GREAT BRITAIN - EUROPEAN UNION – UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Update - 28 June 2016.
Guardian headlines

Britain credit rating downgraded as markets suffer more Brexit losses - as it happened

Latest: Fitch downgrades UK to AA

• S&P downgrades UK from AAA to AA

• FTSE 100 fell by another 156 points today

• Pound hit a new 31-year low

 Rating agency S&P says EU referendum result is a ‘seminal event’ that means Britain no longer deserves a top credit rating

Letter to the Guardian

BREXIT – Uncertainty triggers investors worldwide, way beyond UK control, to convert to cash or gold. Whitehall requires 300 experienced civil servants to work for ten years to remake our trade deals; they have just three. 1/5^th of UK companies are already quitting the country; exporting capital. Individuals will join the capital-flight. Tax-evaders are exporting more assets, adding to the estimated £2 trillion (8 million good UK jobs) in tax havens. 3M Brits have signed the petition to nullify the referendum because it was based on lies. This unprecedented chaotic collapse will worsen day-by-day, impoverishing us all. Cameron slinks off into retirement. The LEAVERS offer us Corbyn, Johnson, Gove & Farage, outright liars who have already reversed all their campaign promises. 

A “democratic decision” based on blatant lies is fraudulent. The UK government must tell the world, urgently, today, that we are staying in the EU.   

Noel Hodson - Director

Tax Reconciliations, Oxford UK,

From Tax-Havens to Safe Havens

Tel +44 1865 (0)760994 Mobile 07713 681216

****
THESE ARE TERRIBLE TIMES FOR THE UK.

The economic consensus to date (12.30 pm 28 Jun 2016) is that the UK assets have lost about $1.5 trillion. That is $50,000 per UK household of wealth lost. People will therefore curtail spending - transactions are being and will be decimated - businesses will be bankrupted - huge unemployment will result. My wife's and my modest pension assets (our home and a few shares) have lost 14% in 3 days. We and millions of other families will stop spending. The UK is going bust. 

Unless the government announces to the world that the Referendum was based on blatant lies, peddled to ordinary folk with no chance of evaluating the EU - UK relationship; and misled by villainous politicians and offshore-owned media into blaming all their problems on the EU, and that therefore the Referendum is being set-aside - we will lose ten times as much as we already have. The nation will go bust. 

Currently (1 pm 28 Jun 2016) a UK Voters' Petition to remain in Europe has 3.9M signatures, but the BBC and Government and our Offshore Owned media are determinedly ignoring it as SS Titanic Great Britain sinks into the cold, lonely Atlantic. The BREXIT team have instantly broken and denied all their campaign pledges for change, yet are pushing their celebrity idiots and half-wits forward as the next UK Leaders . 

Conspiracy or Cock-Up? It hardly matters. Either way we will have a swift General Election - and hopefully the comedians, jesters and fools will be sent packing and an entirely different 21st Century democratic system will emerge. 

I live in hope.

*******

24 JUNE 2016. UK Update.

LEAVE 54%

REMAIN 48%

Sterling falls 6%

London Stock Exchange falls 4%

Scotland says it will quit the UK, and join the EU. I guess that Northern Ireland will go with Scotland.

I think; England and Wales will decline and be effectively bankrupted within 10 years. Mass unemployment will follow this foolish LEAVE vote. House-building will stop - Interest Rates will rise,  major companies will relocate to mainland Europe, families will lose their homes. The unthinking mob has been stirred up (by twisted drunkard MEP Nigel Farage who takes £100,000 a year from the EU while sabotaging the entire EU 50 year peace-project) stirred to wrongly blame the EU for UK governments' cumulative failures since 1980. Turncoat barrack-room-lawyer, elderly, querulous Jeremy Corbyn who said "immigration cannot be capped" and covertly led Labour to vote LEAVE, is finished. Stupid or venal David Cameron, having done his worst for his country, is jumping ship back into his Ivy League Trust Fund offshore personal comfort. Fascism will triumph as England collapses. 

Our UK population has been counted this week as 65M - a major leap up from 62M. It does have to be quickly reduced. Quitting the EU won't do it. How about culling the old folk (me and my generation) who no longer have the good manners to die when they've had their three-score-years-and-ten? A new corner shop franchise - Euthanasia Unlimited - would be very profitable.

