Zahawi claims his tax error was "careless and not deliberate". Why is it that careless mistakes always seem to result in wealthy taxpayers paying less tax than they should? Surely carelessness would sometimes result in overpaying tax - but for some reason that never seems to happen.
That wouldn't be much of a defence for Hailey Bailey, a single mum from Raileigh, who carelessly and not deliberately continued collecting unemployment benefits whilst cleaning someone's home for twenty in cash one morning a week.
Go to jail and do not pass "Go".
Its a fair point but in the hypothetical case more likely would be a requirement to repay the benefits that she was not entitled too, possibly with a fine.
At the heart of this is tax being far too complicated. Tax minimisation vs avoidance vs evasion. Schemes set up to boost certain parts of the economy (such as film making) getting used to help celebs reduce their tax (see Jimmy Carr). Make tax simpler. Get rid of tiers - flat tax all the way. You still pay more tax if you earn more. Thats progressive enough for me.
It does not seem relevant to this case. Not a question of tiers but of who owned which company shares.
"The obvious question is: why does the founder of a company hold less than 1% of the shares in his company, but his parents hold 19% (and originally 42.5%)? The obvious inference is that they were holding the shares on his behalf, to avoid the tax that would have been paid had he held directly."
The only relevant question is, was this a legal arrangement.
If not, then the Minister is in trouble. Otherwise, it’s up to politicians to close tax loopholes.
Jimmy Carr is right, it would be better if tax was simpler and loopholes abolished - but every single politician, when given the opportunity to actually do something about it, chooses to leave exemptions and loopholes open for favoured groups.
Zahawi claims his tax error was "careless and not deliberate". Why is it that careless mistakes always seem to result in wealthy taxpayers paying less tax than they should? Surely carelessness would sometimes result in overpaying tax - but for some reason that never seems to happen.
That wouldn't be much of a defence for Hailey Bailey, a single mum from Raileigh, who carelessly and not deliberately continued collecting unemployment benefits whilst cleaning someone's home for twenty in cash one morning a week.
Go to jail and do not pass "Go".
Its a fair point but in the hypothetical case more likely would be a requirement to repay the benefits that she was not entitled too, possibly with a fine.
At the heart of this is tax being far too complicated. Tax minimisation vs avoidance vs evasion. Schemes set up to boost certain parts of the economy (such as film making) getting used to help celebs reduce their tax (see Jimmy Carr). Make tax simpler. Get rid of tiers - flat tax all the way. You still pay more tax if you earn more. Thats progressive enough for me.
It does not seem relevant to this case. Not a question of tiers but of who owned which company shares.
"The obvious question is: why does the founder of a company hold less than 1% of the shares in his company, but his parents hold 19% (and originally 42.5%)? The obvious inference is that they were holding the shares on his behalf, to avoid the tax that would have been paid had he held directly."
The only relevant question is, was this a legal arrangement.
If not, then the Minister is in trouble. Otherwise, it’s up to politicians to close tax loopholes.
Jimmy Carr is right, it would be better if tax was simpler and loopholes abolished - but every single politician, when given the opportunity to actually do something about it, chooses to leave exemptions and loopholes open for favoured groups.
So are you in favour of getting rid of the non dom status at the heart of this particular case?
Friends like these are worth more than a squadron of tanks. We are glad to welcome Boris Johnson to Ukraine. A person who has been with the Ukrainian people since day one. https://twitter.com/DefenceU/status/1617169657886040064
Re: "Daily Star" front page, do PBers think that the Great British Public can be a-peased?
The Daily Mirror has the best front page.
Wait till a few Labour MPs get caught as they surely will .......
And? They should be treated the same. And it will happen, especially when they are in office.
But are you suggesting it is ok, because the other lot will be up to it as well?
PS Rishi should not be in the same category as the other two in terms of wrong doing at all and Boris is almost in a league of his own, only surpassed by Trump in a democracy.
Zahawi claims his tax error was "careless and not deliberate". Why is it that careless mistakes always seem to result in wealthy taxpayers paying less tax than they should? Surely carelessness would sometimes result in overpaying tax - but for some reason that never seems to happen.
That wouldn't be much of a defence for Hailey Bailey, a single mum from Raileigh, who carelessly and not deliberately continued collecting unemployment benefits whilst cleaning someone's home for twenty in cash one morning a week.
Go to jail and do not pass "Go".
Its a fair point but in the hypothetical case more likely would be a requirement to repay the benefits that she was not entitled too, possibly with a fine.
At the heart of this is tax being far too complicated. Tax minimisation vs avoidance vs evasion. Schemes set up to boost certain parts of the economy (such as film making) getting used to help celebs reduce their tax (see Jimmy Carr). Make tax simpler. Get rid of tiers - flat tax all the way. You still pay more tax if you earn more. Thats progressive enough for me.
It does not seem relevant to this case. Not a question of tiers but of who owned which company shares.
"The obvious question is: why does the founder of a company hold less than 1% of the shares in his company, but his parents hold 19% (and originally 42.5%)? The obvious inference is that they were holding the shares on his behalf, to avoid the tax that would have been paid had he held directly."
The only relevant question is, was this a legal arrangement.
If not, then the Minister is in trouble. Otherwise, it’s up to politicians to close tax loopholes.
Jimmy Carr is right, it would be better if tax was simpler and loopholes abolished - but every single politician, when given the opportunity to actually do something about it, chooses to leave exemptions and loopholes open for favoured groups.
So are you in favour of getting rid of the non dom status at the heart of this particular case?
And I think we can tell from the settlement, the involvement of the NCA and the admission of a careless error that the tax returns as submitted were not legally correct. Yet the minister is not in trouble as the PM is either frit or a moral vacuum, or both.
Friends like these are worth more than a squadron of tanks. We are glad to welcome Boris Johnson to Ukraine. A person who has been with the Ukrainian people since day one. https://twitter.com/DefenceU/status/1617169657886040064
Zahawi claims his tax error was "careless and not deliberate". Why is it that careless mistakes always seem to result in wealthy taxpayers paying less tax than they should? Surely carelessness would sometimes result in overpaying tax - but for some reason that never seems to happen.
Did he carelessly instruct his lawyers to threaten journalists with libel actions? These things happen, one minute your having breakfast, then your fingers accidentally slip on the keyboard and instruct your lawyer to financially ruin someone for exposing your earlier accidental "error".
A sacking is too soft an outcome really - should have been prosecuted. Anyone carelessly claiming benefit erroneously would have been.
No they wouldn't. It depends on the amount.
Are you claiming Zahawi's "error" is too small to go after or just using some loose wording to move the argument further off the point?
Friends like these are worth more than a squadron of tanks. We are glad to welcome Boris Johnson to Ukraine. A person who has been with the Ukrainian people since day one. https://twitter.com/DefenceU/status/1617169657886040064
Well, if they really fell like that, let's give them Johnson instead of the tanks!
My guess at Rishi's problem is that he has seen Big Dog get through worse by utter shamelessness and wants to do the same, perhaps needs to do the same.
But he can't quite do it, because ultimately he is a better person than BoJo.
Zahawi claims his tax error was "careless and not deliberate". Why is it that careless mistakes always seem to result in wealthy taxpayers paying less tax than they should? Surely carelessness would sometimes result in overpaying tax - but for some reason that never seems to happen.
That wouldn't be much of a defence for Hailey Bailey, a single mum from Raileigh, who carelessly and not deliberately continued collecting unemployment benefits whilst cleaning someone's home for twenty in cash one morning a week.
Go to jail and do not pass "Go".
Its a fair point but in the hypothetical case more likely would be a requirement to repay the benefits that she was not entitled too, possibly with a fine.
At the heart of this is tax being far too complicated. Tax minimisation vs avoidance vs evasion. Schemes set up to boost certain parts of the economy (such as film making) getting used to help celebs reduce their tax (see Jimmy Carr). Make tax simpler. Get rid of tiers - flat tax all the way. You still pay more tax if you earn more. Thats progressive enough for me.
It does not seem relevant to this case. Not a question of tiers but of who owned which company shares.
"The obvious question is: why does the founder of a company hold less than 1% of the shares in his company, but his parents hold 19% (and originally 42.5%)? The obvious inference is that they were holding the shares on his behalf, to avoid the tax that would have been paid had he held directly."
Friends like these are worth more than a squadron of tanks. We are glad to welcome Boris Johnson to Ukraine. A person who has been with the Ukrainian people since day one. https://twitter.com/DefenceU/status/1617169657886040064
My guess at Rishi's problem is that he has seen Big Dog get through worse by utter shamelessness and wants to do the same, perhaps needs to do the same.
But he can't quite do it, because ultimately he is a better person than BoJo.
Ditto Truss.
We have a collection of poundshop clowns, who can't even clown properly.
My guess at Rishi's problem is that he has seen Big Dog get through worse by utter shamelessness and wants to do the same, perhaps needs to do the same.
But he can't quite do it, because ultimately he is a better person than BoJo.
Rishi has also seen Boris removed from office owing to a ham-fisted attempt to save Owen Paterson.
If not, then the Minister is in trouble. Otherwise, it’s up to politicians to close tax loopholes.
Jimmy Carr is right, it would be better if tax was simpler and loopholes abolished - but every single politician, when given the opportunity to actually do something about it, chooses to leave exemptions and loopholes open for favoured groups.
I don't know how true it is but it used to be claimed that the UK has the most complicated tax system. Every allowance or exemption is another opportunity for evasion and avoidance, because in almost all cases you end up with arguments about where a line is drawn, or what does or does not count. An overhaul of taxation is long overdue, but we'll never do it because everytime somebody loses out due to a reform there is screeching from the wings about it being unfair, and so we usually add yet more complications.
