You do get the impression that Cameron has little idea of what his activists think. I don't think he knows and doesn't care; I think he doesn't know, and isn't interested because he expects, net, to gain from annoying them.
I remember Tony Blair once telling a PLP meeting, "I really don't get up every morning and think 'How can I piss off Labour Party members today?'"
We tittered uneasily, half-seduced by his charm as usual, but also rather suspecting that, just as you say, he saw it as a net benefit with the wider electorate.
Theresa May, at the instigation of Andrew Cooper, started it with the "nasty party" label. Incidentally anyone betting on Theresa May needs to think about it more deeply.
It's an interesting piece, though written in terms that do mostly apply to Conservatives. The writer sees membership much as I do - being part of a wider movement, without the expectation of personal influence, though you might get lucky and get a policy adopted or become a councillor/MP. But I know people with quite different motivations:
- Community service. This is something I actually associate more with traditional Tories; when we were doing our "say something nice about opponents" day, it was the thing I singled out. A lot of people would like to do something for the local community - especially if they've done well and want to give something back - and through membership they get to be councillors, school governors, etc. Often they don't really care much which party they're in, and will switch if badly treated - I suspect the defecting Merton Tories are a bit like this.
- Changing the party. People with strong ideological beliefs realise it's very difficult to change our essentially pragmatic and centrist parties, but they feel they have a duty to try. More prominent in Labour than the others, but all parties have them.
- Personal ambition. You do get people who join at 18 because they want to be Prime Minister. That's where the Spads in their 20s come from!
Mr Archer's suggestion that the Chairman of the Conservative Party be elected by the members would be a neat way of dealing with their current Feldman problem.
Multinationals are inherently hard to tax properly without cross-border co-operation. It's no coincidence that American companies (Apple, HP, Intel, etc.) have their European headquarters in Dublin, because Ireland has the lowest corporate tax rate in Europe.
If Intel Ireland sells Intel UK a chip for $100, which is then sold to a UK customer for $101, then Intel UK has only made $1 profit on the chip. Without understanding what work has gone on in each country, you simply cannot work out whether Intel is fairly adjudging costs across its business, or whether it is evading taxes.
(N.B., this is not about the EU, before anyone jumps down my throat. The same would be true if we were talking about Intel Israel or Intel Switzerland.)
On the other hand, the UK is almost uniquely placed to take a leading - and perhaps even unilateral - role in helping to clear up this mess, because so many tax havens are Crown dependencies.
My understanding is that it is the transfer of intellectual property to such jurisdictions, leading to royalty payments shifting profit offshore, that is the main bone of contention. Thus a company can transfer profits out of the UK when only bits of paper exist in the tax haven and all the work done to create the profit - design, manufacture, distribution, retail - occur in the UK.
Am about halfway through S1 of Eureka and its most amusing - the attention to detail is great - Henry's overall's are all identical bar a single label depending on which unspoken role he's playing - from Mechanic to Forensics or Coroner.
I'm very impressed for a cable show. I must seek out other SyFy productions. I'm guessing the Global Dynamics name is a hat-tip to Massive Dynamics in Fringe. All very clever stuff.
I see from Wiki that its won an award or two for its accuracy of the science used and FX - well deserved.
Theresa May, at the instigation of Andrew Cooper, started it with the "nasty party" label. Incidentally anyone betting on Theresa May needs to think about it more deeply.
That quote was some 11 years ago:
"There's a lot we need to do in this party of ours. Our base is too narrow and so, occasionally, are our sympathies. You know what some people call us – the Nasty Party."
Could a local Conservative Association decide to disaffiliate from the Conservative party and affiliate itself to UKIP?
The short answer is No. Local associations are in effect franchises established by the national party in a location, usually a single constituency but sometimes groups of them. Prior to 1999, the Conservative Party was organisationally very complex and in many ways several parties in one. Before then, it was essentially a bottom-up organisation where individuals came together to form branches, which in turn federated at association, area, regional and national levels to form the voluntary side of the party. The reforms under Hague turned that around and the party became established nationally, and it established associations which in turn establish branches within them. As such, a constituency association (or branch) could not transfer as that association i.e. with funds and data, to another party.
Of course, there's no reason why the members of an association or branch of any party couldn't defect en mass should something raise their collective ire, but they'd be doing so as individuals acting collectively.
Mr. W, that's a rather sad and moving tale. At least he had a stalwart Jacobite friend to whom he could be open about things.
There were a few of us who knew. He told me his mother suspected (mothers I think often know) but the issue was never raised with her.
He loved her very dearly. She pre-deceased him by about a year and then he just let go. I still well up remembering what a fine, loving but tragic figure he was.
I suspect these kind of stories were quite common in the sixties and seventies. I had a gay uncle, again a man's man and quite well known in the motor racing world at the time. He never came out until after my grandparents died and he was well into his forties. In his fifties he set up house with his gay partner who took his surname, an early example of gay "marriage" I guess!
I suspect Tory discomfort on this issue was far more driven by the leadership's failure to consult via a manifesto pledge than prejudice or reactionary values.
It is massively ironic that Ukip sells itself as anti-establishment outsiders given its antics in the European Parliament.
Luckily for it rightwing newspapers - thanks to foolsih eruophobia - largely ignore the EP. So they get away with it.
Because any cursory examination of their behaviour in the European Parliament would reveal Ukip to be the biggest, laziest troughers of them all.
Still more Labour politicians who went to jail for fraud than UKIP ones.
What is the proportion of disgraced jailed Ukip former MEPs and activists versus Party size as opposed to those Labour and Tory MPs jailed?
That strikes me as a zero sum game - like trying to rate footballers on the drunk driver, roasting, thuggery, racism stakes... the brand is tainted whoever you play for.
My support for gay law reform springs from my social liberalism but also strengthened from the case of a very dear friend. .... The times were different, attitudes scarily different and he was a casualty of his nature and the horrible intolerances of the day.