DOOM DOOM DOOM

*************

22 JUN 16 UPDATE as Britain's Referendum Thursday on 23rd June 2016 looms. "FOG IN CHANNEL - EUROPE ISOLATED."

My note to a deluded LEAVE friend:

Hi Tony,

I’ve just spoken with John who flies to Lanzarote tomorrow – after voting LEAVE; which will cancel out my REMAIN vote. 

But, you QUITTERS may well be in the majority – which is why Donald Trump flies IN today, to join with his equally blond hirsute doppelganger, Boris, to jointly take over the Anglo-Saxon world. Fascinating though the mass debate has been and is, I’m drowning in the swamp of misdirection, half-truths, lies and insane-statistics from both sides – and I need to come up for air. 

When and If LEAVE wins – Sterling will fall, it will for a short time stimulate UK exports before tariffs kick in, then will push up import prices, which will trigger inflation, which will push up interest rates on the UK’s record £1.3 trillion of household debts, which will freeze all businesses and trigger liquidations and  mortgage defaults, which will make families homeless and jobless; the EU and USA will say "its your own fault" and leave us adrift in the Atlantic without a paddle. Scotland and Wales and maybe Yorkshire will leave the UK and join the EU. The next stage is mass starvation and civil-war. On the other hand…  Michael Gove MP says that those who vote REMAIN will be cursed with withered rotting privy-parts and their dicks will drop-off – and the NHS will refuse to treat them.

Between a rock and a hard place. It’s a terrible dilemma, which David Cameron created by calling the referendum. What's his game?

Noel HODSON

Author -  Sci-Fi & Socio-Economics

January 2013 - I hesitate to write on complex subjects that I have not studied. The European Union (EU) is such a topic. It dates back to World War Two, to Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin carving up continental Europe – then it becomes The Common Market – The Treaty of Rome – The European Union, served by the European Commission (EC) – and latterly it recently expanded to include countries from the old USSR eastern bloc.  It now encompasses 550 million citizens – compare this to 1.2 billion people in China and about the same in India, and to the 350 million in the United States of America.

From 1994 to 1999, I coordinated a couple of EC funded projects to promote Telework, during which I realised that the EC, the civil service for Europe, is very bright, recruiting some of the best minds in Europe, and very small, being no more than the 30,000 Council workers of an average British town. This small executive group manages the whole of Europe – which must be extremely good value for our taxpayers’ money.

Being born and reared in a largely unthinking Manchester family of archetypal British Tories – the right wing of UK politics – embedded in all the political unquestionable certainties of self-made men and the small business community; I had scant regard or respect for the political classes and their Machiavellian machinations. But I was converted into an admirer of the EC and EU by the simple fact that they made the telephones work.

The base line was that in 1970 my wife and I travelled across France and had to call Manchester – it took half a day to book a call time, had to be routed via New York on a crackly line, and cost a hundred times what it costs today. European “Nation did not speak peace unto Nation”, certainly not on the phone. In 1996 I was despatched to Reykjavik, Iceland, and easily and cheaply called my EU colleagues Enrique de la Serna in Rome and Eduardo Barrera in Madrid – thanks to the EC negotiating the maze of tangled wires and tariffs and gang-rights across the whole of Europe. The EU was and is very effective. They get things done.

Being an old cynic and northern sceptic, I suspect the British lobbyists urging us to quit the EU, despite the EU buying 40% of our exports and providing jobs and homes for 2.8 million of our countrymen, are indulging in good old fashioned self protectionism. Many well padded Brits sit in large inefficient rice bowls, such as The City of London and our energy companies, creaming off personal billions from the uncomplaining public – for example the £1.2 trillion we are contributing to repair City losses – and these easy-street gravy trains might be slowed or even stopped by those acute people in the EC.  