Zahawi claims his tax error was "careless and not deliberate". Why is it that careless mistakes always seem to result in wealthy taxpayers paying less tax than they should? Surely carelessness would sometimes result in overpaying tax - but for some reason that never seems to happen.
That wouldn't be much of a defence for Hailey Bailey, a single mum from Raileigh, who carelessly and not deliberately continued collecting unemployment benefits whilst cleaning someone's home for twenty in cash one morning a week.
Go to jail and do not pass "Go".
Its a fair point but in the hypothetical case more likely would be a requirement to repay the benefits that she was not entitled too, possibly with a fine.
At the heart of this is tax being far too complicated. Tax minimisation vs avoidance vs evasion. Schemes set up to boost certain parts of the economy (such as film making) getting used to help celebs reduce their tax (see Jimmy Carr). Make tax simpler. Get rid of tiers - flat tax all the way. You still pay more tax if you earn more. Thats progressive enough for me.
It does not seem relevant to this case. Not a question of tiers but of who owned which company shares.
"The obvious question is: why does the founder of a company hold less than 1% of the shares in his company, but his parents hold 19% (and originally 42.5%)? The obvious inference is that they were holding the shares on his behalf, to avoid the tax that would have been paid had he held directly."
In and of itself, that would not be unlawful.
Of course. But if Zahawi is now accepting paying CGT on the gains of selling shares owned nominally by his parents trust, it surely suggests that Zahawi beneficial interest was more than 1%? He says this was careless. Someone more cynical would assume it a deliberate use of his parents non dom status to hide the gain in Gibraltar.
Not really sure why he is being defended when he has accepted a fine and settlement with HMRC.
What a loaded question, with no background, from a respected polling organisation.
How many of the people polled actually understand the issue? More likely, the fact that a particular minister has been in the news this week, is the only thing to which people are responding.
If a polling company asked 1,000 people if James Hacker should be sacked as a government minister, most people would likely answer in the affirmative.
What a loaded question, with no background, from a respected polling organisation.
How many of the people polled actually understand the issue? More likely, the fact that a particular minister has been in the news this week, is the only thing to which people are responding.
If a polling company asked 1,000 people if James Hacker should be sacked as a government minister, most people would likely answer in the affirmative.
If not, then the Minister is in trouble. Otherwise, it’s up to politicians to close tax loopholes.
Jimmy Carr is right, it would be better if tax was simpler and loopholes abolished - but every single politician, when given the opportunity to actually do something about it, chooses to leave exemptions and loopholes open for favoured groups.
I don't know how true it is but it used to be claimed that the UK has the most complicated tax system. Every allowance or exemption is another opportunity for evasion and avoidance, because in almost all cases you end up with arguments about where a line is drawn, or what does or does not count. An overhaul of taxation is long overdue, but we'll never do it because everytime somebody loses out due to a reform there is screeching from the wings about it being unfair, and so we usually add yet more complications.
Zahawi claims his tax error was "careless and not deliberate". Why is it that careless mistakes always seem to result in wealthy taxpayers paying less tax than they should? Surely carelessness would sometimes result in overpaying tax - but for some reason that never seems to happen.
That wouldn't be much of a defence for Hailey Bailey, a single mum from Raileigh, who carelessly and not deliberately continued collecting unemployment benefits whilst cleaning someone's home for twenty in cash one morning a week.
Go to jail and do not pass "Go".
Its a fair point but in the hypothetical case more likely would be a requirement to repay the benefits that she was not entitled too, possibly with a fine.
At the heart of this is tax being far too complicated. Tax minimisation vs avoidance vs evasion. Schemes set up to boost certain parts of the economy (such as film making) getting used to help celebs reduce their tax (see Jimmy Carr). Make tax simpler. Get rid of tiers - flat tax all the way. You still pay more tax if you earn more. Thats progressive enough for me.
It does not seem relevant to this case. Not a question of tiers but of who owned which company shares.
"The obvious question is: why does the founder of a company hold less than 1% of the shares in his company, but his parents hold 19% (and originally 42.5%)? The obvious inference is that they were holding the shares on his behalf, to avoid the tax that would have been paid had he held directly."
In and of itself, that would not be unlawful.
Of course. But if Zahawi is now accepting paying CGT on the gains of selling shares owned nominally by his parents trust, it surely suggests that Zahawi beneficial interest was more than 1%? He says this was careless. Someone more cynical would assume it a deliberate use of his parents non dom status to hide the gain in Gibraltar.
Not really sure why he is being defended when he has accepted a fine and settlement with HMRC.
Tax is often a grey area. I've sometimes had arguments with HMRC over how much Inheritance Tax is due from an estate.
Mr. Sandpit, I wonder how small scale crypto investors/traders are feeling.
One of my clients offered to pay me in Bitcoin (no pressure, just an extra option) but I decided to stick with USD.
Crypto also causes problems filling in your tax return.....each transaction between different types of coin, or into fiat currencies counts as a CGT chargeable transaction. Even if not profitable you have to report if over £50k of such transactions in a year, which could include an amateur trader hobbyist trading regularly in the low hundreds and making a loss.
Zahawi claims his tax error was "careless and not deliberate". Why is it that careless mistakes always seem to result in wealthy taxpayers paying less tax than they should? Surely carelessness would sometimes result in overpaying tax - but for some reason that never seems to happen.
That wouldn't be much of a defence for Hailey Bailey, a single mum from Raileigh, who carelessly and not deliberately continued collecting unemployment benefits whilst cleaning someone's home for twenty in cash one morning a week.
Go to jail and do not pass "Go".
Its a fair point but in the hypothetical case more likely would be a requirement to repay the benefits that she was not entitled too, possibly with a fine.
At the heart of this is tax being far too complicated. Tax minimisation vs avoidance vs evasion. Schemes set up to boost certain parts of the economy (such as film making) getting used to help celebs reduce their tax (see Jimmy Carr). Make tax simpler. Get rid of tiers - flat tax all the way. You still pay more tax if you earn more. Thats progressive enough for me.
It does not seem relevant to this case. Not a question of tiers but of who owned which company shares.
"The obvious question is: why does the founder of a company hold less than 1% of the shares in his company, but his parents hold 19% (and originally 42.5%)? The obvious inference is that they were holding the shares on his behalf, to avoid the tax that would have been paid had he held directly."
In and of itself, that would not be unlawful.
Of course. But if Zahawi is now accepting paying CGT on the gains of selling shares owned nominally by his parents trust, it surely suggests that Zahawi beneficial interest was more than 1%? He says this was careless. Someone more cynical would assume it a deliberate use of his parents non dom status to hide the gain in Gibraltar.
Not really sure why he is being defended when he has accepted a fine and settlement with HMRC.
Tax is often a grey area. I've sometimes had arguments with HMRC over how much Inheritance Tax is due from an estate.
So you think it appropriate for a Chancellor to behave in this way? Or just sticking up randomly for a blue rosette?
Zahawi claims his tax error was "careless and not deliberate". Why is it that careless mistakes always seem to result in wealthy taxpayers paying less tax than they should? Surely carelessness would sometimes result in overpaying tax - but for some reason that never seems to happen.
Did he carelessly instruct his lawyers to threaten journalists with libel actions? These things happen, one minute your having breakfast, then your fingers accidentally slip on the keyboard and instruct your lawyer to financially ruin someone for exposing your earlier accidental "error".
A sacking is too soft an outcome really - should have been prosecuted. Anyone carelessly claiming benefit erroneously would have been.
No they wouldn't. It depends on the amount.
Are you claiming Zahawi's "error" is too small to go after or just using some loose wording to move the argument further off the point?
No I was arguing about the liklihood of Mrs Mopp going to jail for fiddling a few hundred quid...
Zahawi claims his tax error was "careless and not deliberate". Why is it that careless mistakes always seem to result in wealthy taxpayers paying less tax than they should? Surely carelessness would sometimes result in overpaying tax - but for some reason that never seems to happen.
That wouldn't be much of a defence for Hailey Bailey, a single mum from Raileigh, who carelessly and not deliberately continued collecting unemployment benefits whilst cleaning someone's home for twenty in cash one morning a week.
Go to jail and do not pass "Go".
Its a fair point but in the hypothetical case more likely would be a requirement to repay the benefits that she was not entitled too, possibly with a fine.
At the heart of this is tax being far too complicated. Tax minimisation vs avoidance vs evasion. Schemes set up to boost certain parts of the economy (such as film making) getting used to help celebs reduce their tax (see Jimmy Carr). Make tax simpler. Get rid of tiers - flat tax all the way. You still pay more tax if you earn more. Thats progressive enough for me.
It does not seem relevant to this case. Not a question of tiers but of who owned which company shares.
"The obvious question is: why does the founder of a company hold less than 1% of the shares in his company, but his parents hold 19% (and originally 42.5%)? The obvious inference is that they were holding the shares on his behalf, to avoid the tax that would have been paid had he held directly."
In and of itself, that would not be unlawful.
Of course. But if Zahawi is now accepting paying CGT on the gains of selling shares owned nominally by his parents trust, it surely suggests that Zahawi beneficial interest was more than 1%? He says this was careless. Someone more cynical would assume it a deliberate use of his parents non dom status to hide the gain in Gibraltar.
Not really sure why he is being defended when he has accepted a fine and settlement with HMRC.
Tax is often a grey area. I've sometimes had arguments with HMRC over how much Inheritance Tax is due from an estate.
Compared to German and Spanish inheritance tax laws, the UK system as a model of simplicity. Here, the executor just pays a straightforward tax on the value of the estate above the IHT threshold. In the aforementioned countries, inheritance tax is paid by the beneficiaries with rates and thresholds that vary in accordance with the size of the estate and the degree to which the beneficiary is related to the person who left the estate, as I discovered recently!
Re: "Daily Star" front page, do PBers think that the Great British Public can be a-peased?