Well said Jack!
One thing that has changed is that many more people know LGBT people these days and have found that they are NOT deviants or monsters - they are just people like everyone else who just want to get on with their lives and be treated like everyone else.
Only complete bigots and unreasoning brutes would deny LGBT people the same rights as everyone else in society.
As for the polling differences, the only people who care are you lot and the politicians. Sorry, but that is what it is like out here for the rest of us. The economy is slowly recovering and people are too busy to care much about the Westminster arguments because almost all of what they are arguing in Parliament does not resonate with most people.
Multinationals are inherently hard to tax properly without cross-border co-operation. It's no coincidence that American companies (Apple, HP, Intel, etc.) have their European headquarters in Dublin, because Ireland has the lowest corporate tax rate in Europe.
If Intel Ireland sells Intel UK a chip for $100, which is then sold to a UK customer for $101, then Intel UK has only made $1 profit on the chip. Without understanding what work has gone on in each country, you simply cannot work out whether Intel is fairly adjudging costs across its business, or whether it is evading taxes.
(N.B., this is not about the EU, before anyone jumps down my throat. The same would be true if we were talking about Intel Israel or Intel Switzerland.)
On the other hand, the UK is almost uniquely placed to take a leading - and perhaps even unilateral - role in helping to clear up this mess, because so many tax havens are Crown dependencies.
My understanding is that it is the transfer of intellectual property to such jurisdictions, leading to royalty payments shifting profit offshore, that is the main bone of contention. Thus a company can transfer profits out of the UK when only bits of paper exist in the tax haven and all the work done to create the profit - design, manufacture, distribution, retail - occur in the UK.
Vampire capitalism.
In effect it's a re-run of colonialism except the imperial power isn't a nation-state but a collection of off-shored plutocrats.
Gay marriage bill may lead to 'lesbian queen and artificially inseminated heir' Former Tory chairman Lord Tebbit also warns that legislation could allow him to marry his son to escape inheritance tax
Looking at royal histories across Europe. he's a bit behind the curve on that one, there have been lesbian queens and artifically inseminated heirs for most of recorded history.
"Lord Tebbit, who recently said he could understand why many people vote Ukip, said the party would attract greater financial support if they won the European parliamentary elections next year. He said: "If they make significant gains in the European elections, I know there's people rich enough to get involved and fund a significant campaign at a general election."
God bless Tebbit. I was seriously nostalgic for Baroness Young type comments yesterday when the best we had was Gerald Howarth uncovering the aggressive homosexual lobby. I hope Tebbit contributes a lot to the Lords' debates.
Here lies David Cameron. He thought he'd be quite good at being Prime Minister, but he wasn't very good at politics.
As has been said, good governance can result in bad politics and good politics can result in poor governance (eg Blair). Cameron anticipated a coalition before the GE and made plans accordingly - good politics. When you are in a majority government you can adjust your policies to bolster your party. That's not so easy when you are in coalition. The problem for the Tories is that the last Labour government enshrined in law the things which create the most difficulties - unrestrained immigration from the EU and loss of veto powers via the Lisbon Treaty. ukip should be turning their fire on Labour as the source of our multiple miseries.
"ukip should be turning their fire on Labour as the source of our multiple miseries."
Yup - and Labour doesn't have a plan to deal with them at all. At least the Tories can attempt to address immigration/welfare/spending et al with some credibility - Labour are all at sea.
In this case, the fault is not Apple's, but the completely bonkers feature of the US tax system whereby Apple would pay punitive rates of US tax if they remitted cash held abroad back to the US. Unsurprisingly, therefore, they leave the cash abroad (where much of it is earned - this is not an artificial tax-avoidance wheeze) - a mind-blowing hundred billion dollars of cash. They are even being forced to borrow money on the US financial markets so they can pay out a dividend to shareholders, when they've got $100bn in various non-US banks. Talk about perverse incentives in the tax system.
Rather than flinging insults at Apple, why don't Senators turn their attention to the ludicrous features of the US tax system, which can be fixed without international agreement?
Much the same applies to those who moan about Google and Amazon here, with the difference that the UK government has no jurisdiction over VAT law. That aspect of the problem needs to be sorted out at the EU level - a big opportunity to do so was missed in Lisbon. Corporation tax also needs to be changed to reflect the new business models made possibly by internet commerce; however that really requires international cooperation.
It is massively ironic that Ukip sells itself as anti-establishment outsiders given its antics in the European Parliament.
Luckily for it rightwing newspapers - thanks to foolsih eruophobia - largely ignore the EP. So they get away with it.
Because any cursory examination of their behaviour in the European Parliament would reveal Ukip to be the biggest, laziest troughers of them all.
UKIP will be given a thorough examination soon. All will be revealed. Cameron's analysis of UKIP being "fruitcakes and closet racists" is not entirely far-fetched.
I've always thought that it's pretty harsh the way that quote is trotted out and applied to today.
When Cameron made it, UKIP was at (?) 3-4% in the polls. Now they are at c. 20%.
Let's assume that 1% of those numbers are "fruitcakes and closet racists". When you are talking about 25-33% (1/3 or 1/4) it may be a fair comment. When you are talking about 5% (1/20) it is clearly not.
In this case, the fault is not Apple's, but the completely bonkers feature of the US tax system whereby Apple would pay punitive rates of US tax if they remitted cash held abroad back to the US. Unsurprisingly, therefore, they leave the cash abroad (where much of it is earned - this is not an artificial tax-avoidance wheeze) - a mind-blowing hundred billion dollars of cash. They are even being forced to borrow money on the US financial markets so they can pay out a dividend to shareholders, when they've got $100bn in various non-US banks. Talk about perverse incentives in the tax system.
Rather than flinging insults at Apple, why don't Senators turn their attention to the ludicrous features of the US tax system, which can be fixed without international agreement?