A good summary of the EC’s and EU’s useful work is in this recent letter:

What's the EU ever done for us? This lot…

The Guardian, Friday 11 January 2013 20.59 GMT

At last we may get a debate on Britain's relationship with Europe (Leader, 11 January). What did the EEC/EU ever do for us? Not much, apart from: providing 57% of our trade; structural funding to areas hit by industrial decline; clean beaches and rivers; cleaner air; lead free petrol; restrictions on landfill dumping; a recycling culture; cheaper mobile charges; cheaper air travel; improved consumer protection and food labelling; a ban on growth hormones and other harmful food additives; better product safety; single market competition bringing quality improvements and better industrial performance; break up of monopolies; Europe-wide patent and copyright protection; no paperwork or customs for exports throughout the single market; price transparency and removal of commission on currency exchanges across the eurozone; freedom to travel, live and work across Europe; funded opportunities for young people to undertake study or work placements abroad; access to European health services; labour protection and enhanced social welfare; smoke-free workplaces; equal pay legislation; holiday entitlement; the right not to work more than a 48-hour week without overtime; strongest wildlife protection in the world; improved animal welfare in food production; EU-funded research and industrial collaboration; EU representation in international forums; bloc EEA negotiation at the WTO; EU diplomatic efforts to uphold the nuclear non-proliferation treaty; European arrest warrant; cross border policing to combat human trafficking, arms and drug smuggling; counter terrorism intelligence; European civil and military co-operation in post-conflict zones in Europe and Africa; support for democracy and human rights across Europe and beyond; investment across Europe contributing to better living standards and educational, social and cultural capital.

All of this is nothing compared with its greatest achievements: the EU has for 60 years been the foundation of peace between European neighbours after centuries of bloodshed. It furthermore assisted the extraordinary political, social and economic transformation of 13 former dictatorships, now EU members, since 1980. Now the union faces major challenges brought on by neoliberal economic globalisation, and worsened by its own systemic weaknesses. It is taking measures to overcome these. We in the UK should reflect on whether our net contribution of £7bn out of total government expenditure of £695bn is good value. We must play a full part in enabling the union to be a force for good in a multipolar global future.
Simon Sweeney
Lecturer in international political economy, University of York

BANKERS’ BONUS BONANZAS EXPLAINED

THE 280 MPH, BUGATTI VEYRON.
ABOUT $1.2 MILLION - WITH A FREE TANK OF GAS.

This month, London and New York are publishing the several billions of dollars to be paid in bankers’ bonuses - to cries of delight from bankers’ families, really hard pressed to buy their fourth homes, private jets and a fleet of Bugatti Veyrons to decorate the driveways; to cries of pain and grief from the starving millions, the great unwashed and the unemployable; and to cries of “potential foul” from tax hungry Treasuries. So what are the economic impacts of the Anglo-Saxon banking model that has now been adopted by the majority of global banks?

It is illogical and impossible to consider the consequences of banking on the Money-Economy separately from conspicuous consumption, tax havens, commodity prices and compulsive gambling.

CONSPICUOUS CONSUMPTION - Where the bonuses are properly taxed – and the capital is spent in the source economies – the flow of sales of goods and services, however exotic, stimulates trade and jobs in the real-economy – and is a good thing. Well done to the bankers. Keep spending.

TAX-HAVENS - There is $21 trillion hidden in tax-havens, which grows by $1 trillion a year. This money could not be siphoned to tax-havens without the global banks. Individual and corporate tax evaders would not trust their millions and billions to funny-money or banana-republic banks – they need the major, big brand banks to transfer and hold their mega-bucks. $21 trillion will repair every deficit of every nation and create sustainable modern jobs for all the unemployed. The constant $1 trillion a year drain is all the liquidity of the Real-Economy, of all the real work that we all do, worldwide. The banks have perfected methods to skim off, or more accurately, to gouge out all the surplus cash – and bury it in tax-havens. Merry bankers get bonuses on the flows of these vast funds – from our High Streets to Tax-Haven-Vaults, where it sits, on strike. This sabotages the world’s economy and insults every hard working citizen in the world. This is a very bad thing.

COMMODITY PRICES – The banks that pay the largest bonuses pay them on large, speculative “commercial” transactions that are at the centre of all our lives. Every penny and cent the banks earn as Revenues – their top line incomes - add to the costs of our basic necessities. Whether the banks are wheeler dealing in Currencies, Metals, Mines, Agri-Business, Big-Pharma, Oil, Water, Energy, Mergers & Acquisitions, Mortgages, Insurances or Bread and Rice, we all pay the price, regardless of whether they are buying, selling or cornering the market. Whatever they earn adds to our costs. The rationale is that the banks are enabling major deals, are taking the risky middle-man role in transactions that create activity, wealth and jobs. Yes – they do; but the price they charge is far too high; and to disguise the scams they surround it all with incomprehensible gobbledygook. The Money-Economy employs 4% of the workforce – as many as there are health-workers - to run a system that could be fully automated. This drives up world prices and is a bad thing.

