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Cameron and 'liars'.


DonPeffers

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15 Sep 2019    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/sep/15/david-cameron-slammed-for-horrendous-mistake-brexit-referendum

 

‘Johnson is a liar who only backed Leave to help his career’ – David Cameron

 

I know you've got a crappy book to sell Dave but surely this goes into Pot and Kettle territory.

 

29 Oct 2015    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/oct/29/manifesto-promise-broken-general-election-david-cameron-child-tax-credits

 

"Cameron shouldn’t be allowed to break his tax credit promise".

 

"Governments lie in order to get elected. We tolerate it, but we shouldn’t. So how about a new rule: breaking a manifesto pledge triggers a general election"

 

...the prime minister (Cameron) took a different tack when asked about tax credit cuts on a general election special Question Time in April (2015). First, he pointed out that child tax credit had increased by £450, and when David Dimbleby asked him whether it was going to fall, he replied: “It’s not going to fall.”    And yet barely a month after the Conservatives won the election, they announced that they were considering meeting their pledge to cut £12bn of welfare by … slashing tax credits.

 

The Lords stopped the tax credits deletion!

 

In the 2015 Guardian article Osborne and Gove come in for criticism as well.

 

The Liberal Democrats famously reneged on their 2010 General Election promise not to increase tuition fees when they went into coalition with the Tories and agreed to treble the fees.

 

Latest from Liberal Undemocrats is, if they become a majority Government, they will Revoke Article 50 and stop EU withdrawal. Seems the highest vote for any winning Party has been just under 14.1Mn which according to LibDem logic trumps 17.4Mn Leave votes?!

 

However should they merely (like 2010) gain a fair number of MPs without gaining power then all bets are off and they can agree to anything. Jo Swinson for deputy PM anyone?

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Explain, please, how a party with 'Democrats' in their name can decide unilaterally to wilfully ignore the result of a democratically held referendum by saying they would revoke Article 50 without a further referendum? Especially as they raised the idea of a referendum on leaving or remaining in the first place!

 

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So Boris didn’t show up to a press conference due to a few anti-Brexit hecklers?  What an incompetent shambles that creature is...

Brave Sir Boris ran away. 
Bravely ran away away. 
When Brexit reared it's ugly head, 
He bravely turned his tail and fled. 
Yes, brave Sir Boris turned about 
And gallantly he chickened out. 
Swiftly taking to his feet, 
He beat a very brave retreat. 
Bravest of the brave, Sir Boris!

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2 hours ago, Captain Colonial said:

So Boris didn’t show up to a press conference due to a few anti-Brexit hecklers?  What an incompetent shambles that creature is...

In fairness the tv crews asked for it to go indoors because the language being used by the hecklers was not suitable for broadcast but there was not a room large enough to accommodate. It should have been cancelled but the Luxembourg Pm wanted his moment of fame 

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Take ZERO notice of the PM of Luxembourg, one country that stands out as being  at the heart of one of Europe's biggest economic issues.  

 

How? You ask....

 

Amazon, Skype, iTunes, Paypal and the like set up HQ's there to take advantage of what can only be described as devious but legal means of paying little or no corporation tax in the countries that you actually do business, and an effective rate of about 6% in Luxembourg. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Just now, jim_l said:

Take ZERO notice of the PM of Luxembourg, one country that stands out as being  at the heart of one of Europe's biggest economic issues.  

 

How? You ask....

 

Amazon, Skype, iTunes, Paypal and the like set up HQ's there to take advantage of what can only be described as devious but legal means of paying little or no corporation tax in the countries that you actually do business, and an effective rate of about 6% in Luxembourg. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Exactly, same as the Irish, with their low tax rates to attract inwards investment.

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Mr Luxembourg was little short of raving in the clip I heard. Spittle-flecked seems appropriate.

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Today on the BBC.. "Apple Irish tax case appeal heard by EU court"  An EU court is hearing appeals against a decision to order Ireland to recover £11.5bn of unpaid taxes from Apple.  In 2016, the European Commission found an agreement between Dublin and the technology giant was against EU law.  It said the Irish government allowed Apple to attribute nearly all its EU sales earnings to an Irish head office that existed only on paper, thereby avoiding paying tax on EU revenues.    (The EU estimated that Apple's effective tax rate was .005% ) 

 

Why socialists in this country want to campaign to remain in this Capitalist cartel is beyond me.  The real reason for austerity, and the maths is inarguable, is:

  1.  People are being paid less than it costs to live, so, instead of collecting tax, even from full time workers, the government is subsidising them, through benefits.
  2. Corporations are using the techniques described above to avoid paying tax,

So, few people are net taxpayers, few if any corporations are net taxpayers, the government's only way to do the stuff it needs to do is borrow money, and we go deeper and deeper into the abyss.

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That's a bit of a contradictory statement is it not?

 

1 hour ago, jim_l said:

Why socialists in this country want to campaign to remain in this Capitalist cartel is beyond me.

 

Your saying that its wrong that apple are dodging their taxes. But the EU are agreeing and have ruled that the taxes need to be  paid? So in effect your saying the EU is correct in their  pursuit of taxes, but we're wrong to be a part of it?

