Dear Russell...

[DodgyAgent]

No it isn't. It's a legal entity that belongs to someone (or multiple people). A company can be sold.

.

Fair enough on the basis that all definitions are correct depending upon how you look at them.
However it is interesting that a "part truth" is so often used to support or smear. This happens a great deal on CUK and it reminds me of this parable:
Blind Men and the Elephant | WordFocus.com


So oft in theologic wars,
The disputants, I ween,
Rail on in utter ignorance
Of what each other mean,
And prate about an Elephant
Not one of them has seen!

[GreyWolf]

Wikipedia showing the wrong date is hardly his fault now, is it?

There is no automatic "what you would've paid on PAYE" calculation in all but the simplest cases.
He probably employs staff for instance and who knows what else given the wide range of stuff he does.
It's not tax avoidance to legitimately run a Ltd company if you have businessy things going on and this leads to paying less tax. It's avoidance to move your affairs to run through a Ltd _because_ it will allow you to pay less tax. I have no trouble imagining he fits into the former category far more convincingly than most contractors.

You can easily find the details of his companies' filed accounts so why don't you do that and report back?
You should probably also try to determine what he gives to charity or other causes on top of tax paid, in terms of wealth distribution.

Wikipedia agrees with his book "My Booky Wook" which also states 4 June 1975. Maybe the director profile I saw was wrong, it was on a third-party site, but it is conveniently misleading. A bit like having all the companies in a small West Country town that he has no apparent connection to. No doubt it is where his accountant or agent are based, or something like that.

Calculating his equivalent PAYE liability should be pretty simple. It doesn't have to spot-on, just a rough approximation will do. I'd say 55% would be a more than fair guess of what he would lose to income tax and NI if he was to earn his money as a regular employee. I don't see why he should be able claim for anything beyond what a contractor does - an agent taking a percentage, an accountant and his transport and accommodation costs when working away (subject to the two year rule). If his twattish behaviour means he needs a bodyguard then it can come out of his own money. Also, he should go on BBC payroll if they're the only organization willing to give him a platform.

The point that you are so desperately trying to avoid is that he is a multi-millionaire who is telling everyone else that profit is bad and they should give away their money for redistribution. I am saying, "you first, Russ". Hell's teeth, he has said "profit is a dirty word" whilst owing several profitable businesses. If he is so opposed to profit he should be running his affairs in order to break even. He could be allowed a little margin of error but he does seem to be pushing the boundaries a little too far having accumulated wealth far in excess of what most people earn in a lifetime.

He is promoting a fundamentalist attitude towards wealth accumulation so he cannot complain about being held to the fundamentalist beliefs. As he's so keen on "to each according to their need" we can forget the 55% and go straight to "from each according to their ability" which would put him on 99.9% back in his good years. Granted, it won't be quite so much now his clowning career has died and the demagogue gig hasn't really got going yet.

I realize from your previous posts you're really just a troll constantly arguing the most perverse points just for the giggle but there comes a time when you really should give it up and move on.

[Zero Liability]

No, the taxes come out of money owned by the company. Money goes from companies to employees, not the other way around.

Unless this is some "every atom in an orange was once in a turd therefore oranges are made of poo" kind of argument.

The fact a company gains money from the work of people doesn't mean the tax it pays is paid by those people.

Nope, the taxes come out of the activities of those who form the corporation. This isn't a reductionist argument along the ones which you mention as the corporation is simply a web of contractual relations between individuals. SO is arguing that trying to say we can just tax companies more, as if they draw their profits from some pile of fairy dust is meaningless - it still means taxing individuals more. The fact that the corporation offers some protection to the owners to the extent that they don't draw on these is irrelevant to that fact.

Corporations pursue lower tax regimes exactly because they can then promise higher returns to their owner-investors and because it confers a competitive advantage when pricing products. So again, what is difficult to comprehend about his point? Your car analogy was quite clearly flawed.

[SpontaneousOrder]

No, it's a tax on profit earned by a corporation, which is a legal entity. An entity owned by people, but that's like saying a car is a person

Is this you just playing silly buggers with definitions and terminology like the "law is violence" thing or did you have a real point?

Some refer to it, non-cynically, as 'a legal fiction'.
There is no such 'thing' as a corporation - it's just an agreement among men with regards to the apportion and delimitation of responsibility with regards to their trading practises. I.e. a corporation *is* people. More specifically it is people who have made an agreement.
And a corporation exists to serve customers.

Nowhere in this whole process is there any real thing, other than people. And the people who will carry the burden of that taxation, if at all possible, will be the consumer and employees. Then the shareholders.
I'd be genuinely interested if you know how that isn't the case.



As for "law is violence" - well a law, by definition, is a rule backed by a commitment to escalate, if necessary, violent force or threats thereof, until the rule breaker either submits to the law enforcer's will, or is killed before that can occur.

That is, objectively and irrevocably speaking, a fact. If you don't think "law is violence" is a valid description, then I'm not sure that it's me who is redefining words.

**edit** not that I think law is bad. Just stating the reality of the situation.

[SpontaneousOrder]

Fair enough on the basis that all definitions are correct depending upon how you look at them.
However it is interesting that a "part truth" is so often used to support or smear. This happens a great deal on CUK and it reminds me of this parable:
Blind Men and the Elephant | WordFocus.com


So oft in theologic wars,
The disputants, I ween,
Rail on in utter ignorance
Of what each other mean,
And prate about an Elephant
Not one of them has seen!

It won't let me spread rep to you. But yes.

Words help to describe reality - they don't define it.

[centurian]

Is this BA still on site at RBS? Im amazed if he is.

I thought the opposite - for a number of reasons

• He stuck up for RBS, despite not being an employee
• He didn't appear to breach any regulations
• Practically everyone at RBS would have been thinking "good on yer"
• But most important of all - the negative press RBS would get if they fired him - can you imagine his next blog post "Russell - I take it back, you were right about the #@%$ at RBS, lets talk about it over some Paella"

[GreyWolf]

Some refer to it, non-cynically, as 'a legal fiction'.
There is no such 'thing' as a corporation - it's just an agreement among men with regards to the apportion and delimitation of responsibility with regards to their trading practises. I.e. a corporation *is* people. More specifically it is people who have made an agreement.
And a corporation exists to serve customers.

Nowhere in this whole process is there any real thing, other than people. And the people who will carry the burden of that taxation, if at all possible, will be the consumer and employees. Then the shareholders.
I'd be genuinely interested if you know how that isn't the case.



As for "law is violence" - well a law, by definition, is a rule backed by a commitment to escalate, if necessary, violent force or threats thereof, until the rule breaker either submits to the law enforcer's will, or is killed before that can occur.

That is, objectively and irrevocably speaking, a fact. If you don't think "law is violence" is a valid description, then I'm not sure that it's me who is redefining words.

**edit** not that I think law is bad. Just stating the reality of the situation.

Exactly.

Treating corporations as milch cows is just a variation on the magic money tree.

[BrilloPad]

Russell Brand film on RBS bankers funded by City investors - including former RBS banker - Telegraph

[minestrone]

Russell Brand film on RBS bankers funded by City investors - including former RBS banker - Telegraph

dang.

I was going to post the other day there was going to be a retrospective on his previous financials and he would be embarrassed.

[Zero Liability]

Another piece on the man...