When, precisely, did you make this pension contribution, and have you heard of the pension anti-forestalling rules?

So the past few days on LC we’ve had arguments against multiculturalism; arguments in favour of ID cards; and now we have the crowing of a tax-avoider telling us plebs that it’s all very easy, dontchaknow.

When Sunny’s away the mice do play!

I’m not really that interested in the specifics and rules that have meant you haven’t had to pay your way.

Just because something’s legal doesn’t mean it’s right.

Goodness you people are thick.

Dillow’s making the point that it is too easy!

can I urge people to read beyond the first paragraph and put brain in gear before commenting?

#4

I realise that… My point stands.

cjcjcj he’s not even making that point …. “too easy” implies it ought to be harder, but doing things that save taxes, when those things are deliberately tax-saving, with good reason, is not something that ought to be made harder, or frowned upon etc.

I put my meager savings into an ISA, which is tax free, and when I’m able to, I also plan to contribute to a pension. Does this mean I will not be “paying my way”?

It’s like that halfwit Murphy who seems to think that when the government introduces R&D tax credits to encourage R&D, that companies who do R&D and then claim the tax credits are avoiding tax.

Well done – does that mean the Milky Bars are on you Chris? (Although trebles all round would be more appropriate these days).

“… to show that the state is not necessarily a force for equality. Many quite wealthy people have been net beneficiaries of policy measures.”

Fuck, really?
Who’d a thunk it…

There was me thinking that the drop in CGT to 18% was specifically designed to benefit the working class…

Tax strategy is social engineering. It is clear that the major beneficiaries of the last 13 years of government (and before that, obv.) are wealthy, not poor. ‘Grats, Chris – well done. You made it out of the ghetto after all.

(‘Oxford’s a complete dump!’)

I think the point may have been missed a little. I saw this more as a confession, and an attack on those that say that the tax system is exploitative or non-productive.
What this article screamed to me was not ‘we can all take the piss’ but ‘if taking the piss is this easy, why are the high paid complaining?’

“I saw this more as a confession, and an attack on those that say that the tax system is exploitative or non-productive.
What this article screamed to me was not ‘we can all take the piss’ but ‘if taking the piss is this easy, why are the high paid complaining?’”

Yes, exactly.

Still, the plan is working – Sunny will return to a hero’s welcome and much relief

9
Quite, socialists have been making this point for years, but many on this site still won’t believe that the state serves the interests of the economic elite not the poor.

for crying out loud, why is doing things in exactly the way you are supposed to do things “taking the piss”? Pension contributions are supposed to attract tax relief, why is contributing to your pension and obtaining tax relief “taking the piss”?

Imagine that you a left-wing government and you think, in according with my left wing objectives, I wish to design a tax system to encourage certain things and penalise others. You then observe people being encouraged and penalised exactly as you intended, do you then think “oh no my left wing principles tell me these people are “taking the piss” and “not paying their way”?

You may not like the policy of trying to encourage people to save for their retirements, so perhaps your left wing government would not design the tax system accordingly, and you’d end tax relief on pension contributions, but you would presumably design it in some fashion. It’s just boiling insane to react to people using the tax system as intended (in the spirit of the design, not exploiting some convoluted legal nicety) as if its some sort of aberration.

I feel like I’m out on some sort of a limb here, but my feeling is the point of this post is to be found in the bit where it says “I say so for three reasons” and then gives three reasons.

Oh Luis, you and your facts and common sense. [pats head]

@13 – whilst I agree with some of what you’ve said, I do think there are a great many people who “take the piss” on a regular basis.

People who pay the bloated financial services industry quite handsome sums to find loopholes and scams in order to avoid paying tax on ludicrous sums of money.

I don’t think our mate Chris is doing this; however, I do think he comes across as a smug bastard (no offence, like).

To a great many people, it comes as no surprise that the policies of this government – and indeed, the one that preceeded it – have benefitted the wealthy, ultimately at the expense of the poor.

Whilst Chris happily claims (presumably higher rate) tax relief on his pension contributions, the majority of us will be automatically enrolled in the frankly obscene ‘NEST’, which is a catastrophe waiting to happen. The recent announcement that contributions will suffer a 2% charge to pay for start-up costs just makes the whole thing laughable.

Add the ‘Stakeholder’ shambles and Brown’s dividend tax raid to the list and the only real winners are those claiming 40% (50% next year) relief on contributions – the very individuals with the least obvious need.

Any claims by any of the mainstream parties to be genuinely “redistributing wealth” are ridiculous.

Bloody taxes.

@13
Yes, it is good for the government to encourage saving for ones own retirement and the tax system is set up to promote that and other things. Where the ‘taking the piss’ lies it that there are many people who are lower paid or weren’t lucky (or old) enough to get onto the housing market at the right time. These imbalances favour the rich, that is the point of this post.
It’s not necessarily any individual actor that takes the piss. But the system itself. For me tax should be redistributive from those that have to those that need. This highlights how it’s more a system of passing from those that don’t have very much, to those that have even less.