A Taxing debate

[dwayne110]

The irony of Arbboy slating benefit scroungers, whilst informing us he's paid income tax in 9 of the last 18 years, is not lost on me. He's calculated he's in the red on taxes paid too, shock horror.

I've been paying income tax the full 18 years, so I guess I must be fucked.

[arbboy]

The irony of Arbboy slating benefit scroungers, whilst informing us he's paid income tax in 9 of the last 18 years, is not lost on me. He's calculated he's in the red on taxes paid too, shock horror.

I've been paying income tax the full 18 years, so I guess I must be fucked.

what's your point?

[SuuPRlim]

Surely taxing any system that allows play across borders that include the ability to offset losses are easily worked around. You'd just dump all your profits to your mate in Amsterdam and take a long weekend picking up your cash every month

It's interesting quite a few people had adopted the, if the law moves against you move against the law approach.

Do you think most poker pros would rather resort to borderline criminality than simply pay tax?

yes.

Have you no social responsibility?

Why shouldn't you pay tax?

Everyone else does.

If you're in employment (work for someone else) then you pay x% tax and nothing you can really do (not strictly true but generally) as a self employed person businessman (which is what a poker player is for the benefits of this discussion) you have some options to legally reduce the amount of tax you're paying - there is nothing socially immoral about this as you're still contributing to society you're just managing your money smarter within the boundaries of the law.

The price you pay for this is that you sacrifice a great deal of the security you have in a conventional paid employment.

On a £100,000 p/a job you would pay (this is a bit of a guess) ~£30,000 in taxes a business owner with a £100,000 net profit and a good accountant could prolly cut that by 1/2 or 2/3 but obviously that isn't £85,000 clean into his bank account.

[Woodsey]

The irony of Arbboy slating benefit scroungers, whilst informing us he's paid income tax in 9 of the last 18 years, is not lost on me. He's calculated he's in the red on taxes paid too, shock horror.

I've been paying income tax the full 18 years, so I guess I must be fucked.

Meh this is why I like to moan about it. I probably do £20-30k on tax every year, so you bet your arse I'm gonna bitch about where it gets spent, especially when I think about where I think it's being wasted. Other than the general expenditure on police etc I don't get any back apart from the odd GP appointment every few years.

The more I travel the more I see people that have a hunger and desire to work and earn money so they can eat and take care of the basics. That is a virtue that is sadly lacking with a proportion of our society today, and they need a HUGE boot up the arse to take responsibility of themselves imo and I'm sick of PC tossers making excuses for them. 

Anyway, there's my after 1 bottle of wine rant for the day 

[Doobs]

Obv nothing to do with income tax, but poker players stil paying for local services via their council tax payments

only income tax matters on this thread!  Other taxes don't count.  It's a lefties thread.  If you earn £60k a year on benefits though u get this paid for you (thanks to Blair and Brown's kindness for 13 years towards those who love the play the system for the max - you might even get to live in Mayfair or Westminster on the state as well even though no one in the real world can afford such luxuries) for free via other tax payers (professional gamblers do pay council tax alongside every other tax apart from income tax) and don't have to pay income tax on your income (benefits) before you pay it out of your net income.

isn't the benefit cap 25k per year? Where do you get 60k from?  

It has been £25k since 2010.  Before that anything goes.  Hence why the country is skint!  This is a grossed up figure as well just for clarity of what people would have to earn in a real job to 'take home' the benefits they do to pay for the services/rent they do.  Even at a cap of £25k a year the real cap is in excess of £35k in real gross wages earned in order for them to receive £25k net.

The country is skint because of the lack of a benefit cap prior to 2010?  Have you any idea how much that cost at all, or what proportion of state spending that was?  Rhetorical question obviously.

It's not so much how much it costs, more the message it sends to people who don't want to live that life because it's wrong and how demotivated they become because of it.

So it isn't why the country is skint them?  Next you'll be blaming the banks.  Guess that is an easier message to sell than blaming the pensioners or the doctors.  

This whole argument about who is a net contributor is wrong too.  

You start off with somebody else paying for your education.

Then when you are in your productive years, you might pay more than your share.  Though even then there are probably some rich folk doing most of the subsidising.   

Then you get to the bit at the end where you take your pension and other benefits; finally you have to hope you don't suffer a long term illness that will cost the NHS a fortune.  There isn't any way you can know if you paid more than your share until you die.

[scotty77]

Contender for thread of the year now.

Absolutely incredible that people still assume that cos they don't use front line services that they don't receive anything back.  Taxes end up going on so many things that allow day to day life to function.

[horseplayer]

Must not post in thread

[DaveShoelace]

Must not post in thread

Must resist the urge to create a forum account called 'HMRCman1' and start posting here to wind up Pleno

[Doobs]

Must not post in thread

Must resist the urge to create a forum account called 'HMRCman1' and start posting here to wind up Pleno

Would have been so good. 

[simonnatur]

As a Professional Gambler you are fortunate to benefit from a loophole and pay no income tax. The flip side of this is that a future Government could legislate or tax your livelihood out of existence at any time.
If anyone feels this is unjust they should feel free to write a cheque to HM Treasury with a note asking for it to be set against the National Debt.
There's a handy tax calculator here for anyone who wants to do this: http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/tax-calculator/

[pleno1]

It doesn't wind me up I haven't been living in the uk for 7 years

[SuuPRlim]

I really don't understand why anyone would feel and sense of social responsibility towards paying income tax. I think everyone is well in their rights to try pay as little as possible.

NI is a different matter, not that it goes to the right places ofc.

Sounds harsh but people should be encouraged to act legally in their best interests and not for the sake of social responsibility, IMO.

[Woodsey]

I really don't understand why anyone would feel and sense of social responsibility towards paying income tax. I think everyone is well in their rights to try pay as little as possible.

NI is a different matter, not that it goes to the right places ofc.

Sounds harsh but people should be encouraged to act legally in their best interests and not for the sake of social responsibility, IMO.

You must be a raving Tory, shame on you 

[SuuPRlim]

I really don't understand why anyone would feel and sense of social responsibility towards paying income tax. I think everyone is well in their rights to try pay as little as possible.

NI is a different matter, not that it goes to the right places ofc.

Sounds harsh but people should be encouraged to act legally in their best interests and not for the sake of social responsibility, IMO.

You must be a raving Tory, shame on you 

Shame indeed!!

If you want a man to do something then the benefits of doing it should way vastly outweigh those of not doing it.

Socialism is a great idea in principle, just really doesn't work and that's historically proven.

I think there should be a tax cap. So after a certain £ amount it reduces from 40% back down to ~15%, I reckon they might actually collect more tax that way.

[Woodsey]

I really don't understand why anyone would feel and sense of social responsibility towards paying income tax. I think everyone is well in their rights to try pay as little as possible.

NI is a different matter, not that it goes to the right places ofc.

Sounds harsh but people should be encouraged to act legally in their best interests and not for the sake of social responsibility, IMO.

You must be a raving Tory, shame on you 

Shame indeed!!

If you want a man to do something then the benefits of doing it should way vastly outweigh those of not doing it.

Socialism is a great idea in principle, just really doesn't work and that's historically proven.

I think there should be a tax cap. So after a certain £ amount it reduces from 40% back down to ~15%, I reckon they might actually collect more tax that way.

Oh dear now you've done it lol