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Explore the Swiss Leaks Data

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Re: Explore the Swiss Leaks Data

#71

Post by ptaipale »

andy_ppp wrote: post #67

A flat taxation system (with say the starting point for tax at £25,000) seems like a good plan? I also think taxes on business and taxes on individuals should also be harmonised. Add in a general tax avoidance rule and you are good to go.

What is a "general tax avoidance rule"?

Generally, tax evasion is a crime that can and should be prosecuted. Everyone agrees with that.

Tax avoidance, or tax planning, is in Wikipedia terms "the legal usage of the tax regime to one's own advantage to reduce the amount of tax that is payable by means that are within the law."

So, tax avoidance is the kind of behaviour that is explicitly and clearly legal. Now someone wants to make a "rule", apparently to somehow punish for it?

Of course there are loopholes and quirks in any tax system, and people are exploiting them. Particularly the rich. But the solution is to close loopholes and make the tax system simpler and clearer, not have a "general tax avoidance rule" which I take to mean arbitrary confiscation and punishment according to political whims.

Re: Explore the Swiss Leaks Data

#72

Post by easytiger »

mercurial wrote: post #25
easytiger wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or how about you let the authorities deal with it in a reasonable, case by case basis and get off your polemic high horse

Is it "polemic" now to expect that people pay taxes, and get punished when they try to cheat their way out of it?

People do pay taxes. Very few don't. This kind of diatribe just gives governments mindshare to promote even more aggressive and punitive taxes.

Re: Explore the Swiss Leaks Data

#73

Post by drapper »

tormeh wrote: post #12
junto wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is the Hervé Falciani leak. See the Guardian coverage: http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/feb/08/hsbc-files-e... The origin of the leak The HSBC files were obtained through an international collaboration of news outlets, including the Guardian, Le Monde, BBC Panorama and the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists 1 In late 2007, Hervé Falciani, an IT expert at HSBC's Swiss bank, hacked into it…

Why so few prosecuted in Britain? Wouldn't this be a good opportunity to get some assholes who thought they could shift the tax burden to others? Six month prison sentences sounds reasonable. British prisons suck, but given that this is partly the dodgers fault that's just poetic.

House of Commons will be all about that today http://www.theguardian.com/news/live/2015/feb/09/hsbc-files-...

Re: Explore the Swiss Leaks Data

#74

Post by charlesdm »

andy_ppp wrote: post #67

A flat taxation system (with say the starting point for tax at £25,000) seems like a good plan? I also think taxes on business and taxes on individuals should also be harmonised. Add in a general tax avoidance rule and you are good to go.

That means shareholders will be taxed twice, once at the corporate level, and once at the individual level, leading to double taxation (unless a tax credit is given).

But, like you, I'm a big fan of a simple flat tax, with relatively little deductions.

Re: Explore the Swiss Leaks Data

#75

Post by ptaipale »

saiya-jin wrote: post #60
neoeldex wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a common misconception about progressive tax systems. I'm from the Netherlands, and we've got such a system like that. But it's not true its quite common to pay over 50% taxes. For example, here we got 4 tax-discs, where you pay taxes in a disc until a certain amount of money earned(profits). Disc 1: until €19822,- : 36.50% Disc 2: until €33589,- : 42.00% Disc 3: until €57585,- : 42.00% Disc 4: more €57585,-…

those "discs" are per month? anyway, my comment was on rich people, no real definition but say earning more than 1 mil eur/ear. If I understood your description correctly, they pay around/above 50% of taxes, right?

Rich people get their income typically as capital gains, and I expect the income brackets above are given for earned income, which is a different thing.

It is not really feasible to tax capital gains with a progressive system. You can make a small case for progressive taxes on capital gains by allowing a basic deduction, but the transaction cost of moving the capital gains somewhere else are generally quite small.

(Just for information, I live in a country from where people are leaving as tax refugees to Sweden).

