Yet another one

[Mich the Tester]

Indeed!

But the prols will never understand that. They look at a banker or someone with more than they have and shout about fair taxes by which they mean, rich bastards should pay more. Rich being anyone with more than them. It's depressing.

Someone shouted 'rich bastards' at Lady Tester and me at the weekend as we left a London eatery to get in a Hackney cab. Well I might have been a rich bastard when we went in but I was a poor bastard once I'd payed the fcking bill.

[EternalOptimist]

Serious question for a sec - I know a shocker for General - but how do you legislate to stop this?

It seems that they effectively operate a shell company in a tax haven and charge for using the license. If you closed this down I guess it would break the existing franchise model for 'real' franchises?

Alternatively they do similar deals by loaning from the parent company at a highly punitive interest rate (also based in a tax haven). If you closed down inter-company/international loaning, that would break the startup model where a US forms a satellite UK company (start up software company establishing a UK presence for example).

The final way I've seen described was with Starbucks buying very expensive coffee beans from Switzerland (that great coffee bean growing nation), causing the UK profits to plummet and the Swiss company to make massive profits. Who is to say what is a 'fair' price for a commodity?

I don't really see an elegant way of closing all these loopholes.

If it was up to me I would introduce a new corporate tax rate of 0% for 'special companies'

so Starbucks, Ikea etc would have no need to pay ANY CT at all in the UK. They would save a fortune on lawyers and accountants and they would also save the little tax they DO pay.

Then I would introduce a new VAT rate for 'Special Companies' of 40%

[The Spartan]

Indeed!

But the prols will never understand that. They look at a banker or someone with more than they have and shout about fair taxes by which they mean, rich bastards should pay more. Rich being anyone with more than them. It's depressing.

The problem is they have a sense of entitlement and do not understand that if you want to get anywhere in life you have to work hard. Sure you could start out stacking shelves in a supermarket but it doesn't mean you have to do that for the rest of your life, it's up to you to make something of yourself.

[Mich the Tester]

The problem is they have a sense of entitlement and do not understand that if you want to get anywhere in life you have to work hard. Sure you could start out stacking shelves in a supermarket but it doesn't mean you have to do that for the rest of your life, it's up to you to make something of yourself.

As for employees with a lack of gumption or ambition, I shall relate a little tale. Lady Tester and I were in London at the weekend. To get back to NL, we flew from London City Airport to Amsterdam. At the security checks in London, a young lady was employed to guide the proceedings, and she said 'any laptops?' to which I replied 'yes, I have a laptop here'. She then didn't say anything, so I asked 'what do you want me to do with it?' She pointed in some vague direction and said something along like 'uhh'. Now then, I can appreciate that the job of 'sayer of uhh, Border Security' might not be the best paid, most exciting job in the world, but surely someone with basic education should know that it's helpful, and maybe even of benefit to one's career, to clearly, politely and concisely explain to a passenger what you wish him to do. One way to do this is by using sentences involving at least a subject and a verb, and in this particular situation two objects might be helpful too, for example 'laptop' and 'box'. Even one or to adjectives could be added, and a 'please', as in; 'please put your laptop in one of those red boxes'. I didn't give her a lecture on English sentence constructs, but now I feel I might have added to her education by doing so. I suppose I'm just turning into a grumpy old git.

[The Spartan]

To be fair Mich you're right, I've seen evidence of said behaviour when I'm in the UK. People have no pride in what they're doing and can appear most unhelpful. I bought my daughter a bag for school from Claire's accessories I came back for the weekend and saw the bag was falling apart so I took it back to the shop the first supervisor I spoke to said "no problem either exchange it or we'll give you a credit note". My daughter couldn't find anything she wanted so I went to the till and asked for a credit note the other supervisor muttered something about the bag being bought in August so I told her straight that the quality of the bag wasn't very good and I was well within my rights to bring it back.

What happened to the customer is always right?

[Mich the Tester]

To be fair Mich you're right, I've seen evidence of said behaviour when I'm in the UK. People have no pride in what they're doing and can appear most unhelpful. I bought my daughter a bag for school from Claire's accessories I came back for the weekend and saw the bag was falling apart so I took it back to the shop the first supervisor I spoke to said "no problem either exchange it or we'll give you a credit note". My daughter couldn't find anything she wanted so I went to the till and asked for a credit note the other supervisor muttered something about the bag being bought in August so I told her straight that the quality of the bag wasn't very good and I was well within my rights to bring it back.

What happened to the customer is always right?

With very little effort or expense you can make someone else's day just a little more pleasant, and then maybe someone will do the same for you. I don't understand what's so difficult about that.