I’ve been watching leaders at the G7 (or is it G8, G20, or Mach 4 – sorry that’s the name of a shaving item I believe) grandstanding and declaring how they are going to create an international corporate tax network so that Big Greed Co (a generic name for those fine organisations that hide profits all over the world while maintaining a veneer of corporate responsibility) can then pay more corporation tax by not moving money around the world. Well good and good luck as it will take forever and as John Maynard Keynes once said in the long term we’re all dead! Just threaten to bang a sales levy on these companies like I recommended 2 weeks ago and stop pussyfooting about I say.
This got me thinking of a story that I read recently concerning the tax avoidance schemes created by the tax specialists at very large accountancy firms. Now putting aside any arguments pertaining to the morality of this behaviour, these guys get paid huge fortunes by their clients to invent ways of legally not paying tax. Ok fair enough, that’s their job and they are not “technically” doing anything illegal BUT (and this is where it gets interesting) these same firms (mainly the big 4 accountancy outfits) whilst charging enormous wedge per hour to their tax avoiding clients ALSO get paid squillions by HM government to do various stuff and what really made we laugh with incredulity is that many of the people who get paid these squillions have actually been on secondment to HMRC advising HMG (Her Majesty’s Government of course) on tax avoidance, how good is that?!
So in short we have: a) very highly paid individuals being paid by rich clients to invent ways of not paying tax (or much of it anyway), b) these same individuals being paid more millions by HM Gov for their “advice” and c) whose money comes from (yes you’ve guessed it) the taxpayer (which doesn’t include many of their clients of course). This is indeed beautiful in its splendid hypocrisy. I mean I am in awe of these people and the way they prey on the spring lamb like naivety of those who work in government and the civil service. I am in awe of a system that allows the great, the good and the corrupt to quite legitimately and in two very distinct ways pick the pockets of their fellow citizens whilst retaining the veneer of serious and reverential respectability, outstanding!
The professional classes by which I mean mainly lawyers and accountants fall over backwards to cover their arses while in effect executing legal larceny on a massive scale, priceless. Solutions are as follows:
Government not to do business with these firms unless they close down those departments that provide aggressive tax avoidance advice;
Government to go outside the big 4 to competitive smaller specialists, give quality SMEs a chance to punt for this work;
Bring in specialist negotiators to negotiate better rates with these globulous and self-serving hypocrites.
Prick them and make them bleed I say. It’ll do ‘em good!
It won’t happen of course but we can live in hope.
La revedere
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well put!