Socialist tax efficiency

[DodgyAgent]

What? No - which bit of "Limited Liability Company" don't you grasp?

Your tax arrangements are the bit I do not grasp.

[vwdan]

Your tax arrangements are the bit I do not grasp.

What part do you find so hard? Once you accept the premise that I need to run a Limited Company, the rest is standard practice. Here, HMRC have a page on it:

https://www.gov.uk/running-a-limited...imited-company

[Batcher]

What part do you find so hard? Once you accept the premise that I need to run a Limited Company, the rest is standard practice. Here, HMRC have a page on it:

https://www.gov.uk/running-a-limited...imited-company

He's an agent therefore he doesn't read. He scans for keywords

[SpontaneousOrder]

You are not a proper business ...

What's the definition of a 'proper' business?

[vetran]

What's the definition of a 'proper' business?

one that contributes to Labour or Tory coffers I suspect.

[DodgyAgent]

I happen to believe that IT contractors are legitimate businesses. Others clearly do not otherwise the IR35 debate would have ended. the point I am making is that IT contractors arrange their affairs in order to minimise their tax liabilities. Some call this tax avoidance. So when someone else does the same such as these film partnership "investments" as long as it is legal we have no business in criticising those who seek to exploit these tax loopholes.
I rather think that those who get so morally outraged about it are the curtain twitcher "what's he getting?" types. Fine if you are a PAYE monkey with no access to any tax "saving" schemes but to hear outrage from IT contractors can only be described as humbug

[Zero Liability]

I cannot believe contractors are arguing about the morals of tax avoidance

It doesn't really matter if a tax avoidance scheme is simple or complex, aggressive or passive. Either you are due to pay tax on something or you are not. if complex schemes are "morally dubious" let us remember that if the tax system is in itself complex then avoidance schemes will also be complex.

Listening to contractors going down the road of trying to define the moralities between tax schemes must be a bit like listening to ISIS arguing about the moralities of different ways of killing people.

Of far more "moral" importance is what the government do with the tax we give them in the first place.

The previous comment about contractors not being real businesses notwithstanding, these are good points. If HMG doesn't want complex tax avoidance schemes, then perhaps they should begin simplifying the tax system and stop creating loopholes, plus focus should certainly remain on how much they spend and the fact that the level of tax paid should bear some relation to the services rendered, if any.

[Coalman]

Another related question.

If these schemes are not following the "intention" of the law, but the letter, surely the same argument can be applied to IR35?
I understand it was to catch the "Friday-to-Monday" contractors, so, in a nutshell, if I have never been an employee of the client I have a contract with, how can I be caught by IR35?

Just another example of politicians, of all colours, bending the truth to fit their own agenda. Just pisses me off that we are the pawns in this one.

[SpontaneousOrder]

The previous comment about contractors not being real businesses notwithstanding, these are good points. If HMG doesn't want complex tax avoidance schemes, then perhaps they should begin simplifying the tax system and stop creating loopholes, plus focus should certainly remain on how much they spend and the fact that the level of tax paid should bear some relation to the services rendered, if any.

It's like putting a monkey in a cage where the bars are too far between - and then getting angry at the monkey for escaping.
The very fact that all of this is law necessarily implies that we don't really want to do it voluntarily. So getting angry at people for perfectly legally avoiding it just makes no sense. It's just easier to project one's own incompetence (with reagrd to implementation of tax law) as irrational aggression against those who expose that incompetence.

Ofcourse, I don't think incompetence really has anything to do with it. It's all a deliberately crafted pantomime.

[SpontaneousOrder]

Another related question.

If these schemes are not following the "intention" of the law, but the letter, surely the same argument can be applied to IR35?
I understand it was to catch the "Friday-to-Monday" contractors, so, in a nutshell, if I have never been an employee of the client I have a contract with, how can I be caught by IR35?

Just another example of politicians, of all colours, bending the truth to fit their own agenda. Just pisses me off that we are the pawns in this one.

Law is supposed to be objective. The 'spirit' of the law is clearly subjective in nature. It's illegal to violate the spirit of the law....

... oh... I was expecting the paradox to cause some kind of donnie-darko world-ending rift in the space-time continuum. Never mind.