Reply to: Philip Green

[DodgyAgent]

DA - I totally agree, but what bugs me is that he can create fancy tax avoidence schemes because he is rich enough to do so while the small business community is seen as fair game. How much tax would be due on 1.2 billion? Then compare that to the effect on sombodies life when the IR come knocking looking for retrospective taxes because the IR decided that the goal posts were not in the best tax gathering position.

That is why people make themselves so rich. They wish to put themselves beyond the control of others. The likes of Philip Green are the ones that create the wealth and the jobs. The less money we hand over to the state the better.

Tony I think you need to get yourself a £100,000 per day contract (less my 20% of course! )

[BoredBloke]

DA - I totally agree, but what bugs me is that he can create fancy tax avoidence schemes because he is rich enough to do so while the small business community is seen as fair game. How much tax would be due on 1.2 billion? Then compare that to the effect on sombodies life when the IR come knocking looking for retrospective taxes because the IR decided that the goal posts were not in the best tax gathering position.

[DodgyAgent]

Taxation spirit or rule?

Given that the treasury does everything that it can to extract as much money off the taxpayer as possible, that they have created an incredibly complex and expensive system to achieve this, then surely no one is obliged to pay tax unless they have to.

It is all very well saying that Philip Green is not playing according to the spirit of the laws, but quid pro quo, since when did the taxman ever not play hardball.

The fact that Green is so rich that he can get away without paying tax is great. As I said before the money that he keeps from the treasury is better spent by him than by the petty bureaucrats running the state.

[BoredBloke]

You want to see some of the responses on Shout99 to the same topic.

[DimPrawn]

Don;t have a problem with him earning it, but the tax laws ought to applied evenly, surely?

Now that is funny....

[malvolio]

But then you'd be S660a'd... Thisis what gets me confused - the Artic case really revolved around Mrs Arctic's money being availble back to Mr ARctic, which is why they're being done for the tax. Phil Green, who is a UK resident, also benfits directly from the money passed to Mrs Green - so where's the difference in the two situations...?

Don;t have a problem with him earning it, but the tax laws ought to applied evenly, surely?

[BoredBloke]

Does this mean that I can be employed by my wife and she can get the dividend payments in the same way that Mrs Green does? Ok she lives here and would still have to pay her chunk of tax due.

[DimPrawn]

If you guys want to do this all you have to do is.

1. Buy or rent a place in a tax haven.
2. Pay for your missus to live there as an expat.
3. Pay her the big divvies and pray the pool cleaner is ugly.

Simple really.

[simondolan]

tax

Guessing he must have damn good accountants that have found some pretty major loopholes, be interesting to see if any of the resident accountants here can explain how it works, from the loan to the tax's

Fairly straightforward really. A dividend must be paid from retained profits, so, say the group has made £500m each year for the past 4 years, and not paid a dividend, they could pay a dividend in year 4 of £2bn.

They would have needed to have taken a loan because they woudn't have that £2bn in cash - it would be tied up in buildings, debtors, stock and so on, so the bank lends the £2bn to pay his dividend, secured on the assets of the business.

[BoredBloke]

OLd Labour were but this lot are quite good for big business - it's the little guys they put the squeeze on.

[wendigo100]

wonder how much he pays to the labour party? Not that thats relevant of course...

Does he?

I can never understand why any successful businessmen would ever want to donate money to them, except for personal gain.

Aren't Labour the complete antithesis to everything business stands for?

[ratewhore]

wonder how much he pays to the labour party? Not that thats relevant of course...

[stackpole]

If you lot think that agencies are "creaming it" then what do you think about Philip Green?

Good luck to him.

[Not So Wise]

Dumb question, no doubt, but exactly how do you legally pay a dividend four times bigger than your pre-tax profits?

Don't consider it dumb, whole thing confuse's me, Especially as way i read it the "group" is taking out a loan just to pay this payout, that seems...well nuts to me. Guessing he must have damn good accountants that have found some pretty major loopholes, be interesting to see if any of the resident accountants here can explain how it works, from the loan to the tax's

[malvolio]

Dumb question, no doubt, but exactly how do you legally pay a dividend four times bigger than your pre-tax profits?