a) there’s no bloody clear cut line between what Barclays does, and legitimate tax planning – where one draws the line really comes down to, at the bottom of it, personal tastes and prejudices. Considering the tax impact of your proposed transaction in advance is perfectly legitimate, as is trying to find a way to miminise that burden[1]. Where I personally draw the line is carrying out transactions solely for their tax advantage, but believe me that these aren’t the worst examples by a long chalk.

b) The proposed solutions that some of the contributors to the Guardian’s tax gap blog were coming up should give most people here concerns. I’m not so sure, TBH, that tax avoidance is such a dramatic social evil that it justifies the government having the freedom to unilaterally ignore law that proves inconvenient to its interests.

[1] Which, other than preparing tax returns, is what most of my career to date has been. “We want to do commercial activity X (e.g. sell a property/subsidiary business, buy a company) – how do I do this tax-efficiently?”

But if a poor person tries to avoid paying tax – suddenly all these rightwingers are up in arms over a ‘broken society’.

Why isn’t society ‘broken’ if our companies, who have a legal and social responsibility to the country they operate in to pay taxes, pay so in full?

Of course the TPA isn’t going to say anything – they’re interested condemning local football schemes as a gross waste of money because they take the kids off the streets.

In each of the three jurisdictions involved (the UK, Luxembourg and the USA), and taken in isolation, it’s a set of entirely legitimate and innocuous transaction, and no particularly torturous or aggressive interpretation of the legislation is required in any of them for it to work.

As said in the note, the only practical way for HMRC to attack it is by arguing that the loans Barclays takes out in the UK to fund its end weren’t for a legitimate business purpose. Theoretically do-able, but damn tricky in practice to prove to the commissioners.

Its mission is to gives taxpayers a voice, highlight waste and inefficiency within the State and campaign for lower taxes FOR THEIR RICH BACKERS.

That is what you should have said..

If more taxes are collected they can be used to reduce other people’s taxes or cut government borrowing, they don’t have to be “pissed up against the wall”.

Sure, we can argue about what is the “right” amount of tax which people or corporations should pay, ie the most appropriate rate which should be levied, and there will obviously be differences of opinion. There is a simple principle though that whatever the rates of income tax and corporation tax people or companies should not be able to pretend that their income or profits are less than they actually are in order to reduce their tax bills, ie everyone should pay their fair share. In that context arguments about flat taxes are irrelevent because the same principle would still apply.

Sorry, I meant Michael Ahcroft. I can’t bring myself to call him Lord. Anyway The man who is buying up all the VC medals. very creepy.

Ah …..the brown shirt solution to everything…more tax cuts for the rich elites. The flat tax is a meaningless joke. What rate are you going to set the flat tax at, 20%? 39%? 80%? 99% ? They will never tells us because if they set it at 20% they will have to explain where all the cuts are going to come from. And if they set it at 80% then the rich won’t want the flat rate .

Over the last 30 years the rich have seen their taxes come down substantially and the price of their assets go up. And yet, are they happy with this?, no, they just want to pay even less tax. These people will never be satisfied. What is required is for people who get caught not paying their taxes is for them to get tougher sentence s. I propose 10- 15 years in prison. And not open prison, which is where the white collar criminals are put. After all, the Right is always telling us that prison works and acts as a deterrent.

As for Tax havens, the answer is that if people want to live in these places then that is where they should go and stay. Not like John Ashcroft who lived in a tax haven for years, and then suddenly wants to come back to Britain and bankroll the Tory party. Or Philip Green, who lives in a tax haven yet seems to be hear most of the time running his retail chains. If you don’t want to pay British tax then fine, fuck off , sell up your houses and your assets and take your families with you. And don’t come back until you will pay tax.

(Personally speaking, a lot of the fuss kicked up about tax avoidance boils down to people forgetting that social constructs (such as profit) are well, socially constructed, and very often, there is no ‘right’ amount of tax to pay – there may well be what the tax authorities think should be paid (i.e. lots) and what the tax payer wants to pay (i.e. little), but in contentious cases, there’s very often no right answer. It’s yer competing nexuses of power in action, basically.)

Preachy Peach has demolished Scepticisle’s rant against Barclays in a few sentences. Does anyone have a response?

Which it’s trying to stop the government from forcing it to insure, surely?

“Richard Murphy is another man who [understands complex accounting issues]“

Based on the dealings I’ve had with him, I’m sceptical at best of this claim.

Septicisle @ 14 is absolutely right about the irrelevance to this article of GMG’s activities, though – are we suggesting that Observer journalists in the 1980s had no right to investigate ropey arms-dealers and sanctions-busters?

As for the Graun’s hypocrisy – much of that is to do with the running of the GMG, which seems to be increasingly far removed from the paper itself, hence the letters the past few days protesting at GMG’s cuts on other papers. Unlike the other papers the Graun does also at least admit that its partnership with Apax involves avoiding tax – you’ll never see the Mail informing its readers’ about Rothermere’s non-dom status or the Times etc commenting on Murdoch’s consistent and persistent tax avoidance.

On a practical point of fact, um, yes, they can. Generally very easily. As an example, I have two companies, one in the UK, one in Jersey. The Jersey co lends lots of money at a high rate to the UK company. Goodbye UK profits, hello non-taxable profits in Jersey!