Much the same applies to those who moan about Google and Amazon here, with the difference that the UK government has no jurisdiction over VAT law. That aspect of the problem needs to be sorted out at the EU level - a big opportunity to do so was missed in Lisbon. Corporation tax also needs to be changed to reflect the new business models made possibly by internet commerce; however that really requires international cooperation.
Your "punitive rates of tax" is just US corporation tax.
Multinationals are inherently hard to tax properly without cross-border co-operation. It's no coincidence that American companies (Apple, HP, Intel, etc.) have their European headquarters in Dublin, because Ireland has the lowest corporate tax rate in Europe.
If Intel Ireland sells Intel UK a chip for $100, which is then sold to a UK customer for $101, then Intel UK has only made $1 profit on the chip. Without understanding what work has gone on in each country, you simply cannot work out whether Intel is fairly adjudging costs across its business, or whether it is evading taxes.
(N.B., this is not about the EU, before anyone jumps down my throat. The same would be true if we were talking about Intel Israel or Intel Switzerland.)
On the other hand, the UK is almost uniquely placed to take a leading - and perhaps even unilateral - role in helping to clear up this mess, because so many tax havens are Crown dependencies.
My understanding is that it is the transfer of intellectual property to such jurisdictions, leading to royalty payments shifting profit offshore, that is the main bone of contention. Thus a company can transfer profits out of the UK when only bits of paper exist in the tax haven and all the work done to create the profit - design, manufacture, distribution, retail - occur in the UK.
If that set up doesn't exist from the beginning it is very difficult to subsequently shift IP offshore without crystallising a significant tax liability.
I've always thought that it's pretty harsh the way that quote is trotted out and applied to today.
When Cameron made it, UKIP was at (?) 3-4% in the polls. Now they are at c. 20%.
That defence would work a little better if (a) the comment hadnt originally been directed at UKIP members rather than voters and (b) he hadnt refused the opportunity to apologise for making it as recently as a few weeks ago.
Here lies David Cameron. He thought he'd be quite good at being Prime Minister, but he wasn't very good at politics.
As has been said, good governance can result in bad politics and good politics can result in poor governance (eg Blair). Cameron anticipated a coalition before the GE and made plans accordingly - good politics. When you are in a majority government you can adjust your policies to bolster your party. That's not so easy when you are in coalition. The problem for the Tories is that the last Labour government enshrined in law the things which create the most difficulties - unrestrained immigration from the EU and loss of veto powers via the Lisbon Treaty. ukip should be turning their fire on Labour as the source of our multiple miseries.
Actually, it was the Tories who signed up to free movement of peoples within the EU and enshrined it into law.
"The polygraph machine was invented in 1921 in Berkeley, California.
"Berkeley was a town with a very famous police chief, August Vollmer, and he was in charge of police reform and a leader of police professionalisation in the United States," says Ken Alder, professor of history at Northwestern University in Chicago.
"He actually wanted to use the science to make the cops more law-abiding themselves, to substitute this new scientific interrogation for what was formerly known as the third degree, which was a way of getting information from people by beating them up."
The Truth And Nothing But The Truth is on Tuesday 21 May on 11:00 BST on BBC Radio 4 or catch it later on the BBC iPlayer.
Berkeley police officer John Larson created the first machine, basing it on the systolic blood pressure test pioneered by psychologist William Moulton Marston, who would later become a comic book writer and create Wonder Woman..."
And before I start reading the thread from the beginning; just an observation. Logging into this site (and why it is difficult).
We all remember the nightmare of having to create a new "Vanilla" password, right? The use of complex passwords constructed with non-standard letters, hey...?
Well here is the problem: Junior's site ain't too good at allowing access at times (or via various devices). [Who else clears their cache to avoid paying for "The Telegraph's" access to the madness that are the 'Scottish' threads?]
So logging into/onto OGH's site is something of a Liberal-Democrat; an abject, total failure. But here is what you should do:
~ Click upon some eejit's user-link to access the under-lying "Vanilla" infrastructure, ~ To the right of the menu-bar is a log-in option. Use it, ~ Log-in using your current credentials (of which I have saved wihin a text-file). [Now that is secure!] Finally, ~ Complete the process by retyping the normal web-site address in t'old navigation-bar.
It's no fault of Junior's: I fear that "Vanilla" have a 'white-list' of characters which are acceptable from 'remote' sites. [The point would be to stop XSS attacks, but you all know that, don't you?] So if your password - say - includes the '@' symbol (and, no, don't guess why I think it may) then direct login access may be difficult from this site.
In this case, the fault is not Apple's, but the completely bonkers feature of the US tax system whereby Apple would pay punitive rates of US tax if they remitted cash held abroad back to the US. Unsurprisingly, therefore, they leave the cash abroad (where much of it is earned - this is not an artificial tax-avoidance wheeze) - a mind-blowing hundred billion dollars of cash. They are even being forced to borrow money on the US financial markets so they can pay out a dividend to shareholders, when they've got $100bn in various non-US banks. Talk about perverse incentives in the tax system.
Rather than flinging insults at Apple, why don't Senators turn their attention to the ludicrous features of the US tax system, which can be fixed without international agreement?
Much the same applies to those who moan about Google and Amazon here, with the difference that the UK government has no jurisdiction over VAT law. That aspect of the problem needs to be sorted out at the EU level - a big opportunity to do so was missed in Lisbon. Corporation tax also needs to be changed to reflect the new business models made possibly by internet commerce; however that really requires international cooperation.
Your "punitive rates of tax" is just US corporation tax.
But most countries don't apply tax on international remitances. So, France, for instance, has a global tax policy in a similar way to the US but makes an adjustment to the tax rate at the domestic group level to compensate. The US system is crazy in that if the companies leave the money offshore they pay 0% US tax, and if they bring it onshore they pay 35%.
This leads to all sorts of creative tax planning, distortions in the M&A market, balancing sheet grossing up, etc.
