Tuesday 20 December 2011

Gunning for HMRC

I see that the clitterati are out in full force, damning "the Tories" for cosying up to big business with sweetheart tax deals.

Well, anybody who has been reading Private Eye will know that this shit has been going on for much longer than the Tories have been in power. It all started under our last Dear Leader, Kim Jong Brown. And I'm fucking sure the Labour Party knew bloody well it was going on. Margaret Hodge, (former Minister for Children because of her great experience being in charge during the Islington child abuse scandal) is making great political capital banging on about something that started when she was in government.

If she was that fucking worried about it, why didn't she say anything when her team was in charge? It almost looks like this is some cynical fucking attempt at making the Tories look bad.

Heaven forbid!

And another thing, we don't know the full facts of the case. I'm really not sure anyone did anything wrong.

But even if there was a "sweetheart deal", I don't fucking give a shit. I'd much rather Vodafone (and others) kept the money they'd earned honestly by voluntary transactions than give it to a government that pisses it out on shit like aid to India, which has a space program that we can't afford, or wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, or employing millions of people in jobs that are a nett drain on the economy,

Fuck them. If government hadn't been so incredibly profligate, the cuntry wouldn't be so fucked. The less money HMRC collects, the better for us all.

7 comments:

Mark Wadsworth said...

"If she was that fucking worried about it, why didn't she say anything when her team was in charge? It almost looks like this is some cynical fucking attempt at making the Tories look bad."

I actually laughed at that bit.

Mitch said...

The only downside I can see with companies "avoiding" tax which I agree with is that fuckwit government borrows the difference it feels its entitled too making the situation worse as they always do.

Umbongo said...

Of course there is the little detail that Vodaphone never owed the money in the first place. The Controlled Foreign Company legislation on which HMRC relied to tax Vodaphone was found - by the European Court - to be a crock. Hence Vodaphone, which had provided around £4 billion in its accounts just in case, wrote it back.

Tim Worstall who has been blogging on this forever draws attention to this which was written and known about over 6 months ago. Not only is Private Eye crapola on this, but our very own representatives in Westminster are misleading themselves and, deliberately, the great British public.

The actual scandal is not that big corporations are prepared to fight HMRC (and, horrors, win) but that small taxpayers without the resources to fight HMRC are mercilessly bullied. However, our representatives (and the ignorati of the MSM) would rather pillory big corporate for fighting its corner than address the real issue of a tax system which is both ludicrously complicated and out of control because those very same politicians nod through any old crap put to them by successive governments.

PaintingWithNumbers said...

The tax bills of large companies have been negotiated over a lavish meal for as long as I can remember; certainly long before the election of the last Labour government in 1997. Negotiation has always been the way that large corporate tax bills have been determined. To imply otherwise, as Obnoxio does, is just inaccurate. I am afraid Obnoxio is using the subject to have a pop at Labour and thus reveals his political bias. It's a shame really. I would love to take him seriously but he is factually so inaccurate that I can't. I hope he has a day job and does not aspire to become a serious commentator.

david said...

Merry fucking christmas cunt!

Please post more often Obo, you are missed.

John M said...

It does seem somewhat ironic for MP's to be criticising companies that who conjour schemes to avoid tax and who come to 'special arrangements' with HMRC.

Will Margaret Hodge be calling Tony Blair to make a statement I wonder? Thought not.

Obnoxio The Clown said...

"I am afraid Obnoxio is using the subject to have a pop at Labour and thus reveals his political bias."

I do have a political bias, it's true. I hate all politicians, and would quite cheerfully string the lot of them up from lamp posts.