Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Isle of Man is not in the UK

bbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 211 posts

Re: The Isle of Man is not in the UK

#141

Post by pjc50 »

nicky0 wrote: post #123
ceejayoz wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's why the super-wealthy fund propaganda campaigns aimed at those folks.

Ah yes the "they didn't know what they were really voting for" argument. Insulting and pathetic.

They didn't. They can't have done, because there were at least two conflicting Leave campaigns! The two binary choices of in/out of freedom of movement and the customs union gave rise to four possible options, and I saw all of those being advocated by different pundits.

That is partly why it's been a disaster. No one specific workable proposal has a majority of support.

(Would we have seen "they knew what they were voting for" if we'd chosen the Norway option? Somehow I doubt it)

Re: The Isle of Man is not in the UK

#142

Post by lexs »

throwaway925 wrote: post #69
kyanne wrote: post #23

Jesus Christ everyone, just pay some taxes

You: Pay 40%-50% of your hard earned salary, get nothing in return, for people you don't know, and you know they hate you and are completely ungrateful. They: "Jesus Christ, pay some taxes"

> get nothing in return, for people you don't know, and you know _they_ hate you

The sentiment expressed in your post is dangerous populism against an imaginary "other".

In case anyone actually believes this and is not just trolling on a throwaway then check at least the broadest of breakdowns of public spending to see "what you get" [0].

[0] https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/how-public-spendi...

Re: The Isle of Man is not in the UK

#143

Post by pmjordan »

marcus_holmes wrote: post #68
peteretep wrote: post #15

Isle of Man has zero percent corporate tax on (most) money earned outside the Isle of Man, which includes money earned in the UK. If you're a non-resident citizen of the UK, you can deposit your dividends from your Isle of Man company in your UK bank account, tax free. For the time being, IOM companies have GB VAT numbers, and a banking system that integrates seamlessly with the UK one, as well as a postal system (qu…

I lived for four years in the IoM, had an amazing time (until Bushy's closed anyway). But in the process, I opened an IoM bank account to pay my salary into. I carried on using this account for years afterwards (it was with the IoM branch of a UK bank). I benefited from not paying any tax on the interest on my savings account, because tax haven. Not a huge perk, but a nice one anyway. And then, in the wake of the tax…

while I had obeyed all the rules at the time, they were retroactively changing the rules and I needed to declare all the interest I had earned on my offshore account over the last 8 years.

Are you sure they changed the rules? It sounds like they might have realised they hadn't been implementing/enforcing the European Union Savings Directive (EUSD) [1] correctly, and therefore retroactively enforced the rules. Or perhaps they found that the EU rules overrode the UK/IM rules, which were retroactively found to be null and void.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Savings_Directive

Re: The Isle of Man is not in the UK

#144

Post by cgiles »

pytester wrote: post #138
philpem wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, they just realise how utterly incompetent Corbyn is. If he keeps sitting on that fence, his bum's going to be full of splinters...

>his bum's going to be full of splinters... This particular talking point was kicked off and repeated frequently by the two newspapers who are owned by notorious tax avoiders - mail and telegraph. It then filtered down to the rest of the population. They're also the two who are most pro brexit.

I have watched Brexit avidly but comfortably from across the pond for the last two years. Every PMQs Corbyn has got up and, in the earlier days, ignored Brexit entirely, and now, he complains about lack of clarity and progress by the Government. While he and his party have never had any clear position on it, by design. The Tories' current position of hard Brexit or bust may be insane, but at least it is a position. The Lib Dems and SNP have one too. But not Labour.

So while this "talking point" may have been noticed by the Mail and Telegraph, it has been apparent to many of us for some time.

If Labour had kicked Corbyn out for, say, Starmer, and taken a clear soft Brexit or even Remain position, they could have long ago taken Government from the Tories, who have obviously badly screwed up everything in Brexit that it is possible to screw up.

On the other hand I am keeping my fingers crossed for the incredibly unlikely event of a unity government under Ken Clarke.

TL;DR: philpem is completely correct.

Re: The Isle of Man is not in the UK

#145

Post by cgiles »

NeedMoreTea wrote: post #132
tristanperry wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good point - I agree, and I'm really disappointed it didn't play out like that. Instead the UK has had political stalemate for 3.5 years and even now it doesn't look like we're closer to 'a deal'.

No, we're stuck with a "government" that's lost every vote they called, and a no-deal crash out looks the only option. Realistically that was always the only option without moving some of those infamous "red lines", or accepting Theresa May's deal. I don't see room for anything else. So the no-deal that was explicitly ruled out during the referendum campaign. The Swiss invalidate referendums when the electorate haven…

I have found the best source of information about Brexit, although it certainly has its own bias, to be eureferendum.com . They have long advocated for Efta/EEA membership as the first move for the UK before gradually disentangling from EU directives.

IMV (I'm not British) the only sane option was some form of soft Brexit. Which was the only way to avoid most of the economic damage and also prevent hordes of Leavers with pitchforks. But the damage was done at Lancaster House which made immigration a red line. Theresa May concluded that Leavers wouldn't consider anything without immigration control to be a real Brexit, thus implicitly agreeing with the idea that the referendum passed because of immigration.