Your "punitive rates of tax" is just US corporation tax.
Indeed.
The problem is a corporation tax system which penalises remitting cash home.
This is a very broad use of the term "penalising". By your usage, any tax "penalises" to some extent. It is entirely reasonable for US- based corporations to pay US tax, as much as they'd like to only pay tax to the corrupt elite in tin-pot republics they can buy off.
I doubt any US company would ever pay 35% on its repatriated profits. The amount of deductions is insane.
I suppose the Congress could just tax global income, and demand it be paid whether or not it was repatriated. Although that seems ripe for being exploited by corporations willing to lie.
I doubt any US company would ever pay 35% on its repatriated profits. The amount of deductions is insane.
I suppose the Congress could just tax global income, and demand it be paid whether or not it was repatriated. Although that seems ripe for being exploited by corporations willing to lie.
Deductions are only available against profits earned in the US, so not applicable here.
The issue is that the US has a hybrid between global tax and domestic tax that doesn't really work. For it to be sensible they need to shift to either taxing cash or to taxing profits, but they can't mix and match. For years it didn't really matter, but from the mid 1990s onwards the ex-US growth of their big companies has been huge & that is what has created the issue.
And most corporations don't lie to the tax man. If they do then they should be ripped to pieces. So that is an unwarranted claim
This is a very broad use of the term "penalising". By your usage, any tax "penalises" to some extent. It is entirely reasonable for US- based corporations to pay US tax, as much as they'd like to only pay tax to the corrupt elite in tin-pot republics they can buy off.
Eh? What on earth are you going on about?
At the moment they don't pay US tax if they leave the cash abroad. They get penalised for remitting it to the US, so they don't remit it to the US and don't pay the tax. It may well be reasonable for US-based corporations to pay US tax on some foreign earnings, but US tax law is structured in such a bonkers way that, not only do they not pay US tax on those earnings, they are also actively discouraged from bringing the funds back into the US.
An elderly woman whose home was destroyed by the Oklahoma tornado found her pet dog among the rubble during a live TV interview.
The footage of Barbara Garcia came as fellow survivors began reliving the terror they felt while winds of up to 200mph obliterated their neighbourhoods.
Mrs Garcia was standing among the twisted wreckage of her home as she was interviewed about her experiences by a reporter from CBS.
"I was sitting on the stool holding my dog," she said.
"This was the game plan all through the years, to go in that little bathroom (together). I rolled around a little bit and when it stopped I was right there (and) that stove cooker is what I saw.
"I never lost consciousness and I hollered for my little dog and he didn't answer, he didn't come, so I know he's in here somewhere.
But as she spoke, a member of the camera crew spotted a dog's head poking out of the twisted remains of her home. Mrs Garcia is seen crouching down before exclaiming with joy as she spots her pet.
Thanks for that link, Miss Plato. I'll try to remember to listen to it (probably on the iPlayer).
The notion of a lie-detector is little more than a lie itself, as it's barely better than tossing a coin. It's only real use is persuading the intellectual subnormal to incriminate themselves before the Box of Magic reveals their deceit.
Here lies David Cameron. He thought he'd be quite good at being Prime Minister, but he wasn't very good at politics.
As has been said, good governance can result in bad politics and good politics can result in poor governance (eg Blair). Cameron anticipated a coalition before the GE and made plans accordingly - good politics. When you are in a majority government you can adjust your policies to bolster your party. That's not so easy when you are in coalition. The problem for the Tories is that the last Labour government enshrined in law the things which create the most difficulties - unrestrained immigration from the EU and loss of veto powers via the Lisbon Treaty. ukip should be turning their fire on Labour as the source of our multiple miseries.
Actually, it was the Tories who signed up to free movement of peoples within the EU and enshrined it into law.
And the unintended consequences are..........................................
Thanks for that link, Miss Plato. I'll try to remember to listen to it (probably on the iPlayer).
The notion of a lie-detector is little more than a lie itself, as it's barely better than tossing a coin. It's only real use is persuading the intellectual subnormal to incriminate themselves before the Box of Magic reveals their deceit.
That's very much the conclusion of the prog - that incriminating yourself during a lie detector test are admissible in court... but the test itself isn't...
The problem is, it is extremely difficult for US tax authorities to work out whether US companies are being honest amount money that it has earned in the rest of the world.
In this case, the fault is not Apple's, but the completely bonkers feature of the US tax system whereby Apple would pay punitive rates of US tax if they remitted cash held abroad back to the US. Unsurprisingly, therefore, they leave the cash abroad (where much of it is earned - this is not an artificial tax-avoidance wheeze) - a mind-blowing hundred billion dollars of cash. They are even being forced to borrow money on the US financial markets so they can pay out a dividend to shareholders, when they've got $100bn in various non-US banks. Talk about perverse incentives in the tax system.
Rather than flinging insults at Apple, why don't Senators turn their attention to the ludicrous features of the US tax system, which can be fixed without international agreement?
Much the same applies to those who moan about Google and Amazon here, with the difference that the UK government has no jurisdiction over VAT law. That aspect of the problem needs to be sorted out at the EU level - a big opportunity to do so was missed in Lisbon. Corporation tax also needs to be changed to reflect the new business models made possibly by internet commerce; however that really requires international cooperation.
Your "punitive rates of tax" is just US corporation tax.
But most countries don't apply tax on international remitances. So, France, for instance, has a global tax policy in a similar way to the US but makes an adjustment to the tax rate at the domestic group level to compensate. The US system is crazy in that if the companies leave the money offshore they pay 0% US tax, and if they bring it onshore they pay 35%.
This leads to all sorts of creative tax planning, distortions in the M&A market, balancing sheet grossing up, etc.
US Companies with interests overseas pay tax on overseas profits under sub-part F of the IRS code.
The equivalent in the UK is the Controlled Foreign Companies legislation.