The Daily Mirror has the best front page.
Wait till a few Labour MPs get caught as they surely will .......
And? They should be treated the same. And it will happen, especially when they are in office.
But are you suggesting it is ok, because the other lot will be up to it as well?
PS Rishi should not be in the same category as the other two in terms of wrong doing at all and Boris is almost in a league of his own, only surpassed by Trump in a democracy.
No why do do.many have the propensity to misread what I write. I am just saying the worm will turn when Labour are in power and the focus is on their indiscretions of which there will inevitably be many.
If not, then the Minister is in trouble. Otherwise, it’s up to politicians to close tax loopholes.
Jimmy Carr is right, it would be better if tax was simpler and loopholes abolished - but every single politician, when given the opportunity to actually do something about it, chooses to leave exemptions and loopholes open for favoured groups.
I don't know how true it is but it used to be claimed that the UK has the most complicated tax system. Every allowance or exemption is another opportunity for evasion and avoidance, because in almost all cases you end up with arguments about where a line is drawn, or what does or does not count. An overhaul of taxation is long overdue, but we'll never do it because everytime somebody loses out due to a reform there is screeching from the wings about it being unfair, and so we usually add yet more complications.
The U.K. tax system is complex.
It has nothing on the American system, which is the demented love child of special interests.
Back when the Republican Party was semi-sane, they proposed flattening the tax system. Bill Clinton, in a rare misstep, said this would throw zillions of tax lawyers out of work. Which it would.
Zahawi claims his tax error was "careless and not deliberate". Why is it that careless mistakes always seem to result in wealthy taxpayers paying less tax than they should? Surely carelessness would sometimes result in overpaying tax - but for some reason that never seems to happen.
That wouldn't be much of a defence for Hailey Bailey, a single mum from Raileigh, who carelessly and not deliberately continued collecting unemployment benefits whilst cleaning someone's home for twenty in cash one morning a week.
Go to jail and do not pass "Go".
Its a fair point but in the hypothetical case more likely would be a requirement to repay the benefits that she was not entitled too, possibly with a fine.
At the heart of this is tax being far too complicated. Tax minimisation vs avoidance vs evasion. Schemes set up to boost certain parts of the economy (such as film making) getting used to help celebs reduce their tax (see Jimmy Carr). Make tax simpler. Get rid of tiers - flat tax all the way. You still pay more tax if you earn more. Thats progressive enough for me.
It does not seem relevant to this case. Not a question of tiers but of who owned which company shares.
"The obvious question is: why does the founder of a company hold less than 1% of the shares in his company, but his parents hold 19% (and originally 42.5%)? The obvious inference is that they were holding the shares on his behalf, to avoid the tax that would have been paid had he held directly."
In and of itself, that would not be unlawful.
Of course. But if Zahawi is now accepting paying CGT on the gains of selling shares owned nominally by his parents trust, it surely suggests that Zahawi beneficial interest was more than 1%? He says this was careless. Someone more cynical would assume it a deliberate use of his parents non dom status to hide the gain in Gibraltar.
Not really sure why he is being defended when he has accepted a fine and settlement with HMRC.
Tax is often a grey area. I've sometimes had arguments with HMRC over how much Inheritance Tax is due from an estate.
So you think it appropriate for a Chancellor to behave in this way? Or just sticking up randomly for a blue rosette?
The answer is, I don't know whether it was appropriate or not. That said, I expect he'll have to go, because he's now become the story.
Mr. Sandpit, I wonder how small scale crypto investors/traders are feeling.
One of my clients offered to pay me in Bitcoin (no pressure, just an extra option) but I decided to stick with USD.
Crypto also causes problems filling in your tax return.....each transaction between different types of coin, or into fiat currencies counts as a CGT chargeable transaction. Even if not profitable you have to report if over £50k of such transactions in a year, which could include an amateur trader hobbyist trading regularly in the low hundreds and making a loss.
I’ve always enjoyed the bit when the Crypto Bros discover that CGT applies to them.
Zahawi claims his tax error was "careless and not deliberate". Why is it that careless mistakes always seem to result in wealthy taxpayers paying less tax than they should? Surely carelessness would sometimes result in overpaying tax - but for some reason that never seems to happen.
That wouldn't be much of a defence for Hailey Bailey, a single mum from Raileigh, who carelessly and not deliberately continued collecting unemployment benefits whilst cleaning someone's home for twenty in cash one morning a week.
Go to jail and do not pass "Go".
Its a fair point but in the hypothetical case more likely would be a requirement to repay the benefits that she was not entitled too, possibly with a fine.
At the heart of this is tax being far too complicated. Tax minimisation vs avoidance vs evasion. Schemes set up to boost certain parts of the economy (such as film making) getting used to help celebs reduce their tax (see Jimmy Carr). Make tax simpler. Get rid of tiers - flat tax all the way. You still pay more tax if you earn more. Thats progressive enough for me.
It does not seem relevant to this case. Not a question of tiers but of who owned which company shares.
"The obvious question is: why does the founder of a company hold less than 1% of the shares in his company, but his parents hold 19% (and originally 42.5%)? The obvious inference is that they were holding the shares on his behalf, to avoid the tax that would have been paid had he held directly."
In and of itself, that would not be unlawful.
Of course. But if Zahawi is now accepting paying CGT on the gains of selling shares owned nominally by his parents trust, it surely suggests that Zahawi beneficial interest was more than 1%? He says this was careless. Someone more cynical would assume it a deliberate use of his parents non dom status to hide the gain in Gibraltar.
Not really sure why he is being defended when he has accepted a fine and settlement with HMRC.
Tax is often a grey area. I've sometimes had arguments with HMRC over how much Inheritance Tax is due from an estate.
Compared to German and Spanish inheritance tax laws, the UK system as a model of simplicity. Here, the executor just pays a straightforward tax on the value of the estate above the IHT threshold. In the aforementioned countries, inheritance tax is paid by the beneficiaries with rates and thresholds that vary in accordance with the size of the estate and the degree to which the beneficiary is related to the person who left the estate, as I discovered recently!
IHT *ought* to be a simple tax, but as with all taxes, it is now riddled with complexities.
From the perspective of Bangkok, British politics seems to be going through a period of unutterable tedium and triviality, dominated by relatively minor scandals and obviously mediocre individuals
In the context - recent history - that is probably a good thing. Boris was the last of the fun stuff
Zahawi claims his tax error was "careless and not deliberate". Why is it that careless mistakes always seem to result in wealthy taxpayers paying less tax than they should? Surely carelessness would sometimes result in overpaying tax - but for some reason that never seems to happen.
That wouldn't be much of a defence for Hailey Bailey, a single mum from Raileigh, who carelessly and not deliberately continued collecting unemployment benefits whilst cleaning someone's home for twenty in cash one morning a week.
Go to jail and do not pass "Go".
Its a fair point but in the hypothetical case more likely would be a requirement to repay the benefits that she was not entitled too, possibly with a fine.
At the heart of this is tax being far too complicated. Tax minimisation vs avoidance vs evasion. Schemes set up to boost certain parts of the economy (such as film making) getting used to help celebs reduce their tax (see Jimmy Carr). Make tax simpler. Get rid of tiers - flat tax all the way. You still pay more tax if you earn more. Thats progressive enough for me.
It does not seem relevant to this case. Not a question of tiers but of who owned which company shares.
"The obvious question is: why does the founder of a company hold less than 1% of the shares in his company, but his parents hold 19% (and originally 42.5%)? The obvious inference is that they were holding the shares on his behalf, to avoid the tax that would have been paid had he held directly."
In and of itself, that would not be unlawful.
Of course. But if Zahawi is now accepting paying CGT on the gains of selling shares owned nominally by his parents trust, it surely suggests that Zahawi beneficial interest was more than 1%? He says this was careless. Someone more cynical would assume it a deliberate use of his parents non dom status to hide the gain in Gibraltar.
Not really sure why he is being defended when he has accepted a fine and settlement with HMRC.
Tax is often a grey area. I've sometimes had arguments with HMRC over how much Inheritance Tax is due from an estate.
So you think it appropriate for a Chancellor to behave in this way? Or just sticking up randomly for a blue rosette?
The answer is, I don't know whether it was appropriate or not. That said, I expect he'll have to go, because he's now become the story.
Which is the worst possible reason for someone to lose their job.
If only that it signals to the media and opposition, that if they keep the ‘story’ in the news for long enough, it will get the minister sacked.
Zahawi claims his tax error was "careless and not deliberate". Why is it that careless mistakes always seem to result in wealthy taxpayers paying less tax than they should? Surely carelessness would sometimes result in overpaying tax - but for some reason that never seems to happen.
That wouldn't be much of a defence for Hailey Bailey, a single mum from Raileigh, who carelessly and not deliberately continued collecting unemployment benefits whilst cleaning someone's home for twenty in cash one morning a week.
Go to jail and do not pass "Go".
Its a fair point but in the hypothetical case more likely would be a requirement to repay the benefits that she was not entitled too, possibly with a fine.
At the heart of this is tax being far too complicated. Tax minimisation vs avoidance vs evasion. Schemes set up to boost certain parts of the economy (such as film making) getting used to help celebs reduce their tax (see Jimmy Carr). Make tax simpler. Get rid of tiers - flat tax all the way. You still pay more tax if you earn more. Thats progressive enough for me.
It does not seem relevant to this case. Not a question of tiers but of who owned which company shares.
"The obvious question is: why does the founder of a company hold less than 1% of the shares in his company, but his parents hold 19% (and originally 42.5%)? The obvious inference is that they were holding the shares on his behalf, to avoid the tax that would have been paid had he held directly."
In and of itself, that would not be unlawful.
