Re: The Liechenstein affair

On Feb 28, 10:19 am, "Colonel Colt" <NoneOfYourBusiness@feckoff,org>
wrote:
"Mel Rowing" <mel.row...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message

news:911291cc-e82f-42fe-9e6d-04c0bde897e6@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

I can think of a few genuinely victimless crimes but tax evasion certainly
isn't one of them, unless you happen to think that dishonestly shrugging
of
your responsibilities and expecting others to pick up the tab is
'victimless'.

If I saw my responsibilities as contributing towards the £120bn. spent/
wasted on quangos every year, the billions donated to the EU, the
billions defrauded from the welfare system, the billions spent/wasted
on God knows how many schemes and "initiatives" every year that yield
very little at the end of the day.

Which has nothing to do with the morality of evading - note, not 'avoidance'
through legal means - your taxes.

I know the distinction between avoidance and evasion. Please don't
talk down to me!

If you don't want governments to spend
money on such things, and neither do I want money wasted on quangos or the
wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, then vote for a party that will enact such
policies.

You show yourself to me incredibly naive. It is the political parties
that constitute the major problem with our democracy. I have not voted
since 1987. A curse on all their houses. You are not trying to
convince me that voting makes the slightest difference to how this
country is run are you.

To begin with Parliament is no longer sovereign. The "parties" have
given all its powers away!

I will make just one observation regarding the difference voting
makes. As yet we don't know the date of the next election yet already
we have a pledge from the Tories that if elected to government they
would match the present government's spending plans.

What choice does that give us?

In the meantime government spending has increased to around 45% of
GDP. We should want for nothing with regard to public services yet
what do we see?

Filthy hospitals obsessed with meaningless targets that produce
waiting lists to get on waiting lists. GPs that receive more money for
less work. Post code lotteries, patients who are prepared to sacrifice
their right to free treatment under the state system and incur further
expense by going private. A dentistry system that has now finally
collapsed due to the imposition of a contract in a what it would now
seem to be illegal. Opthalmics is now ipso facto all privatised.

Education is no better. Billions of extra money have been poured in
yet we still have kids who can't read, write or indeed string together
words to make a sentence.

We have soldiers sent to war with shortages of in any case inadequate
equipment.

We pay 45p in the £ on everything we earn for this lot!

Yes, I am sure you could. But none of it would legitimise the criminal
evasion of tax, and by extension the passing of the burden onto those who

Who's money is it anyway? Who earns it? Are we not at the very least
entitled to some accountability as to how the money is spent? If the
UK really were UK Plc, then it would be insolvent. If the UK were a
Plc then it would have to present accounts every year. Where do I find
UK Plc's accounts?

The tax burden on individuals is largely as a result of unthinking
prolifigacy, inefficiencies and out and out waste that I complain of.
There are several reasons as to why the voting system is an inadequate
system with which to address these shortcomings.

It is iniquitous.

First it presumes that each voter is equally informed and/or is
equally prepared and qualified to become informed. Clearly nothing can
be further from the truth.

There are several classes of voter whose economic interests are in
conflict. These range from he who relies on the state for tens and
occasionally hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of energy in cash
and kind to those who contribute similar sums in taxes. There is also
a significant group who rely upon the state for the very income out of
which they pay their taxes. I don't decry the services they provide as
necessarily inessential. I do argue that the economic well being of
such people is influenced by government policy to a much greater
extent than in other cases. The so call client state is not a figment
of the imagination.

It's all a matter of balance. The higher the proportion of the
population who for one reason or another are economically dependent
upon state spending then the more difficult it is going to reverse
government policy in the respects I have outlined. With regard to the
second, if we do succeed and make government spending. Government
spending is not only prone towards proifigacy and inefficiency, it
distorts the shape of the economy.

However, so long as these conditions prevail, if we don't have a
recipe for the "crime" of tax evasion then I don;t know what is. What
is the individual to do faced with the percpetion that he is meeting
an undue proportion of the burden you speak of ?
.

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