 

1 hour ago, jim_l said:

So, few people are net taxpayers, few if any corporations are net taxpayers

 

I find that impossible to believe. Do you have any hard evidence or figures to back this statement?

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It does amuse me that so many people get so worked up about companies or individuals and the amount of tax they pay or avoid.  The fault is with the taxation system, not them.  It’s not a crime to have clever accountants who legally use the taxation system and incentives and loopholes in poor legislation to their own advantage.  The only person cheating the tax man is the tax man himself.  The tax system needs scrapping and reinventing with the emphasis on clarity and simplicity.  Taxes aren’t about the morality of paying them, and business is about maximising profit for shareholders in any legal way possible, including accounting to use existing legal framework to one’s own end.

 

i was also amused when Andrew Mitchell MP (he of the bicycle through No 10 gates fame) admitted he’d sworn at police but claimed he didn’t say the word “pleb”.  If you go out and verbally abuse the police and get locked up, I think you’ll find a good defence is not going to be “never mind what obscenities I said at the policeman, this is what I didn’t say”.

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1) Yes the EU are agreeing that the taxes need to be paid...

 

They want the taxes "on nearly all of Apple's EU sales earnings" to be paid, in Ireland, by "an Irish head office that exists only on paper". That is my point, STILL no taxes being paid in all of the other countries where they employed people on the minimum wage to make those profits. 

 

This is my point about one  fundamental flaw in the four freedoms - corporations are still allowed to attribute most of their profits to a near fictional HQ set up in the lowest tax country. Hence Apple, Amazon, others setting up in Ireland or Luxembourg. Nobody is chasing Amazon - warehouses full of people in poor conditions and earning the minimum wage, taxes paid in this country, practically zero, tax paid in Luxembourg , yes, at a fraction of the applicable rate in the countries where the profits are made.  Countries trillions in debt while Bezos accumulates more wealth than most countries , and we are subsidising his workforce - CRAZY!

 

2) I have seen the research , some years old but could find it , or you could find the current data.  It is widely understood that by the time the government has provided you with the NHS, Education, Infrastructure, other public bodies, etc. You are not a net taxpayer in this country unless you are earning  in excess of 70K a year.    It is costing the government about £2000 per household just to pay the interest on our national debt!

 

Just a little context, a couple with two children, in rented accommodation , where one of them is earning the minimum wage, will be entitled to something in the region of £1000 a month Universal Credit. You have be earning quite a lot before you become a net taxpayer in this country. 

 

There are 10 countries in the single market that have a minimum wage below €500, anyone tells me that isn't a downward pull on wages in this country is kidding themselves.

 

So, they make it in an economy where the minimum wage is low, sell it somewhere the  minimum wage is high, assign the profits somewhere corporation tax is low or negligible - capitalist heaven!   

 

I am not worked up about companies avoiding tax,  I have been part of the problem,  50 people in an office in the UK, 5 people in an office in Cork, the system allocated every sale to Cork (All legal) The tax savings were such that the company didn't bat an eyelid at the £1 Billion cost of the IT system to do it. The tax system is the problem, a system that we cannot change while we are in the EU, the system is facilitated by the four freedoms. 

 

Jim

 

 

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And I'll bet no one would bat an eyelid if it was happening here instead of Ireland or Luxembourg.

 

This is the fault of those countries not the EU. They want to attract the tax money so they do it. It's the same in the aircraft industry. Ireland probably has the highest number of passenger airliners registered there per head. There are Russian, Scandinavian, other european airlines all with their aircraft registered on the irish reg for similar reasons. Ireland's doing, not the EU.

 

And again why is the UK tax policy the fault of the EU?

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UK tax policy isn't the problem Steve, having the four freedoms in a single market with many different tax and wage policies is the problem, it allows Corporations to move the work and the money around at will, to the most effective place for them. 

 

It is as if I set up a minimum wage in Scotland of £2 an hour, a minimum wage in London of £10 an hour, and a corporation tax rate in Wales of 0%.  Before you know it all the work is being done in Scotland, all the shops are in London but all the Corporate HQ's are in Wales, where all the sales and profits 'technically' take place, surprisingly. 

 

Don't get me wrong I am no rabid lefty  - I believe in the market economy, but they need regulating, they need to pay their workers enough not to be state dependent, and they need to pay their taxes where they do the business, not in a place of their choosing.  Then the state has the funds to do the things it needs to do socially.  

 

The four freedoms has just turned into a licence for them to take the you know what. 

 

Corbyn can't do a single thing about corporation tax or taxing the wealthy while we are in the single market, he raises the rate, they move!

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Jim I hear you, but rather than discuss these mythical 4 pillars what about in real life.

 

will us leaving the Eu have any effect or stop these practices? No. The act of buy cheap sell expensive has been going on forever, and will continue to do so.

 

in fact to stop these huge companies from packing up they may well end up being given incentives to stay. As large manufacturers are already packing up and moving out.  So In effect worse.

 

So in your ideal Uk everyone will earn more and be better off. So to facilitate this everything we do, make, sell or provide will have to increase in cost. So what we earn in one hand get spent from the other, net gain? None. Are we all going to become ethical angels and buy home produced products at a higher price? Or still buy Chinese stuff on amazon?

 

your theories are right in principle Jim, but I’m yet to be convinced in the real world.

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