Of course. But if Zahawi is now accepting paying CGT on the gains of selling shares owned nominally by his parents trust, it surely suggests that Zahawi beneficial interest was more than 1%? He says this was careless. Someone more cynical would assume it a deliberate use of his parents non dom status to hide the gain in Gibraltar.
Not really sure why he is being defended when he has accepted a fine and settlement with HMRC.
Tax is often a grey area. I've sometimes had arguments with HMRC over how much Inheritance Tax is due from an estate.
So you think it appropriate for a Chancellor to behave in this way? Or just sticking up randomly for a blue rosette?
The answer is, I don't know whether it was appropriate or not. That said, I expect he'll have to go, because he's now become the story.
I shall look forward to similar benefit of the doubt being given to Labour ministers for their forthcoming scandals.......
Zahawi claims his tax error was "careless and not deliberate". Why is it that careless mistakes always seem to result in wealthy taxpayers paying less tax than they should? Surely carelessness would sometimes result in overpaying tax - but for some reason that never seems to happen.
That wouldn't be much of a defence for Hailey Bailey, a single mum from Raileigh, who carelessly and not deliberately continued collecting unemployment benefits whilst cleaning someone's home for twenty in cash one morning a week.
Go to jail and do not pass "Go".
Its a fair point but in the hypothetical case more likely would be a requirement to repay the benefits that she was not entitled too, possibly with a fine.
At the heart of this is tax being far too complicated. Tax minimisation vs avoidance vs evasion. Schemes set up to boost certain parts of the economy (such as film making) getting used to help celebs reduce their tax (see Jimmy Carr). Make tax simpler. Get rid of tiers - flat tax all the way. You still pay more tax if you earn more. Thats progressive enough for me.
It does not seem relevant to this case. Not a question of tiers but of who owned which company shares.
"The obvious question is: why does the founder of a company hold less than 1% of the shares in his company, but his parents hold 19% (and originally 42.5%)? The obvious inference is that they were holding the shares on his behalf, to avoid the tax that would have been paid had he held directly."
In and of itself, that would not be unlawful.
It would not be unlawful if it was true but it appears that when the company was sold £27m came directly to Zahawi which rather suggests that the parents were nominees rather than beneficial owners. I presume that is what HMRC challenged and what the deal has been done on. To make a declaration that his parents were the beneficial owners would be unlawful but the suggestion here seems to be that no declaration was made at all, Zahawi simply received the money.
If he failed to declare the receipt of that money in his own returns then he has been a naughty boy and that, in my view, goes somewhat beyond "careless".
Re: "Daily Star" front page, do PBers think that the Great British Public can be a-peased?
The Daily Mirror has the best front page.
Wait till a few Labour MPs get caught as they surely will .......
And? They should be treated the same. And it will happen, especially when they are in office.
But are you suggesting it is ok, because the other lot will be up to it as well?
PS Rishi should not be in the same category as the other two in terms of wrong doing at all and Boris is almost in a league of his own, only surpassed by Trump in a democracy.
No why do do.many have the propensity to misread what I write. I am just saying the worm will turn when Labour are in power and the focus is on their indiscretions of which there will inevitably be many.
And so?
Funny how so many 'misread' your post in exactly the same way. Maybe you should write it differently. It definitely came across as the bank robber justifying his crime because others do it. A justification that always fails in court.
If not, then the Minister is in trouble. Otherwise, it’s up to politicians to close tax loopholes.
Jimmy Carr is right, it would be better if tax was simpler and loopholes abolished - but every single politician, when given the opportunity to actually do something about it, chooses to leave exemptions and loopholes open for favoured groups.
I don't know how true it is but it used to be claimed that the UK has the most complicated tax system. Every allowance or exemption is another opportunity for evasion and avoidance, because in almost all cases you end up with arguments about where a line is drawn, or what does or does not count. An overhaul of taxation is long overdue, but we'll never do it because everytime somebody loses out due to a reform there is screeching from the wings about it being unfair, and so we usually add yet more complications.
Ha, have you seen US tax forms?
Or try Italy, where it suits the culture to have laws that are confusing and contradictory, and often only enforced when it suits someone for other reasons. It is claimed that if Italy actually collected all the taxes in all its financial laws in full, the take would be above 100% of national income.
Zahawi claims his tax error was "careless and not deliberate". Why is it that careless mistakes always seem to result in wealthy taxpayers paying less tax than they should? Surely carelessness would sometimes result in overpaying tax - but for some reason that never seems to happen.
That wouldn't be much of a defence for Hailey Bailey, a single mum from Raileigh, who carelessly and not deliberately continued collecting unemployment benefits whilst cleaning someone's home for twenty in cash one morning a week.
Go to jail and do not pass "Go".
Its a fair point but in the hypothetical case more likely would be a requirement to repay the benefits that she was not entitled too, possibly with a fine.
At the heart of this is tax being far too complicated. Tax minimisation vs avoidance vs evasion. Schemes set up to boost certain parts of the economy (such as film making) getting used to help celebs reduce their tax (see Jimmy Carr). Make tax simpler. Get rid of tiers - flat tax all the way. You still pay more tax if you earn more. Thats progressive enough for me.
It does not seem relevant to this case. Not a question of tiers but of who owned which company shares.
"The obvious question is: why does the founder of a company hold less than 1% of the shares in his company, but his parents hold 19% (and originally 42.5%)? The obvious inference is that they were holding the shares on his behalf, to avoid the tax that would have been paid had he held directly."
In and of itself, that would not be unlawful.
It would not be unlawful if it was true but it appears that when the company was sold £27m came directly to Zahawi which rather suggests that the parents were nominees rather than beneficial owners. I presume that is what HMRC challenged and what the deal has been done on. To make a declaration that his parents were the beneficial owners would be unlawful but the suggestion here seems to be that no declaration was made at all, Zahawi simply received the money.
If he failed to declare the receipt of that money in his own returns then he has been a naughty boy and that, in my view, goes somewhat beyond "careless".
If not, then the Minister is in trouble. Otherwise, it’s up to politicians to close tax loopholes.
Jimmy Carr is right, it would be better if tax was simpler and loopholes abolished - but every single politician, when given the opportunity to actually do something about it, chooses to leave exemptions and loopholes open for favoured groups.
I don't know how true it is but it used to be claimed that the UK has the most complicated tax system. Every allowance or exemption is another opportunity for evasion and avoidance, because in almost all cases you end up with arguments about where a line is drawn, or what does or does not count. An overhaul of taxation is long overdue, but we'll never do it because everytime somebody loses out due to a reform there is screeching from the wings about it being unfair, and so we usually add yet more complications.
Ha, have you seen US tax forms?
Or try Italy, where it suits the culture to have laws that are confusing and contradictory, and often only enforced when it suits someone for other reasons. It is claimed that if Italy actually collected all the taxes in all its financial laws in full, the take would be above 100% of national income.
Trying to administer an Italian estate, though a local notary is like pulling teeth.
Zahawi claims his tax error was "careless and not deliberate". Why is it that careless mistakes always seem to result in wealthy taxpayers paying less tax than they should? Surely carelessness would sometimes result in overpaying tax - but for some reason that never seems to happen.
That wouldn't be much of a defence for Hailey Bailey, a single mum from Raileigh, who carelessly and not deliberately continued collecting unemployment benefits whilst cleaning someone's home for twenty in cash one morning a week.
Go to jail and do not pass "Go".
Its a fair point but in the hypothetical case more likely would be a requirement to repay the benefits that she was not entitled too, possibly with a fine.
At the heart of this is tax being far too complicated. Tax minimisation vs avoidance vs evasion. Schemes set up to boost certain parts of the economy (such as film making) getting used to help celebs reduce their tax (see Jimmy Carr). Make tax simpler. Get rid of tiers - flat tax all the way. You still pay more tax if you earn more. Thats progressive enough for me.
It does not seem relevant to this case. Not a question of tiers but of who owned which company shares.
"The obvious question is: why does the founder of a company hold less than 1% of the shares in his company, but his parents hold 19% (and originally 42.5%)? The obvious inference is that they were holding the shares on his behalf, to avoid the tax that would have been paid had he held directly."
In and of itself, that would not be unlawful.
Of course. But if Zahawi is now accepting paying CGT on the gains of selling shares owned nominally by his parents trust, it surely suggests that Zahawi beneficial interest was more than 1%? He says this was careless. Someone more cynical would assume it a deliberate use of his parents non dom status to hide the gain in Gibraltar.
Not really sure why he is being defended when he has accepted a fine and settlement with HMRC.
Tax is often a grey area. I've sometimes had arguments with HMRC over how much Inheritance Tax is due from an estate.
So you think it appropriate for a Chancellor to behave in this way? Or just sticking up randomly for a blue rosette?
The answer is, I don't know whether it was appropriate or not. That said, I expect he'll have to go, because he's now become the story.
Which is the worst possible reason for someone to lose their job.
If only that it signals to the media and opposition, that if they keep the ‘story’ in the news for long enough, it will get the minister sacked.
It's not like the glossy headed fuckpiece will be any great loss to our public realm so just enjoy the sport. The tearing down of a minister is a fine British political tradition. The denials, the delays, the public defence by Shappsie/Jenrick, the portending silence then that sweet moment of release as we go live to Tamara Cohen when they go. An instant of bliss in troubled times.
Zahawi claims his tax error was "careless and not deliberate". Why is it that careless mistakes always seem to result in wealthy taxpayers paying less tax than they should? Surely carelessness would sometimes result in overpaying tax - but for some reason that never seems to happen.
That wouldn't be much of a defence for Hailey Bailey, a single mum from Raileigh, who carelessly and not deliberately continued collecting unemployment benefits whilst cleaning someone's home for twenty in cash one morning a week.
Go to jail and do not pass "Go".
Its a fair point but in the hypothetical case more likely would be a requirement to repay the benefits that she was not entitled too, possibly with a fine.