Re: Explore the Swiss Leaks Data

#76

Post by charlesdm »

ptaipale wrote: post #71
andy_ppp wrote: post #67

A flat taxation system (with say the starting point for tax at £25,000) seems like a good plan? I also think taxes on business and taxes on individuals should also be harmonised. Add in a general tax avoidance rule and you are good to go.

What is a "general tax avoidance rule"? Generally, tax evasion is a crime that can and should be prosecuted. Everyone agrees with that. Tax avoidance, or tax planning, is in Wikipedia terms "the legal usage of the tax regime to one's own advantage to reduce the amount of tax that is payable by means that are within the law." So, tax avoidance is the kind of behaviour that is explicitly and clearly legal. Now someone…

Often, the purpose of a GAAR is to stop people from setting up artificial arrangements just for the purpose to avoid tax.

Let's say you sell something in the UK, and then route the money around the world to make use of loopholes in the laws of various countries, only to have the profit end up in the UK again.

Transactions for business purposes are generally accepted.

Re: Explore the Swiss Leaks Data

#77

Post by easytiger »

saiya-jin wrote: post #22

The pattern is apparent - once you become rich, you don't want to donate millions to governments in taxes. Anyway you do, but trying to minimize it. Be it for their lack of any transparency how cash will be used (mostly wasted in very ineffective way). It doesn't matter if it's famous or unknown rich. Now what to do with this situation... There are too many tax havens out there (Suisse, Monaco, Channel islands, Luxem…

The problem is one i can sympathise with to some degree. For standard wage levels taxation (whilst still to much in UK) makes sense. Scale that up to millions and it really is out of wack. There is no moral reason why a government deserves 50% of everything you have made.

Its like when you order a more expensive bottle of wine, and the restaurant's service charge is a percentage of it... its ridiculous to charge $100 to open a bottle of wine.

Re: Explore the Swiss Leaks Data

#78

Post by ptaipale »

charlesdm wrote: post #76
ptaipale wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is a "general tax avoidance rule"? Generally, tax evasion is a crime that can and should be prosecuted. Everyone agrees with that. Tax avoidance, or tax planning, is in Wikipedia terms "the legal usage of the tax regime to one's own advantage to reduce the amount of tax that is payable by means that are within the law." So, tax avoidance is the kind of behaviour that is explicitly and clearly legal. Now someone…

Often, the purpose of a GAAR is to stop people from setting up artificial arrangements just for the purpose to avoid tax. Let's say you sell something in the UK, and then route the money around the world to make use of loopholes in the laws of various countries, only to have the profit end up in the UK again. Transactions for business purposes are generally accepted.

Yes, but this is not easy.

I heard (don't recall where) that a while back someone proposed a new tax in Sweden: "tax on work that was avoided with the intention of avoiding tax".

I.e. a doctor was working 40 hours a week and was paying >50 % of income as taxes, and decided that it's not worth it to work so hard if government takes most of the proceeds, so reduced working time to 35 hours a week.

The proposal was to tax him/her anyway on the calculated income of those 40 hours, because quite clearly working only 35 hours was an arrangement just for the purpose to avoid tax.

This is apocryphic, and anyway didn't go through even in Sweden.

Re: Explore the Swiss Leaks Data

#79

Post by ptaipale »

Totoradio wrote: post #23
mammmamia wrote: post #19

Looks worthless, only selected people who they think are worthy enough to publish. Why not all the names or raw data?

The raw data contains phone numbers, adresses and other personal data (source http://www.lemonde.fr/les-decodeurs/article/2015/02/09/qui-s... ). I can see why it's not published as is.

Doesn't explain selecting names and sums, though.

Re: Explore the Swiss Leaks Data

#80

Post by mercurial »

easytiger wrote: post #72
mercurial wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it "polemic" now to expect that people pay taxes, and get punished when they try to cheat their way out of it?

People do pay taxes. Very few don't. This kind of diatribe just gives governments mindshare to promote even more aggressive and punitive taxes.

You mean that the people who got the most out of the system shouldn't be expected to contribute back the most?
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