COMPULSIVE GAMBLING – Thatcher’s and Reagan’s 1980’s Big-Bang created the “Loads-o-Money” and the “I’m Filthy Rich” culture, empowering and enriching hordes of short-termist, selfish, unintelligent mediocrities while destroying responsibility, morality and ethics in commerce. The new global playground, the allegedly Free Markets that are in fact Conspiratorial Consortia, attracted neurotic, crazed gamblers into what had been sober and carefully managed safe places for the life savings of hard working families. These slick and sick gamblers could not believe their luck when the laws protecting banks from gambling were abolished – and they could gamble with other people’s money. These half-wits, good at arithmetic but bad at everything else, wriggled into our banks, were promoted by purblind old managers who were dazzled by the gamblers’ bullshit, and …to cut a long story short, have been hiding their losses of our money for three decades. It culminated in New York and London in 2008/09 losing $3 trillion, about $23,000 per family, which the taxpayers have to pay – and we will be paying it off for decades. The $3 trillion ended up in tax-havens, swelling the offshore “free market” cash. BUT – the gamblers are still embedded in our banks and stock exchanges; in high positions; still gambling with our money, risk free to themselves; and “earning” fat salaries and bonuses for the privilege of throwing other people’s cash down the drain. This is a very costly, very bad thing.

On balance, all things considered, this year’s City bonuses should be paid straight to our national treasuries as a down-payment on giving the taxpayers their money back – and all the $21 trillion tax-haven assets should be repatriated to their source economies. The annual price of running the Money-Economy should be reduced by 90%; which would curb inflation for many years. 

TAX AND ECONOMY - ARCHIVE - JAN13

BENT BOOKKEEPERS BEWARE

TALL TAX TALES - FAIRY DUST

WILL TAX-PLANNERS BE JAILED?

TAX-HAVEN OWNERS IDENTIFIED

TAX-HAVEN LONDON -v- 50% JOBLESS 

TAX AND ECONOMICS ARTICLES 29TH APR 13

TAX RETURN – OR SUICIDE!

 The task I most hate having to do is preparing accounts for filing my tax returns. The older I get, the more times I have completed the job over more years, the more complex, bewildering and depressing the system and process seems to become. And, I was an accountant; latterly with more than 1,500 clients, from being aged 17 to 47; thirty professional years of accounts and tax work – yet, even now, still descending into the hell of clinical depression and despair when faced with a few days of summarising my own invoices, bank accounts and completing tedious, misleading, badly designed, barely legible, galling, life sapping, badly printed on recycled reused grainy, porous, usually fawn or buff forms.

And – to drive the bitter stake of inescapable duty deeper into our hearts, THEY have now crawled onto our World Wide Web, our space for films, music, laughter and conversations, and created grey on grey Internet sites to suck the life blood from us and baffle us electronically, to leave us dried out and close to death.

Why? I hear my cry, my soulful lament, does a relatively simple exercise affect me – and most of the people I speak with – so negatively and so fundamentally.

My latest theory is that like birds born knowing how to build a nest, we inherit in our DNA, or genes, or bones, racial memories passed down the ages of terrible gimlet eyed tax-collectors, with platoons of cruel soldiers, raiding our hovels, our small holdings, our little defenceless wooden shacks – and carrying off our last stores of winter grain, our last laying hen or goose, our last milch cow and dried rabbit carcasses, leaving us and our families to starve through the bleak midwinter. THEY, took the fruits of our years of labour, our harvests, our savings, our carefully preserved provisions, our seed corn, and locked it away in the Aristocrat’s Castle and Keep. And we, and our blameless and innocent wives, children and aged parents, uncles, aunts, cousins, neighbours, the sick, the halt, the lame and all the homeless beggars and lonely wanderers we were generously sheltering from the bitter cold, sharing our pitiful commons with, would slowly and inevitably starve to death.