At the heart of this is tax being far too complicated. Tax minimisation vs avoidance vs evasion. Schemes set up to boost certain parts of the economy (such as film making) getting used to help celebs reduce their tax (see Jimmy Carr). Make tax simpler. Get rid of tiers - flat tax all the way. You still pay more tax if you earn more. Thats progressive enough for me.
It does not seem relevant to this case. Not a question of tiers but of who owned which company shares.
"The obvious question is: why does the founder of a company hold less than 1% of the shares in his company, but his parents hold 19% (and originally 42.5%)? The obvious inference is that they were holding the shares on his behalf, to avoid the tax that would have been paid had he held directly."
In and of itself, that would not be unlawful.
It would not be unlawful if it was true but it appears that when the company was sold £27m came directly to Zahawi which rather suggests that the parents were nominees rather than beneficial owners. I presume that is what HMRC challenged and what the deal has been done on. To make a declaration that his parents were the beneficial owners would be unlawful but the suggestion here seems to be that no declaration was made at all, Zahawi simply received the money.
If he failed to declare the receipt of that money in his own returns then he has been a naughty boy and that, in my view, goes somewhat beyond "careless".
Generally speaking a 'careless' mistake should result in overpaying tax around 50% of the time.
Zahawi claims his tax error was "careless and not deliberate". Why is it that careless mistakes always seem to result in wealthy taxpayers paying less tax than they should? Surely carelessness would sometimes result in overpaying tax - but for some reason that never seems to happen.
That wouldn't be much of a defence for Hailey Bailey, a single mum from Raileigh, who carelessly and not deliberately continued collecting unemployment benefits whilst cleaning someone's home for twenty in cash one morning a week.
Go to jail and do not pass "Go".
Its a fair point but in the hypothetical case more likely would be a requirement to repay the benefits that she was not entitled too, possibly with a fine.
At the heart of this is tax being far too complicated. Tax minimisation vs avoidance vs evasion. Schemes set up to boost certain parts of the economy (such as film making) getting used to help celebs reduce their tax (see Jimmy Carr). Make tax simpler. Get rid of tiers - flat tax all the way. You still pay more tax if you earn more. Thats progressive enough for me.
It does not seem relevant to this case. Not a question of tiers but of who owned which company shares.
"The obvious question is: why does the founder of a company hold less than 1% of the shares in his company, but his parents hold 19% (and originally 42.5%)? The obvious inference is that they were holding the shares on his behalf, to avoid the tax that would have been paid had he held directly."
In and of itself, that would not be unlawful.
It would not be unlawful if it was true but it appears that when the company was sold £27m came directly to Zahawi which rather suggests that the parents were nominees rather than beneficial owners. I presume that is what HMRC challenged and what the deal has been done on. To make a declaration that his parents were the beneficial owners would be unlawful but the suggestion here seems to be that no declaration was made at all, Zahawi simply received the money.
If he failed to declare the receipt of that money in his own returns then he has been a naughty boy and that, in my view, goes somewhat beyond "careless".
How unusual would it be for the National Crime Agency to become involved in an investigation rather than it being dealt with by HMRC directly?
Binance’s banking partner, a bank called Signature, has banned Crypto-to-fiat transactions under $100,000 on the Binance platform, as it seeks to “decrease its exposure to digital-asset markets”
Binance setup is particularly shifty, nobody can even say where they actually reside. They appear to be everywhere, but nowhere.
I wouldn't be surprised if we find that on / off ramps for lots of these exchanges are dodgy, via shell companies and perhaps even via false transaction claims. Reminds me of back in the day the poker sites were constantly doing this, Full Tilt actually bought their own regional bank in the US and a popular transaction method was via marking the deposits / withdrawals as buying / selling of massive amounts of golf balls.
Once again, I find myself amateur psychoanalysing a Tory leader
I said Boris needed external structure building for him within the wider Downing Street team to stabilise his ADHD tendencies and get the best from him. I'd also note that such stability might have lessened, but probably not eliminated, his entitled need to ride roughshod over quite so many rules.
I reckoned Liz needed to regard her PMship as her other jobs: FS, Int Trade - that the course was constrained and defined for her, but she could pursue that with more gusto than anyone else.
The strange thing about Rishi is that his problem seems to be that, as PM, he has retreated into a comfort zone. He has stepped back and is trying to pick carefully, slowly through all his options and plot a way forward. Almost as if he is SKS with the luxury of years of opposition on his hands to build.
And yet I think he is a man who has thrived and risen by being taken out of his comfort zone by others. Thrown in as a not particularly posh scholarship boy at Winchester - win, driven by his hedge fund bosses - win, forced to act quickly in the COVID chaos of a Boris Johnson government - thrived. Nobody, yet, is forcing him into quick decision making, especially after Truss, and yet here is a man who really needs to be told at some point, the analysis is done, now jump.
Zahawi claims his tax error was "careless and not deliberate". Why is it that careless mistakes always seem to result in wealthy taxpayers paying less tax than they should? Surely carelessness would sometimes result in overpaying tax - but for some reason that never seems to happen.
That wouldn't be much of a defence for Hailey Bailey, a single mum from Raileigh, who carelessly and not deliberately continued collecting unemployment benefits whilst cleaning someone's home for twenty in cash one morning a week.
Go to jail and do not pass "Go".
Its a fair point but in the hypothetical case more likely would be a requirement to repay the benefits that she was not entitled too, possibly with a fine.
At the heart of this is tax being far too complicated. Tax minimisation vs avoidance vs evasion. Schemes set up to boost certain parts of the economy (such as film making) getting used to help celebs reduce their tax (see Jimmy Carr). Make tax simpler. Get rid of tiers - flat tax all the way. You still pay more tax if you earn more. Thats progressive enough for me.
It does not seem relevant to this case. Not a question of tiers but of who owned which company shares.
"The obvious question is: why does the founder of a company hold less than 1% of the shares in his company, but his parents hold 19% (and originally 42.5%)? The obvious inference is that they were holding the shares on his behalf, to avoid the tax that would have been paid had he held directly."
In and of itself, that would not be unlawful.
It would not be unlawful if it was true but it appears that when the company was sold £27m came directly to Zahawi which rather suggests that the parents were nominees rather than beneficial owners. I presume that is what HMRC challenged and what the deal has been done on. To make a declaration that his parents were the beneficial owners would be unlawful but the suggestion here seems to be that no declaration was made at all, Zahawi simply received the money.
If he failed to declare the receipt of that money in his own returns then he has been a naughty boy and that, in my view, goes somewhat beyond "careless".
Generally speaking a 'careless' mistake should result in overpaying tax around 50% of the time.
To be fair, that is not true, the most common careless mistake is not putting something on the return that should be there, and that will generally be income so most mistakes will be underpaying tax.
There is a difference however between forgetting the £100 interest from your dormant savings account and a life changing £20m from the sale of shares in the company you founded.
I think the next couple of months is going to see a lot of downwards pressure on prices in supermarkets, Asda and Morrisons seem to have woken up to the fact that they are going out of businesses and consumers now see them as poor value. I just wonder whether they can afford a prolonged price war now that both are so highly leveraged.
Zahawi claims his tax error was "careless and not deliberate". Why is it that careless mistakes always seem to result in wealthy taxpayers paying less tax than they should? Surely carelessness would sometimes result in overpaying tax - but for some reason that never seems to happen.
Did he carelessly instruct his lawyers to threaten journalists with libel actions? These things happen, one minute your having breakfast, then your fingers accidentally slip on the keyboard and instruct your lawyer to financially ruin someone for exposing your earlier accidental "error".
A sacking is too soft an outcome really - should have been prosecuted. Anyone carelessly claiming benefit erroneously would have been.
No they wouldn't. It depends on the amount.
Are you claiming Zahawi's "error" is too small to go after or just using some loose wording to move the argument further off the point?
No I was arguing about the liklihood of Mrs Mopp going to jail for fiddling a few hundred quid...
This is like your response to me on the other subject a few minutes ago and @Pro_Rata makes what I believe a valid point and the same one I am making. Both your posts come over as justifying wrong doing. You claim we are all misunderstanding your posts. If we are all misunderstanding them who has the problem? If not then it appears you think:
a) a fiddle of millions is too small to matter (and I am not talking about Zahawi, but in general)
b) wrong doing is acceptable because the other side will do it also (in the discussion with me)
Which is it? You believe this or we are all (all of us) too stupid to understand what you are saying?
I think the next couple of months is going to see a lot of downwards pressure on prices in supermarkets, Asda and Morrisons seem to have woken up to the fact that they are going out of businesses and consumers now see them as poor value. I just wonder whether they can afford a prolonged price war now that both are so highly leveraged.
My understanding is that the PE play for Morrisons they don't care about the actual supermarket business. Its all about the sale and lease back, strip the assets, lovely jubbly.
I never quite understood the Issa / TDR Capital motivation to buy Asda? A similar business model?
It looks as though Poland and Latvia will be formally asking Germany for permission to export their Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine.
A big test for Scholz and the German government, although it should not be a test at all.
(Although I did not think Latvia had any Leo 2's...?)
There have been a few fudges of ownership of equipment so that country x can say that they are donating equipment that previously belonged to country y.
It's conceivable that we'll have a situation where Latvia buys Leopard 2 tanks from Germany in order to donate them to Ukraine. If it gets the tanks to Ukraine and keeps everyone happy then fine, even if it is a bit daft.
It looks as though Poland and Latvia will be formally asking Germany for permission to export their Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine.
A big test for Scholz and the German government, although it should not be a test at all.
(Although I did not think Latvia had any Leo 2's...?)
But Germany has repeatedly denied that it is unilaterally blocking the export of the tanks. It sounds more as though there has been disagreement within NATO as to whether the tanks should be exported, and Germany has been waiting until it has the full backing of NATO before giving the go-ahead.