An elderly woman whose home was destroyed by the Oklahoma tornado found her pet dog among the rubble during a live TV interview.
The footage of Barbara Garcia came as fellow survivors began reliving the terror they felt while winds of up to 200mph obliterated their neighbourhoods.
Mrs Garcia was standing among the twisted wreckage of her home as she was interviewed about her experiences by a reporter from CBS.
"I was sitting on the stool holding my dog," she said.
"This was the game plan all through the years, to go in that little bathroom (together). I rolled around a little bit and when it stopped I was right there (and) that stove cooker is what I saw.
"I never lost consciousness and I hollered for my little dog and he didn't answer, he didn't come, so I know he's in here somewhere.
But as she spoke, a member of the camera crew spotted a dog's head poking out of the twisted remains of her home. Mrs Garcia is seen crouching down before exclaiming with joy as she spots her pet.
I dont want to worry anyone but didn't the film "The Day After Tomorrow" have scenes of giant twisters presaging a new ice age? Just a thought before you go to bed.
Here lies David Cameron. He thought he'd be quite good at being Prime Minister, but he wasn't very good at politics.
As has been said, good governance can result in bad politics and good politics can result in poor governance (eg Blair). Cameron anticipated a coalition before the GE and made plans accordingly - good politics. When you are in a majority government you can adjust your policies to bolster your party. That's not so easy when you are in coalition. The problem for the Tories is that the last Labour government enshrined in law the things which create the most difficulties - unrestrained immigration from the EU and loss of veto powers via the Lisbon Treaty. ukip should be turning their fire on Labour as the source of our multiple miseries.
Actually, it was the Tories who signed up to free movement of peoples within the EU and enshrined it into law.
And the unintended consequences are..........................................
Many and manifest. But I have few problems in the eager, ambitious and hardworking coming to this country to make a contribution to it - especially if, at the same time, it alloows our elderly and non-contributing pensioners to spend their later years in warmer climes sipping on cheap booze and complaininghow everything has gone to the dogs.
For me the bigger and much more damaging immigration issue - and the one which Labour got spectacularly wrong - was the loosening of controls over arrivals of non-contributors from outside the EU.
It's also worth noting, by the way, that Maastricht greatly increased the incidence of QMV and reduced the power of the British veto.
On topic: The party ID weightings question is interesting. At first glance it looks wrong that, as Mike says, the “value” of those who identify themselves as Ukip is reduced by by more than 75%.
However, is this a correct interpretation? I thought YouGov kept a database of the replies its respondents gave to various questions over a period of time. Thus, I don't think the weighting relates to those who identify themselves as UKIP today, but to those who did so in the past. This is probably a correct weighting to apply - if you don't apply it, on a panel-based polling system you'll get a distortion from increased enthusiasm to respond from supporters of whichever party is currently on a roll.
In this case, the fault is not Apple's, but the completely bonkers feature of the US tax system whereby Apple would pay punitive rates of US tax if they remitted cash held abroad back to the US. Unsurprisingly, therefore, they leave the cash abroad (where much of it is earned - this is not an artificial tax-avoidance wheeze) - a mind-blowing hundred billion dollars of cash. They are even being forced to borrow money on the US financial markets so they can pay out a dividend to shareholders, when they've got $100bn in various non-US banks. Talk about perverse incentives in the tax system.
Rather than flinging insults at Apple, why don't Senators turn their attention to the ludicrous features of the US tax system, which can be fixed without international agreement?
Much the same applies to those who moan about Google and Amazon here, with the difference that the UK government has no jurisdiction over VAT law. That aspect of the problem needs to be sorted out at the EU level - a big opportunity to do so was missed in Lisbon. Corporation tax also needs to be changed to reflect the new business models made possibly by internet commerce; however that really requires international cooperation.
Your "punitive rates of tax" is just US corporation tax.
But most countries don't apply tax on international remitances. So, France, for instance, has a global tax policy in a similar way to the US but makes an adjustment to the tax rate at the domestic group level to compensate. The US system is crazy in that if the companies leave the money offshore they pay 0% US tax, and if they bring it onshore they pay 35%.
This leads to all sorts of creative tax planning, distortions in the M&A market, balancing sheet grossing up, etc.
US Companies with interests overseas pay tax on overseas profits under sub-part F of the IRS code.
The equivalent in the UK is the Controlled Foreign Companies legislation.
I'm not a tax expert, but I do know they don't pay tax on unremitted earnings.
God bless Tebbit. I was seriously nostalgic for Baroness Young type comments yesterday when the best we had was Gerald Howarth uncovering the aggressive homosexual lobby. I hope Tebbit contributes a lot to the Lords' debates.
I'm truly saddened that Lord Tebbit has entered the fray with such foolish comments. He seems to have a blind spot on gay issues and I'm sure many Conservatives will squirm in sheer embarrassment at his comments.
Tebbit does of course represent a strand of Conservative and Ukip thinking but even many of them will wish he just retires and sleeps peacefully on those red benches.
I totally agree re Mr Tebbit - he's the darling of the DT Kippers and whilst I sympathised with several of his views back in the 80s - he's totally disconnected from what seems to be the political centre-ground today.
Generational shifts over 30yrs keep cropping up over the whole spectrum - be it class war, or nostalgia or whatever. I find this all very peculiar.
Well, the UKIP manifesto is pretty good for everyone. A 25% flat tax is great for mega-rich bankers; the citizens' pension is great for those who have retired; the halving of electricity prices will be fantastic for all who use the stuff; leaving the EU will mean British firms will no longer need to compete with pesky foreigners; and by cancelling the vast bulk of immigration it will be great for the unemployed.
Oh yes, and the deficit is going to be reduced.
Junior,
Your attempt to sound like a Nineteenth Century Unionist would be more convincing if you could explain how England managed to trade with the world - just think how we would have struggled against India and those 'Chinks' - prior to accession in 1973. Please don't do irony: Pata's attempts are bad enough....