That is probably it; old, bad memories. And today, even though we democratically vote for and elect a social system that has a central treasury, a shared commons and an agreed budget to even out the peaks and troughs, to feed us all through the worst times, to protect us all from thieves and psychopathic invaders, to bring us warmth when we are cold, succour when we are ill and education when we are ignorant, and to plan ahead and invest in industrious activities that will gainfully employ us all, even then, and despite our common consent, the racial memories reaching back thousands of years, of being beaten, bamboozled, cheated, conned, tricked and robbed by self-promoted self-elevated upper-classes – who steal all the cakes – and the breadcrumbs from our hearths; those lingering memories sweep up from the collective unconscious and overwhelm us – when we are obliged to fill in and SUBMIT our Income Tax Return Forms; just after Christmas.

HEY - YOU GREEDY PEASANTS!
THAT BREAD IS OWED TO THE TAX COLLECTOR.

It is a dreadful time of embedded psychological pain; an affliction which may even excuse the tax evaders, individual and corporate – who may not be the selfish, greedy, F*** the lot of you, social saboteurs, taking and putting nothing back, that we brand them, as they scurry away with all our capital and most of our taxes to secret tax-haven, exotic islands – but who may instead need our understanding and help to overcome and free themselves from ancestral painful phobias, about paying taxes.

Instead of hunting down our fellow-men like common criminals, and instead of confiscating the money, the seed-corn, they have gouged from our economies, we should embrace them with love, compassion and warmth; we should turn the other cheek and demonstrate that the bad-old-days of bloated aristocrats and starving peasants are centuries behind us; that today we, we the people, share the world’s unparalleled wealth fairly and unstintingly to all the households and homesteads who helped to create that wealth.

And next year – I am sure you agree - we will all, including me, prepare our Tax Returns with mutual joy and celebration in our hearts.

TAX AND ECONOMY - ARCHIVE - JAN13 

       

TAX AND ECONOMY - ARCHIVE - JAN13

Updated - 20 July 2013 go to  TAX AND ECONOMICS ARTICLES 29TH APR 13

• SHOCK - DIRECTORS ARE GUILTY!
• 
  

• TAX-STRIKE 2013 - CLOSE TAX-HAVENS

• APOCALYPSE - 29 April 2013
• 
  
• TAX PLANNERS PACK THE JURY
• 
  
• AVOIDANCE AND EVASION ARE NOW ILLEGAL
• 
  
• Global Alliance For Tax Justice
• 
  
• GLOBAL REACTION TO TAX-HAVEN DATA - EXCEPT...?

• TAX-EVASION-CAPITAL-FLIGHT 4th April 2013
• CYPRUS - THE BUTTERFLY'S WING
• 
  
• THE LAST HAVENS - RIVERS OF CASH
• 
  
• CYPRUS & KILLER TAX-EVASION
• 
  
• CYPRUS BANK TAX AND PUTIN
• 
  
• BURN THEIR FILTHY HOVELS

 

• PROUD TO BE BRITISH!
• 
  
• BANKS NATIONALISED SHOCK
• 
  
• I SAY AVOIDANCE - YOU SAY EVASION

• DEATH OF A THOUSAND CUTS
• 
  
• TAXMEN BULLY THE MIDGETS
• 
  

COME HOME – ALL IS FORGIVEN

INDIA SAYS - GO HOME CAMERON!

TAX EVASION - THE LAWS

Solve the world’s financial woes:

FIX THE MONEY-ECONOMY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlUjncgWG-w

www.noelhodson.com/Money-Wars-2012-V5SHORT.pdf

ARCHIVE OF TAX AND ECONOMIC FIXES - NOV 2011 TO DATE:

REFORM MONEY

ONLY LITTLE PEOPLE PAY TAXES

LOANS AT 5% APR.

• TAX EVASION TAPEWORMS
• 
  
• Tax avoidance ‘a threat to democracy’
• 
  
• GOOD BANKS - BAD TAX ADVICE
• 
  
• VICTIMLESS CRIMES - TAX EVASION
• 
  
• TAXING TIMES

BANKERS’ BONUS BONANZAS EXPLAINED

 TAX RETURN – OR SUICIDE!

POOR LAW - TAX LAW

THE TAXMAN COMETH - NO MORE MR NICE GUY

END OF LOAN SHARKS?