More and more British universities depend on China for money…..
…. Some 42 have links with Chinese institutions connected to the repression of the Uighurs, espionage, nuclear weapons research or hacking. Many of these have had links with Chinese universities carrying out military work, according to data gathered by The Times. More worryingly, some 21 top universities, including Cambridge, Sheffield, Leeds and Queen Mary University of London, are partnered with “very high risk” Chinese institutions.
Zahawi claims his tax error was "careless and not deliberate". Why is it that careless mistakes always seem to result in wealthy taxpayers paying less tax than they should? Surely carelessness would sometimes result in overpaying tax - but for some reason that never seems to happen.
That wouldn't be much of a defence for Hailey Bailey, a single mum from Raileigh, who carelessly and not deliberately continued collecting unemployment benefits whilst cleaning someone's home for twenty in cash one morning a week.
Go to jail and do not pass "Go".
Its a fair point but in the hypothetical case more likely would be a requirement to repay the benefits that she was not entitled too, possibly with a fine.
At the heart of this is tax being far too complicated. Tax minimisation vs avoidance vs evasion. Schemes set up to boost certain parts of the economy (such as film making) getting used to help celebs reduce their tax (see Jimmy Carr). Make tax simpler. Get rid of tiers - flat tax all the way. You still pay more tax if you earn more. Thats progressive enough for me.
It does not seem relevant to this case. Not a question of tiers but of who owned which company shares.
"The obvious question is: why does the founder of a company hold less than 1% of the shares in his company, but his parents hold 19% (and originally 42.5%)? The obvious inference is that they were holding the shares on his behalf, to avoid the tax that would have been paid had he held directly."
In and of itself, that would not be unlawful.
It would not be unlawful if it was true but it appears that when the company was sold £27m came directly to Zahawi which rather suggests that the parents were nominees rather than beneficial owners. I presume that is what HMRC challenged and what the deal has been done on. To make a declaration that his parents were the beneficial owners would be unlawful but the suggestion here seems to be that no declaration was made at all, Zahawi simply received the money.
If he failed to declare the receipt of that money in his own returns then he has been a naughty boy and that, in my view, goes somewhat beyond "careless".
How unusual would it be for the National Crime Agency to become involved in an investigation rather than it being dealt with by HMRC directly?
There were 548 prosecutions for tax evasion in 2019, although I don't know about subsequent years. Civil claims are far more common than criminal ones.
Somebody stated down below, should be interesting to see the percentage of individuals receiving more than they put in prior to COVID. The article now has these charts.
Binance’s banking partner, a bank called Signature, has banned Crypto-to-fiat transactions under $100,000 on the Binance platform, as it seeks to “decrease its exposure to digital-asset markets”
Binance setup is particularly shifty, nobody can even say where they actually reside. They appear to be everywhere, but nowhere.
I wouldn't be surprised if we find that on / off ramps for lots of these exchanges are dodgy, via shell companies and perhaps even via false transaction claims. Reminds me of back in the day the poker sites were constantly doing this, Full Tilt actually bought their own regional bank in the US and a popular transaction method was via marking the deposits / withdrawals as buying / selling of massive amounts of golf balls.
Full Tilt bought the bank after the US banks said they wouldn't;t do the dodgy transactions.
FT then, in a an act of genius, got their developers to write a system to create and push through the transactions. Yes, they automated wire fraud. Hundreds of thousands of individual crimes....
Re: "Daily Star" front page, do PBers think that the Great British Public can be a-peased?
The Daily Mirror has the best front page.
Wait till a few Labour MPs get caught as they surely will .......
And? They should be treated the same. And it will happen, especially when they are in office.
But are you suggesting it is ok, because the other lot will be up to it as well?
PS Rishi should not be in the same category as the other two in terms of wrong doing at all and Boris is almost in a league of his own, only surpassed by Trump in a democracy.
No why do do.many have the propensity to misread what I write. I am just saying the worm will turn when Labour are in power and the focus is on their indiscretions of which there will inevitably be many.
And so?
Funny how so many 'misread' your post in exactly the same way. Maybe you should write it differently. It definitely came across as the bank robber justifying his crime because others do it. A justification that always fails in court.
But we already have the story of the mysterious donation from a shell company to three prominent shadow front benchers...
The lessons are to do everything we can to bolster and defend all our checks and balances - dispersal of power, independent judiciary, free and diverse press, etc - not to leave one lot in power for too long - and ideally move toward coalition politics where they can keep an eye on each other, or at least be more cautious knowing that future electoral opponents know their secrets.
It looks as though Poland and Latvia will be formally asking Germany for permission to export their Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine.
A big test for Scholz and the German government, although it should not be a test at all.
(Although I did not think Latvia had any Leo 2's...?)
But Germany has repeatedly denied that it is unilaterally blocking the export of the tanks. It sounds more as though there has been disagreement within NATO as to whether the tanks should be exported, and Germany has been waiting until it has the full backing of NATO before giving the go-ahead.
They've been all over the place with this. It's clear there are massive arguments going on within their government on this topic. There should not be. And as the UK shows, you can just send tanks if you want.
Remember: it looks as though the outgoing defence minister specifically asked the military not to inventory the tanks available.
"The German government spokesperson denies the claims by Foreign Minister Baerbock who said Germany wouldn’t "stand in the way" of Poland sending its Leopards to 🇺🇦
The spokesperson told Politico that it would have to be discussed in Germany's Federal Security Council."
"The German government spokesperson denies the claims by Foreign Minister Baerbock who said Germany wouldn’t "stand in the way" of Poland sending its Leopards to 🇺🇦
The spokesperson told Politico that it would have to be discussed in Germany's Federal Security Council."
They make our government look positively competent and statesmanlike.
When I was young and quite stupid, I realised that some vital information had ben left out of a project briefing. So, at the meeting, I presented the missing information.
The push back was savage - several managers hadn't wanted to know the answer, officially. I had committed the offence of making them know, *on the record*.
"The German government spokesperson denies the claims by Foreign Minister Baerbock who said Germany wouldn’t "stand in the way" of Poland sending its Leopards to 🇺🇦
The spokesperson told Politico that it would have to be discussed in Germany's Federal Security Council."
They make our government look positively competent and statesmanlike.
I suspect this is coalition disarray - Baerbock is Green and hawkish on Ukraine, but the SPD will be averse to Green ministers freelancing irrespective of the issue (and reportedly they're already irritated by other governments trying to pressure them). If disagreement persists, it could lead to serious trouble in the coalition, as I doubt if Baerbock will be happy to accept more than a short delay.
Zahawi's error was to get caught. Britain is now a country where a lot of people are making a lot of money breaking a lot of laws and mostly getting away with it.
This is only going to change when Parliament prioritises enforcing the existing laws, instead of creating new ones for PR purposes. Britain could do with resurrecting the impeachment process to deal with a few prominent examples until people get the message and realise they can't brazen something like this out, and stop trying it on for fear of being caught.
Binance’s banking partner, a bank called Signature, has banned Crypto-to-fiat transactions under $100,000 on the Binance platform, as it seeks to “decrease its exposure to digital-asset markets”
Binance setup is particularly shifty, nobody can even say where they actually reside. They appear to be everywhere, but nowhere.
I wouldn't be surprised if we find that on / off ramps for lots of these exchanges are dodgy, via shell companies and perhaps even via false transaction claims. Reminds me of back in the day the poker sites were constantly doing this, Full Tilt actually bought their own regional bank in the US and a popular transaction method was via marking the deposits / withdrawals as buying / selling of massive amounts of golf balls.
The rumour going around, is that the Chinese have been slowly getting their cash out of Binance - and once they have, it’s all over.
Perhaps the Bitcoin rally of the past week, is an indication that the sellers are done selling?
It’s not a big stretch, to conclude that the whole house of cards is being carefully stage-managed by the CCP to screw investors everywhere else.
Zahawi's error was to get caught. Britain is now a country where a lot of people are making a lot of money breaking a lot of laws and mostly getting away with it.
This is only going to change when Parliament prioritises enforcing the existing laws, instead of creating new ones for PR purposes. Britain could do with resurrecting the impeachment process to deal with a few prominent examples until people get the message and realise they can't brazen something like this out, and stop trying it on for fear of being caught.
Seems like an anonymous tip off started the investigation which leads to the question of would he have been caught if not a leading figure? Probably not imo.
"The German government spokesperson denies the claims by Foreign Minister Baerbock who said Germany wouldn’t "stand in the way" of Poland sending its Leopards to 🇺🇦
The spokesperson told Politico that it would have to be discussed in Germany's Federal Security Council."
They make our government look positively competent and statesmanlike.
When I was young and quite stupid, I realised that some vital information had ben left out of a project briefing. So, at the meeting, I presented the missing information.
The push back was savage - several managers hadn't wanted to know the answer, officially. I had committed the offence of making them know, *on the record*.
I was once in a meeting with a Japanese company who wanted to buy some of our tech. One of the things they wanted was to reduce the boot time of the device. I suddenly had a thought, excused myself from the meeting and went to my desk. Ten minutes later I had a bootable image that reduced boot time by a few seconds. I went back to the meeting and passed my boss a note telling him that.
He sent me a note back saying: "Don't tell them that! We can charge them for the work..."
(If I remember correctly, the kernel had a delay loop in it designed to cope with ye olden days hard drives spinning up. The device was fully solid-state, with no hard drives. Remove that code, remove unneeded modules, and partly recompile the OS.)
Zahawi's error was to get caught. Britain is now a country where a lot of people are making a lot of money breaking a lot of laws and mostly getting away with it.
This is only going to change when Parliament prioritises enforcing the existing laws, instead of creating new ones for PR purposes. Britain could do with resurrecting the impeachment process to deal with a few prominent examples until people get the message and realise they can't brazen something like this out, and stop trying it on for fear of being caught.