"A Labour victory in 2015 might actually be the worst option for those wishing to avoid a UK exit. Not only would Labour come under immense pressure to hold its own referendum, but it could be forced to do so without having attempted or achieved any meaningful reform. Worse, a mid-term (and unpopular) Labour Prime Minister campaigning for an “in” could be faced with a new Conservative leader campaigning for an “out.”"
In this case, the fault is not Apple's, but the completely bonkers feature of the US tax system whereby Apple would pay punitive rates of US tax if they remitted cash held abroad back to the US. Unsurprisingly, therefore, they leave the cash abroad (where much of it is earned - this is not an artificial tax-avoidance wheeze) - a mind-blowing hundred billion dollars of cash. They are even being forced to borrow money on the US financial markets so they can pay out a dividend to shareholders, when they've got $100bn in various non-US banks. Talk about perverse incentives in the tax system.
Rather than flinging insults at Apple, why don't Senators turn their attention to the ludicrous features of the US tax system, which can be fixed without international agreement?
Much the same applies to those who moan about Google and Amazon here, with the difference that the UK government has no jurisdiction over VAT law. That aspect of the problem needs to be sorted out at the EU level - a big opportunity to do so was missed in Lisbon. Corporation tax also needs to be changed to reflect the new business models made possibly by internet commerce; however that really requires international cooperation.
Your "punitive rates of tax" is just US corporation tax.
But most countries don't apply tax on international remitances. So, France, for instance, has a global tax policy in a similar way to the US but makes an adjustment to the tax rate at the domestic group level to compensate. The US system is crazy in that if the companies leave the money offshore they pay 0% US tax, and if they bring it onshore they pay 35%.
This leads to all sorts of creative tax planning, distortions in the M&A market, balancing sheet grossing up, etc.
US Companies with interests overseas pay tax on overseas profits under sub-part F of the IRS code.
The equivalent in the UK is the Controlled Foreign Companies legislation.
I'm not a tax expert, but I do know they don't pay tax on unremitted earnings.
I am not a US tax expert, Charles, but I believe sub-part F works in roughly the same way as the UK CFC legislation.
Under the CFC rules, you can defer tax on overseas profits by holding it offshore, typically for eighteen months, and then if you do not remit most back home, you pay UK tax on them as if you did (so you you may as well remit and suffer the UK tax.)
The UK rules exempt capital gains, which is why many UK based international companies appear to pay very low rates of tax worldwide. The exempt gains dilute the tax on the other profits.
I believe the US capital gains rules are similar but as i said, I am not an expert.
The CBS team who filmed that must be rather bewildered: by their own astonishing luck. Two minutes of interview footage that will live forever.
It's like a news report by Jim Carrie in Bruce Almighty.
I still find it remarkable that people will thank their Omnipotent Middle Eastern Sky Fairy for some small deliverance in the midst of a great disaster whilst refusing to blame him for the disaster in the first place.
Well, the UKIP manifesto is pretty good for everyone. A 25% flat tax is great for mega-rich bankers; the citizens' pension is great for those who have retired; the halving of electricity prices will be fantastic for all who use the stuff; leaving the EU will mean British firms will no longer need to compete with pesky foreigners; and by cancelling the vast bulk of immigration it will be great for the unemployed.
Oh yes, and the deficit is going to be reduced.
Junior,
Your attempt to sound like a Nineteenth Century Unionist would be more convincing if you could explain how England managed to trade with the world - just think how we would have struggled against India and those 'Chinks' - prior to accession in 1973. Please don't do irony: Pata's attempts are bad enough....
Chahs',
It's funny, I only added said text at the end, and I knew it was not really fair when I wrote it. So, feel free to strike that from my text. It's not UKIP policy, and it was very poor form of me to suggest that it was.
The CBS team who filmed that must be rather bewildered: by their own astonishing luck. Two minutes of interview footage that will live forever.
It's like a news report by Jim Carrie in Bruce Almighty.
It reminded me of Drop The Dead Donkey and the reporter Damian Day who always *discovers* a teddy at the scene... its superb footage by CBS and a 1 in a million bit of TV.
(1) The rate of decline in places like Portugal and Greece isn't even slowing. This suggests they really are better off just leaving the Euro.
(2) It's absurd to structure our trade policy around putting trade with these countries above trade with everyone else.
Thanks for the graph Socrates. People might also be interested to see this, comparing Greece over the last five years to the US after five years of the Great Depression.
Two main differences. Greek exports have not crashed as much as in the US during the Great Depression. Greek government spending has been cut 15%, whereas it increased in the US - even before the New Deal.
Maybe it's what kept her going throughout the tornado, and whatever other suffering she's been through in life. Poking fun of the beliefs of disaster victims is the sort of thing that makes people dislike atheists.
So now Cameron has managed to make Norman Tebbit look like a total pillock. .
That's a novel one, to add to the extraordinarily long list of idiotic things people blame Cameron for.
Whilst I'm a great admirer of Lord Tebbitt in many respects, in this particular matter he really didn't need any assistance from David Cameron; he has made himself look like a total pillock completely unaided.
It's complicated. Let's take Apple. It's Irish subsidiary will make profits in Ireland, on which it will pay corporation tax to the Irish government. It will also pay remittance - for marketing support, or for LCD panels etc., - some of which will go back to the parent in the US on which it will not pay tax. However, if it pays a dividend back to Apple Inc. in California then that will be taxed by the US tax man. As that dividend will be paid out of post-tax earnings at Apple Ireland then yes, Apple will have paid tax twice. (Just as a dividend paid to you by Shell is after the company has paid corporation tax, and you will be liable to pay income tax on a portion of the dividend.)
That said, it's important to note that US companies file accounts that show the tax owed on repatriation to the US government as a liability. So, they will not have to declare additional costs on sending money back home.
Essentially, US companies like to show big cash balances in their accounts, because the cash number they show is before the liability they would incur on remitting the money back to the parent.
