SubJeff on 21/3/2006 at 15:46
For once I agree with you Convict. People should be given a set and finite amount of welfare, subject to circumstances of course.
Imho university serves to teach you about a host of life and work skills that you aquire independantly from the course you are on. That's not to say that someone who hasn't attended uni will not or can not obtain the same skills but as an employer you know that a uni graduate will have some of that factor x.
Paz on 21/3/2006 at 16:20
Last year, benefit fraud was down to around 2.6 billion quid. Unclaimed benefit stood at around 7 billion.
Corporate tax avoidance was estimated at 85 billion.
Assuming these figures are anywhere close to being accurate (please help confirm/unconfirm them); which is the bigger problem here?
Bonus question: Why is there never a headline screaming SINGLE PARENT RUNS OFFSHORE COMPANY WITH FOURTEEN SWISS BANK ACCOUNTS TO DIFFERENT FATHERS?
Myoldnamebroke on 21/3/2006 at 17:01
I might ask for my set amount of welfare all at once, then I could use it to buy a peerage and be sorted for life.
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off-topic, but on topic for my sort of off-topic post: cash-for-peerages is clearly an attempt to diminish the standing on the House of Lords in public eyes, and so bring more pressure for the Lords to just bow to our democratically elected leaders and give them the bills they want. There's already rumblings that they should stop opposing ID cards because Labour has a 'mandate'. Rubbish.
Chimpy Chompy on 21/3/2006 at 18:25
Quote Posted by Paz
Corporate tax avoidance was estimated at 85 billion.
(
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,16849-2062988,00.html) Quite a complex process apparently.
As for tax avoidance, it seems to mean any use of the tax laws to produce a result the commentator does not like.I agree in that I wouldn't be surprised if genuinely dodgy evasion weighed in at more than dodgy welfare claims, but that £85 billion could be quite iffy. (It also appears that whatever corporations pay in that particular tax, they pay roughly that much again in various other taxes).
SD on 21/3/2006 at 18:29
Quote Posted by Subjective Effect
as an employer you know that a uni graduate
will have some of that factor x
If the university graduates who I am familiar with are anything to go by, possession of "factor x" constitutes being a mouthy little gobshite who thinks that three years of getting wasted five times a week on cheap Fosters and stealing traffic cones makes him an expert in How The World Works.
Of course, I am the exception that proves the rule :sweat:
ps paz i love you
Convict on 21/3/2006 at 21:46
Quote Posted by Paz
Corporate tax avoidance was estimated at 85 billion.
Isn't tax avoidance tax minimisation (legitimate) whereas tax evasion is the illegal stuff?
Paz on 21/3/2006 at 21:59
It depends, as Chimpy's article points out, whether it is at the level of "unacceptable avoidance" (ie; concealment, or out and out fraud). This is certainly debatable to some degree - however, the same can be applied to benefit 'fraud'.
If, for example, my savings are too great for me to claim a certain level of benefit, but I move some money to another account to disguise this fact and then make a claim - is this "unacceptable avoidance". I'd say it definitely was, yet any decent business accountant would treat this as merely clever asset usage (they'd also probably set up dummy companies and the like instead of using a new bank account, but the principle is the same).
The primary point, really, wasn't the gap between money lost to benefit fraud and money lost to corporate shenanigans (though that was partly it); rather, I was suggesting that disproportionate focus is placed on the welfare system in terms of tabloid scare stories. Beyond the pages of something like Private Eye, or maybe some specialist publications I'm not familiar with, serious business fraud - which occurs with just as much regularly and (of course) involves far greater sums - is *comparatively* overlooked.
SD on 21/3/2006 at 22:13
Let me give you two real-life examples.
The first example is a single mother who works 6 hours a week, cash-in-hand, as a cleaner, but claims a full unemployment benefit.
The second example is a young man I was at university with. His parents were filthy rich and owned their own company. However, because he was registered as a director of his parents' company, from which he drew a nominal wage, he was technically classed as self-sufficient, so he got a full student grant, all tuition fees paid for him and any number of additional benefits that were intended for students from low-income families.
Technically, one of these is breaking the law and one isn't. But which one of them is stiffing the system to a greater degreee?
Myoldnamebroke on 21/3/2006 at 22:14
I'm not really sure any avoidance should be viewed as acceptable. Some methods might be less dishonest than others, but that doesn't make them more justifiable, only easier to get away with.
If tax is being avoided, you've got dodgy tax law. Surely these things aren't implemented with the idea of giving companies a way to minimise costs? They're there because the government has plumped for a certain level of taxation as acceptable. If a company is avoiding paying that tax, it shouldn't be viewed as ingenious, it should be viewed as cheating or a sign of dodgy lawmaking. It's not an aren't you clever move if someone that isn't a giant company tries to pull a similar trick, it's ILLEGAL YOU SPONGES. And so on.