I thought the whole point of the impeachment process was because there was no other way to prosecute a politician. MPs and ministers can all be prosecuted by the police as we have seen on numerous occasions over he last few decades so I don't see how an impeachment process would make things any better.
What we need to do - as you rightly say - is make sure we prosecute people under the existing laws.
"The German government spokesperson denies the claims by Foreign Minister Baerbock who said Germany wouldn’t "stand in the way" of Poland sending its Leopards to 🇺🇦
The spokesperson told Politico that it would have to be discussed in Germany's Federal Security Council."
They make our government look positively competent and statesmanlike.
I suspect this is coalition disarray - Baerbock is Green and hawkish on Ukraine, but the SPD will be averse to Green ministers freelancing irrespective of the issue (and reportedly they're already irritated by other governments trying to pressure them). If disagreement persists, it could lead to serious trouble in the coalition, as I doubt if Baerbock will be happy to accept more than a short delay.
That's irrelevant Nick. Ukraine needs those tanks.
It's blooming stupid on Germany's part: they've helped Ukraine a lot (though not as much as they could), but the messaging all along has been one of not wanting to help. They're damaging the German brand, and the German defence industry.
And if they end up allowing Leo2's to be sent, or sending their own, this confusion and mess will have been for nothing.
The messaging also really plays into Russia's hands.
Zahawi's error was to get caught. Britain is now a country where a lot of people are making a lot of money breaking a lot of laws and mostly getting away with it.
This is only going to change when Parliament prioritises enforcing the existing laws, instead of creating new ones for PR purposes. Britain could do with resurrecting the impeachment process to deal with a few prominent examples until people get the message and realise they can't brazen something like this out, and stop trying it on for fear of being caught.
Pretty much the worst thing that can happen to a society is for organised crime to gain a meaningful foothold. I worry that this is now happening here as the state's ability to fight the infection has weakened, in part thanks to austerity. I would make measures to eradicate or at least severely degrade organised crime one of the government's top priorities.
"The German government spokesperson denies the claims by Foreign Minister Baerbock who said Germany wouldn’t "stand in the way" of Poland sending its Leopards to 🇺🇦
The spokesperson told Politico that it would have to be discussed in Germany's Federal Security Council."
They make our government look positively competent and statesmanlike.
When I was young and quite stupid, I realised that some vital information had ben left out of a project briefing. So, at the meeting, I presented the missing information.
The push back was savage - several managers hadn't wanted to know the answer, officially. I had committed the offence of making them know, *on the record*.
I was once in a meeting with a Japanese company who wanted to buy some of our tech. One of the things they wanted was to reduce the boot time of the device. I suddenly had a thought, excused myself from the meeting and went to my desk. Ten minutes later I had a bootable image that reduced boot time by a few seconds. I went back to the meeting and passed my boss a note telling him that.
He sent me a note back saying: "Don't tell them that! We can charge them for the work..."
(If I remember correctly, the kernel had a delay loop in it designed to cope with ye olden days hard drives spinning up. The device was fully solid-state, with no hard drives. Remove that code, remove unneeded modules, and partly recompile the OS.)
Yes, but there was 10 days’ dev, 10 days’ QA, 5 days’ documentation and 5 days’ implementation for that fix - call it £60k, or one annual salary for the developer.
I’ve been in that sort of meeting, and one quickly learns to keep their mouth shut when it comes to speaking directly to the customer as a technical or project resource. That’s what account managers and corporate directors do best.
Zahawi's error was to get caught. Britain is now a country where a lot of people are making a lot of money breaking a lot of laws and mostly getting away with it.
This is only going to change when Parliament prioritises enforcing the existing laws, instead of creating new ones for PR purposes. Britain could do with resurrecting the impeachment process to deal with a few prominent examples until people get the message and realise they can't brazen something like this out, and stop trying it on for fear of being caught.
No need - just enforce the laws.
There also needs to be an understand of the the creation of value "cliffs" - when passing a law or changing a regulation it is easy to create a situation where something is much more or less valuable due to a simple change. The simple change then becomes a focus for corruption.
For example, material dug from beneath a house is Evul Toxic Waste. And must be paid for, to be disposed of by a special contractor. Who often runs a service supplying washed gravel, as a sideline.....
"The German government spokesperson denies the claims by Foreign Minister Baerbock who said Germany wouldn’t "stand in the way" of Poland sending its Leopards to 🇺🇦
The spokesperson told Politico that it would have to be discussed in Germany's Federal Security Council."
They make our government look positively competent and statesmanlike.
It is a much easier decision for our government to make, though. There are obvious reasons why it would not be prudent for Germany to look as though it is taking the lead on supplying tanks. These include both the risk of giving Putin a propaganda victory in terms of comparisons with WW2 and the fact that Germany is entirely reliant on others for its nuclear deterrent. There is also the fact that Germany is entirely unused to playing a pivotal role in military conflicts, again for historical reasons.
I expect that Germany will ultimately end up allowing the export of Leopards, but it is very much in its interests to be seen to be reluctant about doing so. This doesn't apply to the UK.
"The German government spokesperson denies the claims by Foreign Minister Baerbock who said Germany wouldn’t "stand in the way" of Poland sending its Leopards to 🇺🇦
The spokesperson told Politico that it would have to be discussed in Germany's Federal Security Council."
They make our government look positively competent and statesmanlike.
It is a much easier decision for our government to make, though. There are obvious reasons why it would not be prudent for Germany to look as though it is taking the lead on supplying tanks. These include both the risk of giving Putin a propaganda victory in terms of comparisons with WW2 and the fact that Germany is entirely reliant on others for its nuclear deterrent.
I expect that Germany will ultimately end up allowing the export of Leopards, but it is very much in its interests to be seen to be reluctant about doing so. This doesn't apply to the UK.
They're not taking the lead. Loads of Soviet-era tanks were sent last year, and we've set modernish C2's. That's a really poor excuse.
Putin's already getting a propaganda victory from this: he can show (rightly) that the west is divided. This will give him confidence that he can split the coalition against him.
Zahawi's error was to get caught. Britain is now a country where a lot of people are making a lot of money breaking a lot of laws and mostly getting away with it.
This is only going to change when Parliament prioritises enforcing the existing laws, instead of creating new ones for PR purposes. Britain could do with resurrecting the impeachment process to deal with a few prominent examples until people get the message and realise they can't brazen something like this out, and stop trying it on for fear of being caught.
I thought the whole point of the impeachment process was because there was no other way to prosecute a politician. MPs and ministers can all be prosecuted by the police as we have seen on numerous occasions over he last few decades so I don't see how an impeachment process would make things any better.
What we need to do - as you rightly say - is make sure we prosecute people under the existing laws.
Shortly before the renewed Russian invasion of Ukraine in February last year, Boris Johnson said that, ".. Russia should ultimately fail and be seen to fail." This is a similar situation where the double emphasis is required.
It's not enough that the law is enforced. It has to be seen to be enforced. So I think that impeachment would serve a useful dramatic purpose in drawing a line under recent failures and indicating that the times had changed.
"The German government spokesperson denies the claims by Foreign Minister Baerbock who said Germany wouldn’t "stand in the way" of Poland sending its Leopards to 🇺🇦
The spokesperson told Politico that it would have to be discussed in Germany's Federal Security Council."
They make our government look positively competent and statesmanlike.
When I was young and quite stupid, I realised that some vital information had ben left out of a project briefing. So, at the meeting, I presented the missing information.
The push back was savage - several managers hadn't wanted to know the answer, officially. I had committed the offence of making them know, *on the record*.
I was once in a meeting with a Japanese company who wanted to buy some of our tech. One of the things they wanted was to reduce the boot time of the device. I suddenly had a thought, excused myself from the meeting and went to my desk. Ten minutes later I had a bootable image that reduced boot time by a few seconds. I went back to the meeting and passed my boss a note telling him that.
He sent me a note back saying: "Don't tell them that! We can charge them for the work..."
(If I remember correctly, the kernel had a delay loop in it designed to cope with ye olden days hard drives spinning up. The device was fully solid-state, with no hard drives. Remove that code, remove unneeded modules, and partly recompile the OS.)
Yes, but there was 10 days’ dev, 10 days’ QA, 5 days’ documentation and 5 days’ implementation for that fix - call it £60k, or one annual salary for the developer.
I’ve been in that sort of meeting, and one quickly learns to keep their mouth shut when it comes to speaking directly to the customer as a technical or project resource. That’s what account managers and corporate directors do best.
That's what my role eventually became (before I started doing a little contracting): acting as a liaison between the marketroids and the engineers. I knew the code very well, but could also talk human.
More than once I had to (subtly) tell a marketroid that what they were telling the customer was incorrect. Preferably though a backchannel (notes, or messages on our laptops) rather than in a way the customers could hear.
Looking back, I quite enjoyed that, perhaps more than coding. I didn't enjoy it at the time, though.
Zahawi's error was to get caught. Britain is now a country where a lot of people are making a lot of money breaking a lot of laws and mostly getting away with it.
This is only going to change when Parliament prioritises enforcing the existing laws, instead of creating new ones for PR purposes. Britain could do with resurrecting the impeachment process to deal with a few prominent examples until people get the message and realise they can't brazen something like this out, and stop trying it on for fear of being caught.
I thought the whole point of the impeachment process was because there was no other way to prosecute a politician. MPs and ministers can all be prosecuted by the police as we have seen on numerous occasions over he last few decades so I don't see how an impeachment process would make things any better.
What we need to do - as you rightly say - is make sure we prosecute people under the existing laws.
Shortly before the renewed Russian invasion of Ukraine in February last year, Boris Johnson said that, ".. Russia should ultimately fail and be seen to fail." This is a similar situation where the double emphasis is required.