Do let me know if a kitten survived the Bangladesh building tragedy won't you. Maybe we should know if someone prayed for the kitten and saw it as a miracle while seeing no hand of god in the other deaths.
I'm afraid glimmers of hope amidst tragedy are wasted on you "tim" unless of course we're discussing Ed recanting on Labour's "economic miracle."
Well, the UKIP manifesto is pretty good for everyone. A 25% flat tax is great for mega-rich bankers; the citizens' pension is great for those who have retired; the halving of electricity prices will be fantastic for all who use the stuff; leaving the EU will mean British firms will no longer need to compete with pesky foreigners; and by cancelling the vast bulk of immigration it will be great for the unemployed.
Oh yes, and the deficit is going to be reduced.
Junior,
Your attempt to sound like a Nineteenth Century Unionist would be more convincing if you could explain how England managed to trade with the world - just think how we would have struggled against India and those 'Chinks' - prior to accession in 1973. Please don't do irony: Pata's attempts are bad enough....
Chahs',
It's funny, I only added said text at the end, and I knew it was not really fair when I wrote it. So, feel free to strike that from my text. It's not UKIP policy, and it was very poor form of me to suggest that it was.
I'm not an expert on this stuff, but I believe Apple largely does not pay corporation tax in Ireland because it doesn't have a workforce there, with the income coming from patent ownership.
The CBS team who filmed that must be rather bewildered: by their own astonishing luck. Two minutes of interview footage that will live forever.
It's like a news report by Jim Carrie in Bruce Almighty.
I still find it remarkable that people will thank their Omnipotent Middle Eastern Sky Fairy for some small deliverance in the midst of a great disaster whilst refusing to blame him for the disaster in the first place.
It's cause most of us have a "God module" in our heads. And also, of course, because God clearly exists, though as you are mentally deficient in the former department, you won't comprehend the latter.
If we're defining God in terms of an intelligent creator, it's interesting that it now looks very possible the "fine-tuned universe" argument took a knock the other day, with the first possible evidence of a multiverse.
It's complicated. Let's take Apple. It's Irish subsidiary will make profits in Ireland, on which it will pay corporation tax to the Irish government. It will also pay remittance - for marketing support, or for LCD panels etc., - some of which will go back to the parent in the US on which it will not pay tax. However, if it pays a dividend back to Apple Inc. in California then that will be taxed by the US tax man. As that dividend will be paid out of post-tax earnings at Apple Ireland then yes, Apple will have paid tax twice. (Just as a dividend paid to you by Shell is after the company has paid corporation tax, and you will be liable to pay income tax on a portion of the dividend.)
That said, it's important to note that US companies file accounts that show the tax owed on repatriation to the US government as a liability. So, they will not have to declare additional costs on sending money back home.
Essentially, US companies like to show big cash balances in their accounts, because the cash number they show is before the liability they would incur on remitting the money back to the parent.
But where it begins to distort the market is because certain companies (which I shall not name) think about their cost of capital incorrectly. The fact is that if they spend the money without remitting it they reduce their future tax liability as well as their cash number. Hence they can make investments in ex-US businesses (either organic or M&A) out of gross cash. They believe that this reduces the cost of capital to their shareholders and hence they can pay more than fundamental value for assets (while ignoring the fact that the future cashflows will also be off-shore and therefore subject to tax if they are ever remitted back to the US for distribution).
Yes, I'm sure. Used to be in the biz and I don't think the rules have changed that much.
Of course the US companies would very likely be credited with double tax relief on the overseas profits remitted back home, so the domestic liability would be substantially mitigated if not eliminated entirely.
I'm not an expert on this stuff, but I believe Apple largely does not pay corporation tax in Ireland because it doesn't have a workforce there, with the income coming from patent ownership.
Well, I was using Apple as an example. But Apple does have a great many employees in Ireland. There is a large facility in Cork, for example. (A great deal of the European computing industry assembles in Ireland to take full advantage of the Intel fab located outside Dublin. But that's another story.)
That said, Apple does use an SPV that has no employees whasoever, and which is based in Ireland, to shield taxes IIRC. (This is all comes from memory, but Apple has been amongst the most egregious of all the US companies in using funny vehicles to avoid writing cheques.) Remember, though, that if it ever wants to spend the money then it has to remit it back to an operating company.
"Ah, but then Brilliant Dave Cameron decided to adopt a policy, out of nowhere, not in his manifesto, on this very same subject, so all his party's crankiness was exposed to the world. Not only that, such was his political smarts, Dave simultaneously drove millions of voters to UKIP and got not a single vote in return. Fab.
And he did all this, to make a tiny change to the law, which changes virtually nothing, and about which only a few Guardian-writing gay activists really care, and even they aren't that fussed.
Genius. Pure genius"
This has puzzled me from the moment it popped up - where on Earth did it come from? As you note - no one really cared at all.
It simply exercised the socially conservative/religious bit of the Tories for no gain.
I was chatting to a Tory activist the other day and had to say that Cameron is too Social Demo/Guardian reading for even me as a New Labourite. I think that says it all and I'm in favour of gay marriage now [but don't give a toss about it voting intention-wise].
I'm finding it very hard to support Mr Cameron at all - he's not appearing even right of centre anymore and needs a good crisis to get his party back on board.
Maybe this will be the moment where you apologise for a incorrect assertion. Cmon, show Southam that its ok for a lefty to admit when theyre wrong
Since you've appointed yourself as PB's conscience, did you ask MikeK to apologise for mistaking some crappy UKIP attempts at tweet satire yesterday for a 'disgusting' lefty parody? I can't be arsed looking, but as such a paragon of consistency, I'm sure you must have done.
Excellent article, especially the second half. I thought I knew a reasonable amount about Apple's tax activities, but clearly I was heavily deficient in my knowledge!