MARK CARNEY - MONEY-WARS

TAX EVASION - YOUR "HOW-TO" GUIDE

LAGARDE-LIST 2,059 GREEK TAX SAVERS

LOVEABLE LOANSHARKS

MILITARY INTELLIGENCE – TAX-HAVEN REPATRIATION

OBAMA POWER EXPLAINED – 7TH NOV 2012.

THE LIVING WAGE – KILLING THE ECONOMY

THE LIVING WAGE AND GUY FAWKES

HAVE FAITH IN THE HIGGS BOSON

OFFSHORE MILLIONAIRES FIGHT BACK

STARBUCKS’ TAX: JAMES BOND 007 - LICENSED TO COLLE...

GREEK TAX EVASION WAR ESCALATES

USA CEOs PLEAD "FIX THE DEBT"

BIRTHRIGHT - FOR OUR CHILDREN

STARBUCKS’ TAX: JAMES BOND 007 - LICENSED TO COLLECT.

TAX FREEBIE FOR THE BBC

$102 BILLION FOR GREECE

TAX - MINIMIZE, AVOID, EVADE, GOAL.

SELF-EMPLOYED AT THE BBC?

 

$21 TRILLION - "NOT A CONSPIRACY"

RICH MAN PAYS TAX - SHOCK

GUARANTEED TAXHAVENS

DR CABLE'S BAD MEDICINE FOR SMEs

THE TAXMAN COMETH – AVOIDING PRISON

TAX-FREE LORDS - MOVE YOUR MONEY ON-SHORE

$1 TRILLION STIMULUS – SEND IN THE MARINES!

NO TAX FOR NON-DOMS

HOW TO BE NON-TAXABLE

 

GREEKS - PAY NO TAXES

YES, WE ARE BEING CONNED.

IS MITT ROMNEY ON OR OFF-SHORE?

5% per annum cap on all interest rates & charges

STOP LOAN SHARKS

NO TAX OFFSHORE.

WHO “LOST” $3 TRILLION?

NEVER PAY TAX EVER AGAIN!

CAPITAL IS ON VACATION

TREASURE HUNT

 

REDUCE THE COST OF MONEY

WHO IS LAUGHING ALL THE WAY TO THE BANK?

DIAMOND'S LAW

"THE CITY" - THE LAST WORD

BANKERS - WHY WE ARE FURIOUS

WHERE'S THE MONEY? - BACK-UP NOW!

BANKER BASHING & BIG-BANGS

TIMID, MUTE & MURDEROUS

EARN 2018% ON YOUR SAVINGS

$2,000,000,000,000 (Two Trillion Dollars)

$250K PA - TV SEEKS JOURNALISTS WITH 50 YEARS TAX-...

M' LEARNED FRIEND - TAX COUNSEL

TAX SCAMS ARE LEGAL! OR ARE THEY?

STRICTLY LEGAL AT THE BBC

POWER TO THE PEOPLE – REPATRIATION AND GUILLOTINES...

WHERE’S THE MONEY?

HOW CAN THEY NOT KNOW? GET WITHOUT THEM!

WILL THE WORLD RUN OUT OF MONEY?

SPAIN, SPECULATION & NO MORE SURPRISES ! THE FUTUR...

THE FUTURE FOR WALL STREET, LONDON & MANKIND

LOANSHARKS PETITION

ENSLAVED, INDENTURED, ARTICLED, APPRENTICED, INTER...

TAXING TIMES AT THE TOP

FREE MARKETS - THE BIGGEST CON-TRICK EVER.

MADAM DEFARGE

THIS LEVER WILL MOVE THE EARTH

ECONOMIC GROWTH – SOFTER TOILET TISSUE - OR GUILLO...

5% INTEREST PETITION - EVIL LOAN RATES

Greek Fallout – End of Monetarism.

Cap the price of money at 5% a year.

GANGSTER ECONOMICS - WHICH BUNK DO YOU PREFER?

“MOVE TO HIGHER GROUND & MOVE YOUR MONEY ON-SHORE!...

OFF-SHORE FUNDS - MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING?

PHARAOHS & MONETARIST BULLSHIT.

HELP - How can I spend £3,500 a day?

The rich will always be with us

Cash is King

Birthright

TAXING TIMES FOR THE INTERNET

Barclays £2.1B Bonuses & £0.7B Dividends

USA & UK Tax Wars Heat Up

Will we pay taxes in the future?