And now you have a neverending shitshow as a result. So I mostly agree, but there was a window of opportunity for TM to sell a soft Brexit. She opted not to.

Re: The Isle of Man is not in the UK

#146

Post by p0llard »

Stay_frostJebel wrote: post #86

> “Independence is a strong part of the character of the people of the island. We’re not part of the UK, or the British Isles – we’re Manx,” said Phil Gawne, a former politician on the island... Hmm. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Isles > The British Isles are a group of islands in the North Atlantic off the north-western coast of continental Europe that consist of the islands of Great Britain, Ireland, the Is…

The term "British Isles" is purely a geographic one, and a controversial one at that; whether or not the the Isle of Man is part of the British Isles (it blatantly is, but I think the point being made related to the naming controversy) is unrelated to the "complexity" of the UK political entities.

Re: The Isle of Man is not in the UK

#147

Post by IanPBann »

simonh wrote: post #105
pavlov wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After living in the UK for a year and encountering this tax system firsthand, I'm convinced that one of the main reasons for Brexit is that rich people in England are worried that EU tax harmonization could one day take away their sweet loopholes and convenient neighborhood tax havens. I've personally benefitted from the system as a "resident non-domiciled" foreign citizen. But on the whole it's not fair to British t…

I hear this theory a lot, but the fact is most of the support for Brexit came from low income households, and people in low skilled or manual work. Generally the higher the household income, the lower the support for Brexit, even at the higher income levels. https://www.jrf.org.uk/report/brexit-vote-explained-poverty-...

That's not true. While most voters from low income households supported leaving the EU (as shown in the report you linked), 59% of leave votes came from middle class voters and only 17% of Leave votes were from skilled manual workers. The majority of middle class voters supported remaining, but because there are so many of them, middle class voters also made up the majority of leave voters. This 5 minute report [0] from the BBC looks into where the votes for Brexit came from and how the different classes voted.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eOMiUONDLno

Re: The Isle of Man is not in the UK

#148

Post by pytester »

cgiles wrote: post #144
pytester wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>his bum's going to be full of splinters... This particular talking point was kicked off and repeated frequently by the two newspapers who are owned by notorious tax avoiders - mail and telegraph. It then filtered down to the rest of the population. They're also the two who are most pro brexit.

I have watched Brexit avidly but comfortably from across the pond for the last two years. Every PMQs Corbyn has got up and, in the earlier days, ignored Brexit entirely, and now, he complains about lack of clarity and progress by the Government. While he and his party have never had any clear position on it, by design. The Tories' current position of hard Brexit or bust may be insane, but at least it is a position. T…

>While he and his party have never had any clear position on it, by design.

Their position is to negotiate another deal (if possible) and put it to a public vote, and put the existing deal to a vote if not. It's pretty clear albeit not so easy to understand for the perennially simple minded (for whom simple messages like "remain at all costs" and "we must execute the glorious brexit revolution on october 31st" appeal).

Unfortunately it isn't possible to make promises about what will be possible to negotiate with the EU.

>If Labour had kicked Corbyn out for, say, Starmer, and taken a clear soft Brexit or even Remain position, they could have long ago taken Government from the Tories

This is a theory that's quite popular in the London remainer bubble. Unfortunately London forgetting that the rest of the country exists is partly what got us into this mess, and it's not a winning strategy to keep doing it.

Re: The Isle of Man is not in the UK

#149

Post by marcus_holmes »

pmjordan wrote: post #143
marcus_holmes wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I lived for four years in the IoM, had an amazing time (until Bushy's closed anyway). But in the process, I opened an IoM bank account to pay my salary into. I carried on using this account for years afterwards (it was with the IoM branch of a UK bank). I benefited from not paying any tax on the interest on my savings account, because tax haven. Not a huge perk, but a nice one anyway. And then, in the wake of the tax…

while I had obeyed all the rules at the time, they were retroactively changing the rules and I needed to declare all the interest I had earned on my offshore account over the last 8 years. Are you sure they changed the rules? It sounds like they might have realised they hadn't been implementing/enforcing the European Union Savings Directive (EUSD) [1] correctly, and therefore retroactively enforced the rules. Or perh…

does it matter? there were some rules, that I was obeying, then there were some other rules, that were retroactively enforced. From my point of view, same same ;)

Re: The Isle of Man is not in the UK

#150

Post by lhopki01 »

tomatocracy wrote: post #103
lawlessone wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm convinced that one of the main reasons for Brexit is that rich people in England are worried that EU tax harmonization it's coming January 2020, the UK is terrified of it as they own overseas tax havens all over the world. https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/policies/anti-tax-avoidan...

There’s a constitutional problem with that though. Most of these territories are internally self governing including in respect of tax law, and Westminster has long since ceased legislating for them. Going back to Westminster acting as a colonial power is something which they are strongly opposed to themselves.

It's not about the UK legislating for them. It's about the UK not protecting them anymore. The UK constantly works to keep them off tax haven lists.
Post reply on HN