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Celebrity Tax Dodgers!
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So Jimmy Carr and three of Take That have been playing the system.
http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/showbiz/news/a388438/take-that-stars-invest-gbp26m-in-scheme-designed-to-avoid-paying-tax.html
And One Direction are at it too: http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/music/news/a371746/one-direction-become-company-directors-to-avoid-tax.html#yourviews
What do people think? Should we care? Should Gary Barlow have his OBE revoked?
Personally, I agree with Lily Allen
http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/showbiz/news/a388438/take-that-stars-invest-gbp26m-in-scheme-designed-to-avoid-paying-tax.html
And One Direction are at it too: http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/music/news/a371746/one-direction-become-company-directors-to-avoid-tax.html#yourviews
What do people think? Should we care? Should Gary Barlow have his OBE revoked?
Personally, I agree with Lily Allen
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Immoral yes, illegal no
Yes, exactly. I think this quote from Lily Allen is very astute:
"It's greedy and wrong," she wrote. "They're taking advantage of a system ( like benefit cheats) at the detriment of others. It's pure greed...benefit fraud IMC is an act of desperation not greed."
Also, some more to add to the list:
Tony Blair (paid tax of just £315,000 on earnings of £12 million.)
The Rolling Stones ( paid just £3.9 million tax on royalties earnings of an incredible £240 million during the 20 years to 2006.)
Probably many more too, that was just from a quick google.
I can't see much changing either, they get rid of and it upsets his tory voters. Not to mention the higher establishments will turn around to "Call Me Dave" and say they'll take their money elsewhere.
Jeremy Clarkson is also one for it.
This is funny - Labour Party is going to be massively exposed. These schemes which allowed the Labour supporting luvvies in the media to pay no tax where set up by Labour when they were in office.
Slam-dunk. I agree David these folks are morally wrong & also exposed to have sheer hypocrisy in that they have been slagging off 'others' who may have avoided tax.
Quite hypocritical of Politicians to lecture people on morality too!!
The sort of thing One Direction, along with most other successful pop acts do, is considerably different. It does make sense for tax purposes, but it's no more or less than treating their career as a business. If they pay themselves, either as employees or through company dividends, they will pay tax on that in the normal way. The main benefit is that they can pay themselves a reasonable amount each year over a number of years - so if they make loads of money one year, and very little the next, the pay, and tax, is spread out.
For bands that make albums and tour in cycles that may only last a few years, it's a sensible way of making sure they don't run out of money too quickly.
I said on the politics forum that I have less of an issue with Gary & Take That lads. Partly because they have not been out playing politics/scoring points against others who were abusing the system.
However, someone who involves themselves in political satire, which is not that far off from journalism, it's more than a little bit embarassing to be caught out. In his case, it seems more than being caught out - he's just been caught. If he understood what was going on, it's bad. If he didn't understand what was going on, it's bad in a different way.
I think what bothers me more about the Carr situation more than the Take That one is that his means of avoiding tax was removing money from the country. At least the Take That scheme was nominally an investment in the music industry.
Some have said that when the Dragons on Dragons Den invest their money it is tax avoidance. There may be tax benefits to investing in a new company, but at least it has the chance of doing something useful, and supporting the economy. They also risk losing their investment.
It's probably only fair to point out that it wasn't all of Take That, and there were many more investors in the scheme than just them.
However, it sounds as if the people behind the scheme are the ones who are at fault far more than individual investors, although the accountants don't have quite the same excuse, as they should be checking these things properly.
The rich have always had methods to avoid paying their fair share of taxes..can you give any examples of any tax laws created by Labour which favoured the rich? Most of them were more likely to have been implemented by Tories, pre-1997
Can't see Cameron doing too much about it: after all, there may be plenty of Tory party donors who have dodged far much more in taxes than the likes of Jimmy Carr;)
Nothing changes, the rich have always been allowed to rip off the ordinary people of the country.:rolleyes:
Its true. I know when I was at Polytechnic (many years ago) there were people on full grants when their parents were incredibly wealthy - because they wisely arranged their finances to make it look like their income was 'below the correct level'. Than their parents sent them huge amounts of money each month to supplement their full grant. At the same time there were some students who didn't qualify for a grant because they were 'just over' the limit - some by mere pounds - they just couldn't afford accountants to find any loopholes.
Its just the way of the world though and why the gap between the rich and the (working poor) will get bigger and bigger. There is absolutely nothing that can be done about it ... and for all his posturing - Cameron is powerless to do anything about it (in truth he doesn't really want to does he?)
We should just all calm down, have a cup of tea (smart-price tea-bags) and put on a Jimmy Carr DVD or Take That CD and .... CHILLAX because there's sod all we can do about it.
He had a brilliant lawyer though (the very, very best) who made monkeys of everyone at his trial (I worked with a girl whose fiance was one of those monkeys!!!!)
I must admit though - have you seen Doddie on stage? He is bloody hilarious - I suppose at least he gives value for money on his shows - he's on stage for ages - and pretty funny the whole time.
I’m glad you mention U2 who have salted their money away in the Nederlands for years whilst being more than happy to rip off the tax man in one of the most impoverished countries in Europe. Shame on the lot of them, shoving their sanctimonious sh1t down our recession-hit throats.
Cameron kept quiet about his Tory-supporting pal, Gary Barlow's tax matters (whom he had also just given an OBE) whilst slating Carr's...