The UK Treasury Department are getting intio atizz about firms with
UK operations like Google, Facebook and Apple (among many more) which
have been able to evade large tranches of corporation taxes (though
the firms pay National Insurance and personal income taxes). We (the
tax-paying public) are supposed to infer that the directors of these
businesses suffer from a moral lapse.
The UK Treasury Department could stop such tax evasion quite easily
by writing clear law in the first place. One reason is that it needs
to establish some 'escape routes' for those firms the government
actually want to favour (usually including defence
companies. Another reason is that all Treasury Departments are
competing with others in other countries and can't afford to make
their taxation schedules too easy to understand because they'll be
directly undermined by others. Yet another reason is that,
increasingly in recent years, senior Treasury personnel have been
retiring early and thus taking their knowledge of the current
hyper-complex taxation system and its escape routes with them. Many
of these personnel then become consultants to many of the largest
companies which have continuing issues with their Treasury Departments.
Will the present type of taxation system ever end? No. It's too
convenient to Treasury Departments and, more recently, their most
senior personnel who will no doubt retire at the first opportunity.
As long as countries tax incomes of individuals and businesses and
not expenditures then taxation will become increasingly complex and
thus evadable so long as there are experts on tap.
Keith
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