I have an accountant who helps me with my tax affairs. He tells me what is appropriate and what is not. For example I have never paid a member of my own family to answer the phone when I was out, and I have only claimed a percentage of my car expenses that is appropriate to my own usage.
Looking at the way that other people treat their tax affairs, I might be considered a naive fool. But at least I am at peace with my conscience.
I learn that senior people in the Department of Health (at least 25 of them) have been getting paid by getting it sent to private firms based at their own addresses, and that minister have sought to confuse the matter by saying that "no civil servant" has been paid this way (knowing that none of these senior people are defined as civil servants).
It's all coming out that there are clearly 2 sets of rules: one for Jobbing Doctors, and one for senior people on the Department of Health.
"We're all in this together," said David Cameron and George Osborne.
No we aren't, and getting the minister, Mr Simon "Third-Degree" Burns MP to give partial answers to tabled questions makes me want to question the integrity of these people.
7 comments:
Freelance arrangements to avoid tax and ewtd requirements are common in many organisations. The Guardian scheme is here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/info/guardian-news-media-freelance-charter
The Guardian is controlled by the Cayman Islands based GMG group that pays no UK Corporation tax: http://m.guardian.co.uk/money/tax-gap-blog/2009/feb/02/tax-gap-guardian?cat=money&type=article
Such arrangements are common for wealthy people, taxes are for little people like us.
Nothing illegal or immoral about tax avoidance. It is not tax evasion, which is illegal.
Most of these arrangement were set up by your very own Nu Labour government, so don't start blaming this administration for it.
Not my Nu Labour anon.
There is nothing wrong with paying a member of your family to work for you. There is something wrong with paying a member of your family when they don't work for you.
Some, quite a few actually, years ago Simon Burns said, in a letter to me, that MPs had no control over their salaries and that all expenses had to be fully justified. I considered him a twit then and nothing that has happened since has caused me to reconsider.
Except that these people at the department of health are employees in all but name. The tax man can and should clamp down on this. And who is paying their salary, sorry, dividend, you are.
Sorry, but these people are fee- earning subcontractors and therefore entitled to arrange their affairs in whichever way they please to minimise their tax liabilities. At the end of the day it probably costs the taxpayer less than employing them directly, for example not having to pay employer's NI and pension contributions.
You are of course right but that knowledge would interfere with a good bitch.
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