation is.  Your argument also ignores the jurisprudence regarding taxation laws which assumes that if the legislation provides for a way to avoid taxes, that result is prima facie intended.

If the legislation provides a mechanism for people to structure their affairs in such a way as to lawfully reduce their taxes, then how can it be said providing the mechanism was not the intent of parliament?

Or, put another way, if it was not the intent of parliament to provide that mechanism, then parliament can simply amend the legislation to eliminate that mechanism.

I'm not sure what you think the argument I'm making is because I thought I was agreeing

I'd add I'm not a tax lawyer but Dan Neidle is which is that framing of those steps from lawful tax avoidance to tax evasion with various steps on the way. I think it's in part because of the "general anti-abuse rule" which is basically a statutory power that allows HMRC to crack down on tax avoidance which is within the letter of the law but not intended by parliament.

It was brought in in 2013 and is why the space for "successful" tax avoidance is pretty narrow now. There were a lot of lawful tax avoidance schemes being sold by accountancy firms and law firms before then and one of the challenges was that there was a degree of whack-a-mole to crack-down on specific artificial structures etc at budgets. So a lot of that power sits with HMRC now and there aren't many lawful, successful tax avoidance schemes left beyond the ones where the tax avoidance is the purpose (agricultural land and inheritance tax, ISAs, pensions etc).

But also I know companies spend a huge amount of time, for example, working on exactly what Farage is doing and whether or not someone is truly acting as a consultant or if they should actually be on the payroll. The rules were really tightened on that over the last few years - in part (at the top end of the market) because of concerns about tax avoidance and in part (at the bottom) because of workers' rights issues and gig economy jobs.

I mean, if you put effort into various (legal) trickeries to reduce the tax you pay, you do go against the intent and spirit of the tax law. You most certainly lose ethical ground, for example in saying or demanding that the state spends more on one cause or another.

FWIW I think this is part of why even with a bigger tax issue Farage and Rayner would land differently. Farage's is that only a fool would voluntarily hand over a single farthing to the revenue. Rayner attacked Sunak's as a tax dodger and Nadhim Zahawi's tax avoidance and did so on the grounds that every tax not paid is hurting public services. If that's your politics you've got to make sure you're paying your taxes.

I agree that likely what he was doing was trying to describe the catch all provisions of tax legislation -but the problem is that is too complex an argument to compress into the limited opinion piece space.

Just look at the result, we have people here (and not just Jos) who think that arranging one's affairs in compliance of the statute is somehow wrong.

I won't comment on the politics at play here.  I assume you are correct in those observations.

[Sheilbh]

Just to flag - I haven't followed the re-shuffle - but I think this weakens Starmer quite a lot.

FWIW I think it was a good resignation and Rayner will be able to come back at some point. But in the short term, from what I've read, there are lots of people around Starmer who don't really think he's up to it and some astonishingly blunt language in the reporting about him. In that Patrick Maguire and Gabriel Pogrund book one of Starmer's aides said that it was like a DLR train - they let Starmer sit at the front and think he's driving.

And the people around Starmer are overwhelmingly from the right of the party. He also has an extraordinary reliance on old Tony Blair aides (to an extent I find kind of amazing - it'd be like if Blair brought in loads of advisors from Harold Wilson's Number 10, or Cameron from John Major's). From things I've read the preferred candidate for the right of the party is Wes Streeting because he actually believes it - he's aligned with them naturally - while Starmer needs to be sort of brought round because he's basically soft-left, but can be ultimately run by the right because he doesn't really have a politics of his own.

The big obstacle to doing a push to remove Starmer is that in a challenge to his leadership the most likely winner would be Angela Rayner who is from the left of the party. I'm not suggesting they're behind it all or that this is a plan to get Streeting in Number 10 - but I suspect this will kick any moves against Starmer up a gear, including from Starmer's closest aides. I think especially because Andy Burnham may re-enter the Commons in a couple of years once his tenure as mayor ends. Again I've no basis for this and am wildly, libelously speculating but I do wonder where all this drip-drip of stories about Angela Rayner's taxes have come from...

Edit: Also looked at the reshuffle and I don't think it really makes much sense a bit weird.

Slightly concerned that Steve Reed has moved to Housing given that he led the Labour campaign against Robert Jenrick's proposed planning reforms, saying "the planning system isn't the problem" and has since been at Environment. Hopefully he'll have a conversion

[Tamas]

I guess the Guardian front page right now is a good indication of their priorities:

GAZA

FARAGE

government reshuffle

[mongers]

Total aside - but just a follow up on the way Reform are doing media totally differently for a political party.