It's not enough that the law is enforced. It has to be seen to be enforced. So I think that impeachment would serve a useful dramatic purpose in drawing a line under recent failures and indicating that the times had changed.
Advocating going round the law to get at the criminals has an interesting history.
{Critias has entered the chat}
I really don't think it is an improvement going down that route...
"The German government spokesperson denies the claims by Foreign Minister Baerbock who said Germany wouldn’t "stand in the way" of Poland sending its Leopards to 🇺🇦
The spokesperson told Politico that it would have to be discussed in Germany's Federal Security Council."
They make our government look positively competent and statesmanlike.
I've heard all manner of justifications and explanations for the German government positions on this, but no coherent explanation at all from the government itself.
Comments
Doesn't it, Boris.
If not, then the Minister is in trouble. Otherwise, it’s up to politicians to close tax loopholes.
Jimmy Carr is right, it would be better if tax was simpler and loopholes abolished - but every single politician, when given the opportunity to actually do something about it, chooses to leave exemptions and loopholes open for favoured groups.
Friends like these are worth more than a squadron of tanks. We are glad to welcome Boris Johnson to Ukraine. A person who has been with the Ukrainian people since day one.
https://twitter.com/DefenceU/status/1617169657886040064
But are you suggesting it is ok, because the other lot will be up to it as well?
PS Rishi should not be in the same category as the other two in terms of wrong doing at all and Boris is almost in a league of his own, only surpassed by Trump in a democracy.
But he can't quite do it, because ultimately he is a better person than BoJo.
"In order to ensure the independence of this process, you will understand that it would be… https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1617479323656802304
We have a collection of poundshop clowns, who can't even clown properly.
Labour lead is fourteen points in latest results from Deltapoll for the Mail on Sunday.
C… https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1617480288061227012
Not really sure why he is being defended when he has accepted a fine and settlement with HMRC.
How many of the people polled actually understand the issue? More likely, the fact that a particular minister has been in the news this week, is the only thing to which people are responding.
If a polling company asked 1,000 people if James Hacker should be sacked as a government minister, most people would likely answer in the affirmative.
One of my clients offered to pay me in Bitcoin (no pressure, just an extra option) but I decided to stick with USD.
'In order to ensure the independence of this process, you will understand that it would be ina… https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1617482608727687169
@PaulBrandITV: There comes a point in the lifetime of many governments over the decades - of all colours - where they become so bo… https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1617482615853809666
It has nothing on the American system, which is the demented love child of special interests.
Back when the Republican Party was semi-sane, they proposed flattening the tax system. Bill Clinton, in a rare misstep, said this would throw zillions of tax lawyers out of work. Which it would.
In the context - recent history - that is probably a good thing. Boris was the last of the fun stuff
If only that it signals to the media and opposition, that if they keep the ‘story’ in the news for long enough, it will get the minister sacked.
If he failed to declare the receipt of that money in his own returns then he has been a naughty boy and that, in my view, goes somewhat beyond "careless".
He says that pending the new ethics investigation into his tax transpare… https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1617488074165854210
Funny how so many 'misread' your post in exactly the same way. Maybe you should write it differently. It definitely came across as the bank robber justifying his crime because others do it. A justification that always fails in court.
A big test for Scholz and the German government, although it should not be a test at all.
(Although I did not think Latvia had any Leo 2's...?)
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2009/may/13/mps-expenses-hazel-blears
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has piled on pressure on t… https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1617490748206714880
I wouldn't be surprised if we find that on / off ramps for lots of these exchanges are dodgy, via shell companies and perhaps even via false transaction claims. Reminds me of back in the day the poker sites were constantly doing this, Full Tilt actually bought their own regional bank in the US and a popular transaction method was via marking the deposits / withdrawals as buying / selling of massive amounts of golf balls.
I said Boris needed external structure building for him within the wider Downing Street team to stabilise his ADHD tendencies and get the best from him. I'd also note that such stability might have lessened, but probably not eliminated, his entitled need to ride roughshod over quite so many rules.
I reckoned Liz needed to regard her PMship as her other jobs: FS, Int Trade - that the course was constrained and defined for her, but she could pursue that with more gusto than anyone else.
The strange thing about Rishi is that his problem seems to be that, as PM, he has retreated into a comfort zone. He has stepped back and is trying to pick carefully, slowly through all his options and plot a way forward. Almost as if he is SKS with the luxury of years of opposition on his hands to build.
And yet I think he is a man who has thrived and risen by being taken out of his comfort zone by others. Thrown in as a not particularly posh scholarship boy at Winchester - win, driven by his hedge fund bosses - win, forced to act quickly in the COVID chaos of a Boris Johnson government - thrived. Nobody, yet, is forcing him into quick decision making, especially after Truss, and yet here is a man who really needs to be told at some point, the analysis is done, now jump.
There is a difference however between forgetting the £100 interest from your dormant savings account and a life changing £20m from the sale of shares in the company you founded.
a) a fiddle of millions is too small to matter (and I am not talking about Zahawi, but in general)
b) wrong doing is acceptable because the other side will do it also (in the discussion with me)
Which is it? You believe this or we are all (all of us) too stupid to understand what you are saying?
I never quite understood the Issa / TDR Capital motivation to buy Asda? A similar business model?
It's conceivable that we'll have a situation where Latvia buys Leopard 2 tanks from Germany in order to donate them to Ukraine. If it gets the tanks to Ukraine and keeps everyone happy then fine, even if it is a bit daft.
More and more British universities depend on China for money…..
…. Some 42 have links with Chinese institutions connected to the repression of the Uighurs, espionage, nuclear weapons research or hacking. Many of these have had links with Chinese universities carrying out military work, according to data gathered by The Times. More worryingly, some 21 top universities, including Cambridge, Sheffield, Leeds and Queen Mary University of London, are partnered with “very high risk” Chinese institutions.
https://archive.ph/bV9dn
https://twitter.com/wizbates/status/1617489553765564416
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11665761/Covid-convinced-Brits-Tories-claim.html
FT then, in a an act of genius, got their developers to write a system to create and push through the transactions. Yes, they automated wire fraud. Hundreds of thousands of individual crimes....
The lessons are to do everything we can to bolster and defend all our checks and balances - dispersal of power, independent judiciary, free and diverse press, etc - not to leave one lot in power for too long - and ideally move toward coalition politics where they can keep an eye on each other, or at least be more cautious knowing that future electoral opponents know their secrets.
Remember: it looks as though the outgoing defence minister specifically asked the military not to inventory the tanks available.
https://mobile.twitter.com/ALanoszka/status/1616845450404847616
That's indefensible.
"The German government spokesperson denies the claims by Foreign Minister Baerbock who said Germany wouldn’t "stand in the way" of Poland sending its Leopards to 🇺🇦
The spokesperson told Politico that it would have to be discussed in Germany's Federal Security Council."
https://twitter.com/visegrad24/status/1617481495555497985
They make our government look positively competent and statesmanlike.
The push back was savage - several managers hadn't wanted to know the answer, officially. I had committed the offence of making them know, *on the record*.
See this latest example to do with organised crime and waste disposal.
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2023/jan/23/buried-bbc-podcast-exposing-waste-rubbish-crime-scandal
This is only going to change when Parliament prioritises enforcing the existing laws, instead of creating new ones for PR purposes. Britain could do with resurrecting the impeachment process to deal with a few prominent examples until people get the message and realise they can't brazen something like this out, and stop trying it on for fear of being caught.
Perhaps the Bitcoin rally of the past week, is an indication that the sellers are done selling?
It’s not a big stretch, to conclude that the whole house of cards is being carefully stage-managed by the CCP to screw investors everywhere else.
He sent me a note back saying: "Don't tell them that! We can charge them for the work..."
(If I remember correctly, the kernel had a delay loop in it designed to cope with ye olden days hard drives spinning up. The device was fully solid-state, with no hard drives. Remove that code, remove unneeded modules, and partly recompile the OS.)
What we need to do - as you rightly say - is make sure we prosecute people under the existing laws.
It's blooming stupid on Germany's part: they've helped Ukraine a lot (though not as much as they could), but the messaging all along has been one of not wanting to help. They're damaging the German brand, and the German defence industry.
And if they end up allowing Leo2's to be sent, or sending their own, this confusion and mess will have been for nothing.
The messaging also really plays into Russia's hands.
I’ve been in that sort of meeting, and one quickly learns to keep their mouth shut when it comes to speaking directly to the customer as a technical or project resource. That’s what account managers and corporate directors do best.
There also needs to be an understand of the the creation of value "cliffs" - when passing a law or changing a regulation it is easy to create a situation where something is much more or less valuable due to a simple change. The simple change then becomes a focus for corruption.
For example, material dug from beneath a house is Evul Toxic Waste. And must be paid for, to be disposed of by a special contractor. Who often runs a service supplying washed gravel, as a sideline.....
I expect that Germany will ultimately end up allowing the export of Leopards, but it is very much in its interests to be seen to be reluctant about doing so. This doesn't apply to the UK.
Putin's already getting a propaganda victory from this: he can show (rightly) that the west is divided. This will give him confidence that he can split the coalition against him.
Why would anyone have any confidence at all in this alleged independent enquiry.
It's not enough that the law is enforced. It has to be seen to be enforced. So I think that impeachment would serve a useful dramatic purpose in drawing a line under recent failures and indicating that the times had changed.
More than once I had to (subtly) tell a marketroid that what they were telling the customer was incorrect. Preferably though a backchannel (notes, or messages on our laptops) rather than in a way the customers could hear.
Looking back, I quite enjoyed that, perhaps more than coding. I didn't enjoy it at the time, though.
{Critias has entered the chat}
I really don't think it is an improvement going down that route...