That Cabinet Minister was the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Danny Alexander.
In fact this is not really true. Tax avoidance is legal, and if something is legal it can hardly be as morally repugnant as something which is not. Indeed some parliamentarians, and close advisers to the government practise it in spades. Many City bankers and financiers, possibly even most, wouldn't be without it.
On the other hand, benefit cheating is illegal, as indeed is the cheating that went on in the House of Commons and in the House of Lords, and probably still does. That is theft, as is taking benefits to which you are not entitled.
[The main difference between these two seems to be that the penalties from stealing from the state if you are in receipt of benefits are more severe than standing up in front of a load of other cheats and apologising, which is the average punishment for a politician.]
However, that's not really my point. As I said, these tax avoidance schemes, such as that practised by Jimmy Carr, publicised all over the papers today, are perfectly legal.
Mr Alexander is chief secretary to the treasury, one place down from the secretary of state. If he is as offended by these people as I am, the solution would appear to be in his hands.
Why does he not make it illegal to avoid tax?
Simples?
Yeah, like a Tory government will let that one through, even for a little while (like so much of the last budget!!)!!
****
Click on Twitter Reaction for full size. I particularly liked John Prescott's effort!
Avoiding paying tax is legal and totally justified. Alexander is a moron to think otherwise.
ReplyDeleteAny attempt to close the legal loopholes is fine. However I suspect he'd only start whinging again when people up and leave the country instead of spending their other money here.
Of course there's a solution to that too, no doubt the authoritarian little turd will be the first to stop peoples leaving...
Legal doesn't make it moral under any circumstances. People leaving the country would be good for those left behind if only they would.
ReplyDeletePoliticians have from time immemorial have been making these vacuous promises and nothing has changed other than there are lots more of them at it.
Apparently when Labour came to power the rules covered 4,000 pages and they are now in 7,500 tomes, rulers rule for the rich.
For a Westminster politician to brand anyone immoral or dishonest is probably the biggest flight of hypocracy imaginable.
ReplyDeleteIf I was able to legally avoid giving my money to the morally bankrupt westminster edifice I certainly would without any hint of guilt or hesitation.
As for Danny Alexander, he's a chinless little sell-out, and Prescott? The man of the people? My arse he is, he's just another fat trougher who's been planted in the house of lords. I have no idea why the fat opiniated moron is still listened to.
And just so he doesn't feel left out, Ian Hyland of the mail on sunday (etc) is also a twat.
I note Mr Alexander using the Treasury Twitter account to promote the Union. As an arm of the state, I would have though that was a bit party political for an official channel
ReplyDeleteYes, my point, QM. It is totally legal, and as pa broon says, if there was a way I could NOT pay tax to Westminster for them to waste on killing people, displays of fawning sycophancy, and idiotic olympic games, I would be the first to withhold my payments.
ReplyDeleteOnly the obscenely rich can afford the accountants that make that happen.
Don't Mr Osborne's father, and that odious little creep the inter nation development secretary Mitchell, not to mention the pratt that sacks people and has to take them back on....Hammond, keep vast swathes of their money in the British Virgin Islands.
I would try but I'm sure the BVI don't want my kind of money.
Didn't some government once stop you taking your money out of the country altogether. So although you could go, there wasn't much point, because as you couldn't take any money, if you went for any more than a couple of days you were likely to die of starvation!
Yes, CH, I wish some of these rich people that Osborne is so keen to protect would go away and not come back.
ReplyDeleteThey create wealth... they say, but it's only wealth for THEM that they create. They bank it offshore and what they spend here only makes London one of the most expensive cities in the world.
Bankers who threatened to leave and go to the Middle East of India should be told to push off. They didn't exactly put much into the country did they... more like drove it into bankruptcy.
Yep Pa, as I said above, if I could stop giving these feckless ba****ds my money to squander on their half baked plans, while starving sick and poor people into death, I'd be at the top of the queue.
ReplyDeleteThey are a bunch of corrupt, useless, nobs. It grieves me to hand over hard earned cash to them to waste, and steal.
I agree about Prescott. I just thought his tweet was quite amusing.
That said, I quite like Carr, as long as I don't have to look at him. God he's ugly.
I see the posh Botox Boy has had a go at him too over this... That might be something to do with the fact that Carr rips the whatsit out of him every time he gets up on stage.
Totally agree Anon.
ReplyDeleteIf the Treasury need a Twitter Account (and I'm blessed if I can see why they do; wouldn't they be better employed sorting out the worst mess in the history of time, which apparently Labour left them instead of tweeting rubbish) it's not set up for them to promote their bloody awful union.
He should get his own Twitter account for that and do it in his own time.
I suspect "Beaker" had seen one of Jimmy Carr's shows and is now "practicing" for his next career move as a comedian!
ReplyDeleteAh the fragrant John Prescott. The man who always claimed he would never enter the House of Lords. Hmm now let me see where exactly is he now...... Oh yes that's right the House of Lords!
Just wondering about the supposed threats of all those tax dodgers leaving the country, is this the same "leaving the country" exercise as that done by Michele Mone when she claimed she'd leave Scotland if the SNP got into power in Holyrood. I wonder. Whatever happened to that threat?
Nice to see you here Arbroath...
ReplyDeleteMichelle Moan... she left the Labour party in 2009 and threatened to leave Britain if the top rate of tax was increased; then she threatened to leave Scotland and set up in England if Scotland becomes an independent country... She does an awful lot of mouthing off.... or moaning, if you will.
Apparently now she is a friend of that creep Cameron and has been invited to address the cabinet.
Jeez: I think she should carry out her threats and move to Australia where she was " a celebrity" in that moronic tv programme.
Aye Johnny "I did it all for the wife, she wanted to be a Lady" Prescott.
Isn't that a bit outdated? Women used to be allowed to have their husbands' titles and "station in life", when they were nothing but chattels. Don't they feel a little belittled by that nowadays?
They seem to be all pretty much a bunch of lying hypocrites and there's not much to pick and choose. They'll never get rid of the House of lords. They all want to get there some day.
If "the moaner" ever plucks up the courage and DOES leave I'd happily go along just to help her pack. The sooner we are rid of people like her the better. Obviously trying, and failing miserably, to use her "celebrity" to influence the people of Scotland. Well I guess that idea worked well then hen didn't it.......NOT!
ReplyDeleteAs for the slug, oops I mean two jags, I mean two shags err I mean Prescott. I have come to the conclusion that his wife only agreed to forgive him for his little night time extravaganza, when Labour were in power, on the basis that he got his lardship, oops I mean Lordship title.
On the house of lards, I did see a headline in one of the papers that "our dear leader" is headin fur a beatin with his Lards reform vote. Tee Hee! So you are right, they WILL never get rid of their lardships!
Yes, I'd be pleased to see her... and her likes...go. It's always the 3rd and 4th raters that do this. Didn't Paul Irritating Daniels threaten to go to Spain if Labour got in??
ReplyDeleteThey seem to think that they are so important that progress will stop because they say they will go if it doesn't.
I'd buy her a 2nd class one way ticket to England.
You're right about Pauline. I think she is an unreconstructed woman, still believing in her right to her husband's title... and she put up with all sorts of stuff all these years, including fatty himself, and she wanted to be Lady Prescott! Maybe now she's got his title she will divorce him.