The eco-populist candidate won the Green leadership with 85% of the vote. One of the first things he's announced:

Zack Polanski
@ZackPolanski
Leading a political party means leading the political conversation, being available and being heard on the platforms people actually use. 

Join me every Wednesday on my new podcast: Bold Politics. The only podcast led by a current party leader in the UK. Link in bio.

Different from previous Green strategy which is hyper-local. But interesting. And I think whether it's Reform livestreaming their own events (which they have proper set design for) with commentary, or getting a daytime TV to "host" their conference, or the leader of the Greens launching a weekly podcast - I think we're moving past the comms techniques and style of the 90s. The two big traditional parties still need to keep doing what they're doing but also move past the off-the-record anonymous briefings to lobby journalists, focus on leading the Today program on Radio 4, and the big broadcast shows on Sunday morning etc.

I'd add to that Corbyn and Sultana's party which is very online.

Also incidentally gain the trans debate is proving quite challenging for Your Party and the Greens. Your Party has all of the Gaza independents in the party, these are all (male) Muslim MPs who are fairly socially conservative; with the Greens one of the new deputy leader Mothin Ali refused to make pledges to any groups within the party (I actually quite liked his reasoning explaining this quite a lot), including the LGBT+ Greens and is coming under a lot of pressure on this issue, he's also been attacked for comments he made on October 7th. The flipside of that is he was one of the running mates of the Greens' new gay Jewish leader which makes those attacks more challenging.

I'm somewhat sceptical, something doesn't quite ring true.

Turns out him and me share the same alma mater, at least for undergraduate; if it were the same department, I my bullshitometer tick up into the red. 
 

Edit:
After a fair bit of googling, found this radio 4 profile podcast about him, turns out he studied Drama there, so my fears are largely allayed:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002j5jy

[Sheilbh]

I guess the Guardian front page right now is a good indication of their priorities:

GAZA

FARAGE

government reshuffle

What do you want them to say about the re-shuffle? I can't really think there's much more to say than "this happened" It doesn't feel particularly consequential.

If I had to try and do some sort of take on it - my read is that they wanted to move Shabana Mahmood to Home Office. That makes sense, I think Mahmood is one of the only effective cabinet ministers in the last year. She was in Justice with a prison crisis - she's had to early release schemes, has now done wider sentencing reform (plus some much needed political accountability for the Sentencing Council) and getting the money from the Treasury for building new prisons/upgrading the estate. The MoJ was one of the areas that could have exploded last year and I think she's been pretty impressive there so I get wanting to move her. But everything else seem to just be worked backwards from that - they don't actually want to demote Cooper so they move her to Foreign Office, they don't actually want to demote Lammy so they move him to Justice plus Deputy PM (same thing that Raab had when he was demoted). But there's not much there. I don't think it's a reshuffle that matters much or changes things.

Only other aside is that I am a little worried about Reed at Housing. I think Kyle was massively out of his depth at DSIT and don't really get promoting him to Business especially as Jonathan Reynolds is the other cabinet minister who I think has been impressive in the last year - and I really don't get moving him from Business to Chief Whip. But this is all pretty minor. I think the one to watch will be deputy leader of Labour - as Rayner resigned from that as well even though she didn't need to - and that role is elected by Labour party members so it will be interesting who runs, how they do, how they position themselves in relation to Starmer (I can see a few running on the promise of not taking a cabinet seat and being tribune of the members from the backbenches).

Having said that - I can't help but admire Rayner's political nous because I don't think it was an accident that she resigned the day before the Reform Party Conference opened. Very smart move to guarantee a very short news cycle.

[Richard Hakluyt]

Another 425 terrorists arrested in London today :

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c62qrmpd7l5o

Thank God we have the Metropolitan Police to protect us.

[garbon]

Another 425 terrorists arrested in London today :

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c62qrmpd7l5o

Thank God we have the Metropolitan Police to protect us.

What would you rather have them do? Refuse to enforce this law? I think that would be genuinely terrifying if they did that.

I am not one to defend the Met but I feel your annoyance in this instance is better reserved for the government/parliament.

[Razgovory]

Man, I despise the pro-Pal movement, but I don't think they should be arrested.

[Richard Hakluyt]

You are quite right, the real villain here is the government. It must be quite demoralizing for many police officers to wade in and arrest so many otherwise respectable people on the grounds of terrorism.

I should also note here that I don't approve of Palestine Action; but criminal damage carries a sentence of up to ten years and with aggravated criminal damage (which maybe damaging a fighter jet might count as) a life sentence csn be imposed.

The proscription is not necessary; I conclude that the main aim is therefore to suppress dissent on the UK's policy towards Israel and Palestine, which is pretty contemptible.