The Tail Chasing Taxman

How the EU has helped "contractors" who are contracting in name only escape tax (please see note below).

Until the 1990s, UK company law made it quite difficult for contractors to use a limited company as a tax saving vehicle, not the least because you needed at least two people to form a company. Such contractors therefore tended to be paid directly, meaning that they paid full income tax and National Insurance on all their earnings.

Then along came the EU, which decided that people should be able to form a company with just one member/shareholder and our laws were amended accordingly. That change resulted in an explosion of contractors working via a company once they cottoned on to how easy it had become to form a company and save tax.

Realising how much tax they were losing, the Inland Revenue (as it was then) brought in a rule commonly called IR35 in 2000 or thereabouts. IR35 basically states that if a worker is working via a company, they are liable for income tax etc on all earnings from their company - as if they were an employee except they also must pay employers NI - regardless of how it was paid if their working arrangement looks like employment. It is currently HMRC's responsibility to make that assessment and to ensure the tax is paid.

IR35 has not been a success and only a small number of workers who should be paying income tax under it actually are. A whole industry grew around helping contractors get round IR35.

But instead of fixing the cause - ie how easy it is for a contractor who is working for the same "employer" perhaps for several years and is in truth a de facto employee, to use a company purely as a tax saving vehicle - Osborne treats the symptom instead by passing the problem onto the client

Osborne, a Conservative is simply trying to do the same thing that the Labour government tried for years to do, which is to make it someone else's responsibility to enforce IR35 and ensure the tax is paid correctly. Of course Osborne, being the Europhile he is, cannot admit that he has no real control of the economy including tax, whilst we are in the EU. You can change governments, but nothing changes because the people we vote in are just caretakers.

What the Suffragettes fought so hard for

Princess Sophia Duleep Singh, descendant of Sikh royalty, god daughter of Queen Victoria & suffragette was prosecuted on the 30/12/1913 for refusal to pay taxes after joining the Tax Resistance League, a society of suffragettes who refused to contribute to a state that would not allow them to vote.

During her trial, at which she faced imprisonment, she said:

“I am unable conscientiously to pay money to the state, as I am not allowed to exercise any control over its expenditure. Neither am I allowed any voice in the choosing of Members of Parliament whose salaries I have helped to pay. This is very unjustified. ………If I am not a fit person for the purposes of representation, why am I a fit person for taxation?”

In 2015, the UK is mostly governed by the EU Commissioners in Brussels. We have no voice in their choosing, no say in the laws they make, no ability to make them repeal any law and no power to get rid of them and yet UK citizens pay £55m per day to the EU.

In 1918, women won the right to have a say over the way their taxes were spent, after a great deal of suffering and pain. In 1972, the UK government gave that right away to the EU Commission. On Referendum day, we have our one and only chance to get it back

Cameron, referendum & stitch ups

I don't believe Cameron’s promise of renegotiation nor do I trust him to give us a fair referendum. Negotiating a deal that is fair to the UK with 26 other countries in the space of 18 months at most is an impossible task.

Furthermore, the senior members & officials of the EU have already said that one of the key EU issues - free movement of people - is NOT up for negotiation anyway.

Even if Cameron is able to bring back some kind of deal from Brussels, the EU does not have a good track record of keeping to its promises of concessions to member states, or of respecting the will of the peoples of those states

Legislative power - ie, the power to govern - has been surrendered by successive governments that have agreed to a political union that the rest of us never agreed to. At each election, the Tories, Labour, LibDems & Plaid have offered us the same thing - staying in the EU.

Labour, Plaid, LibDems & Greens continue to deny us a say in our future. Camheron & the Tories may be promising renegotiation & a referendum now, but they have done so grudgingly at best and Cameron has said that he will campaign for us to stay in the EU, even though he cannot know what the outcome of his negotiation will be

The EU & Cynicism

"We are not dealing with a failure of the EU, but rather with a glaring failure of some governments, who don’t want to take responsibility and thereby impede a joint European solution,” Schulz, President of the EU Parliament.

In other words, the answer to the migrant crisis is more EU. No surprise there.

Schultz accusing member states of cynicism is rich when the EU has just used Greece's economic crisis as a means of consolidating its control over the country. By allowing Greece to join the Euro & facilitating the borrow & spend habits of Greek governments, then blaming the Greeks, the EU acted very much like a person who dumps an alcoholic overnight in an off licence & then blames the alcoholic for drinking themselves into oblivion.

The unelected elite of the EU never seem to even contemplate that their project is at the root of, or exacerbating the problem. But boy are they falling over themselves to take the credit if something goes well, even if they merely redirected taxpayers' money to the project.

http://www.euronews.com/2015/08/29/schulz-attacks-cynical-eu-governments-over-migrants-crisis/

More elections don't mean more democracy

Over the last 20 years or so, we have seen an increasing number of elections - Assembly, city Mayors, Police Commissioners and, more recently, the talk about regional assemblies.

At the same time, our vote means less and less (for my view on this issue please see
Who nicked my vote and now treats me with contempt), so why?

Could it possibly be that the increase in number of elections is intended to provide a smoke screen; to fool us into thinking that there is more democracy when there is actually less. Perhaps, deep down, voters know it and so stay at home on polling day.

How Cameron's reform agenda has changed

In an article in the Daily Telegraph in March 2015, David Cameron set out his EU reform agenda http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/eureferendum/10700644/David-Cameron-the-EU-is-not-working-and-we-will-change-it.html. The other day his current reform agenda was leaked & summarised here: http://www.mailonsunday.co.uk/news/article-3140059/Voters-EU-referendum-won-t-know-Cameron-s-deal-unpicked-treaty-change-decade.html.

It's interesting to see how his list of reforms has changed in just thee months:

MARCH:  New controls to stop “vast migrations” across the continent when new countries join the EU;

JUNE: Cameron's main measure seems to be restricting migration from NEW members only until their economies are on a par with ours. But, firstly how does one judge when that point has come and secondly, if their average pay is lower than ours, they'll still come here, holding wages down for the lowest paid workers.

MARCH: Tighter immigration rules to ensure that migrants come to Britain to work, not as tourists planning to cash in on “free benefits”;

MARCH:  A new power for groups of national parliaments to work together to block unwanted European legislation;

JUNE: In March Cameron wanted a new power, now he only wants a bit more influence.

MARCH:  Businesses to be freed from red tape and “excessive interference” from Brussels, and given access to new markets through “turbo charging” free trade deals with America and Asia;

JUNE: Dropped

MARCH: British police and courts liberated from “unnecessary interference” from the European Court of Human Rights;

JUNE: Dropped

We now know what's on Cameron's EU reform list - not much!

According to the article, Cameron's shopping list is anything but ambitious. Starting off by asking for crumbs off the table just means that he'll get even less.

Who nicked my vote and now treats me with contempt?

At one time 100% of our laws were made by our MPs.  Over the last 40 years or so, the UK Parliament's right to legislate in specific areas have been transferred to unelected Commissioners in Brussels, resulting in only 30% - 40% of our laws being "home grown".    

In reality, what we have in the House of Commons - and the House of Lords - is a collection of people employed by the taxpayer to exercise the residual powers of the UK state.  Furthermore, since many of the major areas of governance, such as education and health have been devolved to the Scottish Parliament, Welsh Assembly and NI Assembly, the actual % of laws originating in UK Parliament in Westminster will be much less (perhaps substantially less) than the 30 - 40% quoted above.