REFORM MONEY

 

ONLY LITTLE PEOPLE PAY TAXES

DO NOT BE ALARMED – BE VERY, VERY FRIGHTENED.

The global tax evaders’ public relations machinery continues to blast out the message that multinationals and individuals are legally entitled to fiddle their books. But, the vastly expensive PR machine and the optimistic, artful dodgers are incorrect.

“EVERYBODY AGREES IT IS LEGAL” - Having written the scripts of all media presenters throughout 2012 to have them parrot, “…complex Tax Avoidance, …which is of course perfectly legal”; the tax-evasion industry is now promoting super-rich executives of multinationals to pompously pronounce without fear of contradiction that “International Businesses Choose How Much and Where to Pay Taxes”.

Sir Martin Sorrell, boss of £10B a year WPP Group*, seems to be the latest in a line of, absolutely certain, very, very rich executives to state the corporate right to siphon out profits earned in high-tax regions and dump them in low-tax regions, legally, on an executive whim, whatever national governments and voters may want. I am afraid, Sir Martin, that what you believe is not entirely true - in UK or in international tax law. Do prepare to sue your costly, enthusiastic, overly imaginative, deluded tax-planners.

(* – WPP and Sir Martin and their executives and advisers, act perfectly legally at all times in tax matters. They are cited here only for illustrative and exemplary purposes following recent media interviews.) http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-20886837

ADVICE ON CAPITAL TRANSFERS - You are perfectly legally entitled in the “global village” to move your corporate assets around as you like. If, for example, WPP earns £10B in a year and half your Revenues originate from UK business (irrespective of how your clients in turn may operate their Enron Offshore Accounting), you can gouge all the £5 billion out of the UK and bank it in Delaware, or Cayman, or Rockall or any tax-haven you choose – and refuse to invest it back into the communities it came from – consigning their workers, as has happened in Greece, to lifetimes of unemployment and despair on the scrapheap.  That is your choice.

ADVICE ON TAX DEDUCTIBLE INVOICES - But, the real commercial Accounts of the profits you have earned in the UK, say £1B for example, must show how that commercial profit has been reduced to zero in the UK. The tax-deductible invoices you create to send from, say, Belgium, Sark, Bermuda, Isle of Man or Dublin to London, have to accord with UK tax-law; otherwise HMRC can and will, and does in many cases, retrospectively rescind the tax deductibility of those invoices, contracts, management fees etc. And you or WPP will be taxed in the UK.

ADVICE ON BACK-DUTY-TAX ASSESSMENTS - Even more costly, if the UK gets really pissed off with being a perennial patsy, all the money siphoned from the UK Accounts and shovelled overseas can be reclassified, retrospectively, without time limit (e.g. – back to 1980) as executive pay of the people in control (A director by whatever name called) – and be assessed as their salaries with PAYE and NIC payable. Such wicked and terrifying retrospective assessments are routinely raised by HMRC (the UK’s tax collector) – plus compound interest and penalties; on smaller businesses

So far, for the past 30 years, the global confidence of big business and the super rich of being untouchable by tax collectors has been fully warranted, as the idiotic, banal, Free Market, no-rules philosophy has been rolled out in major OECD economies. The mantra “We are all in it together” actually refers to the global conspiracy that “only little people pay taxes” – the “We” are the super-rich 1% including most politicians and senior civil servants – as in Greece. But, with capital on strike, hiding $21 trillion in tax-havens, which is the majority of our global liquidity, the mob is growing angry. All rulers quail when the mob marches – and, sadly, everybody suffers. Revolutions are messy affairs.

As the political storm clouds gather, HMRC and the IRS, and even corrupt Greek tax officials, are flexing their neglected muscles and dusting off their Back Duty Assessment, False Accounting and Fraudulent Conspiracy rules that are applied when tax-payers keep two, or more, sets of books.

My forecast for 2013 is that hundreds of high profile, major cases, individual, corporate and international will be prosecuted; and tax-authorities will compete to repatriate the $21 trillion to their own national treasuries.

DO NOT ALARMED – BE VERY, VERY FRIGHTEND.

TAX AND ECONOMY - ARCHIVE - JAN13

TAX AND ECONOMICS ARTICLES 29TH APR 13