It's complicated. Let's take Apple. It's Irish subsidiary will make profits in Ireland, on which it will pay corporation tax to the Irish government. It will also pay remittance - for marketing support, or for LCD panels etc., - some of which will go back to the parent in the US on which it will not pay tax. However, if it pays a dividend back to Apple Inc. in California then that will be taxed by the US tax man. As that dividend will be paid out of post-tax earnings at Apple Ireland then yes, Apple will have paid tax twice. (Just as a dividend paid to you by Shell is after the company has paid corporation tax, and you will be liable to pay income tax on a portion of the dividend.)
That said, it's important to note that US companies file accounts that show the tax owed on repatriation to the US government as a liability. So, they will not have to declare additional costs on sending money back home.
Essentially, US companies like to show big cash balances in their accounts, because the cash number they show is before the liability they would incur on remitting the money back to the parent.
But where it begins to distort the market is because certain companies (which I shall not name) think about their cost of capital incorrectly. The fact is that if they spend the money without remitting it they reduce their future tax liability as well as their cash number. Hence they can make investments in ex-US businesses (either organic or M&A) out of gross cash. They believe that this reduces the cost of capital to their shareholders and hence they can pay more than fundamental value for assets (while ignoring the fact that the future cashflows will also be off-shore and therefore subject to tax if they are ever remitted back to the US for distribution).
All taxes distort the market, Charles.
It's part of the price we pay for all those hospitals, schools, roads and other stuff people seem to want from their governments.
Comments
We tittered uneasily, half-seduced by his charm as usual, but also rather suspecting that, just as you say, he saw it as a net benefit with the wider electorate.
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/opinion/columnists/rachelsylvester/article3770104.ece
Theresa May, at the instigation of Andrew Cooper, started it with the "nasty party" label. Incidentally anyone betting on Theresa May needs to think about it more deeply.
Thinking about the way the government is
cutting spending to reduce the government's
deficit, do you think this is...
Good or bad for the economy? (compared to one month ago)
Good: 37(+3)
Bad: 46 (-3)
DK: 17 (0)
Necessary or unnecessary?
Necessary: 57(-1)
Unnecessary: 29(+1)
DK: 15(+1)
Too deep, too shallow or at about the right
level?
Too deep: 40(-5)
Too shallow: 12(0)
Right level: 30 (+4)
DK: 18(0)
Being done too quickly, too slowly, or at about
the right pace?
Too quickly: 40(-3)
Too slowly: 12 (0)
Right pace: 29(+2)
DK: 15(0)
Having an impact on your own life, or not having
an impact on your own life?
Having: 54 (-1)
Not having: 35(+2)
DK: 12(-1)
And who do you think is most to blame for the
current spending cuts?
Con-LD Coalition: 29(+2)
Last Labour Gov. 36(0)
Both: 23(-2)
Neither: 4(0)
DK: 7(-1)
My understanding is that it is the transfer of intellectual property to such jurisdictions, leading to royalty payments shifting profit offshore, that is the main bone of contention. Thus a company can transfer profits out of the UK when only bits of paper exist in the tax haven and all the work done to create the profit - design, manufacture, distribution, retail - occur in the UK.
Am about halfway through S1 of Eureka and its most amusing - the attention to detail is great - Henry's overall's are all identical bar a single label depending on which unspoken role he's playing - from Mechanic to Forensics or Coroner.
I'm very impressed for a cable show. I must seek out other SyFy productions. I'm guessing the Global Dynamics name is a hat-tip to Massive Dynamics in Fringe. All very clever stuff.
I see from Wiki that its won an award or two for its accuracy of the science used and FX - well deserved.
"There's a lot we need to do in this party of ours. Our base is too narrow and so, occasionally, are our sympathies. You know what some people call us – the Nasty Party."
@iainmartin1
It feels like the Right has split irrevocably. PR on the way. My piece for @telegraph today. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/ukip/10068930/It-feels-like-the-Right-has-split-irrevocably.html …
Of course, there's no reason why the members of an association or branch of any party couldn't defect en mass should something raise their collective ire, but they'd be doing so as individuals acting collectively.
I suspect Tory discomfort on this issue was far more driven by the leadership's failure to consult via a manifesto pledge than prejudice or reactionary values.
Over the last three years real wages have fallen by 8.5%. Huge squeeze in incomes.
One thing that has changed is that many more people know LGBT people these days and have found that they are NOT deviants or monsters - they are just people like everyone else who just want to get on with their lives and be treated like everyone else.
Only complete bigots and unreasoning brutes would deny LGBT people the same rights as everyone else in society.
As for the polling differences, the only people who care are you lot and the politicians. Sorry, but that is what it is like out here for the rest of us. The economy is slowly recovering and people are too busy to care much about the Westminster arguments because almost all of what they are arguing in Parliament does not resonate with most people.
Bev.
In effect it's a re-run of colonialism except the imperial power isn't a nation-state but a collection of off-shored plutocrats.
I blame Osborne ;^ )
http://conservativehome.blogs.com/thetorydiary/2013/05/how-do-ukip-campaign.html
"Lord Tebbit, who recently said he could understand why many people vote Ukip, said the party would attract greater financial support if they won the European parliamentary elections next year. He said: "If they make significant gains in the European elections, I know there's people rich enough to get involved and fund a significant campaign at a general election."
The problem for the Tories is that the last Labour government enshrined in law the things which create the most difficulties - unrestrained immigration from the EU and loss of veto powers via the Lisbon Treaty.
ukip should be turning their fire on Labour as the source of our multiple miseries.
"ukip should be turning their fire on Labour as the source of our multiple miseries."
Yup - and Labour doesn't have a plan to deal with them at all. At least the Tories can attempt to address immigration/welfare/spending et al with some credibility - Labour are all at sea.
There will need to be warning signs: "Please do not feed Baroness O'Cathain"
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-22600984
In this case, the fault is not Apple's, but the completely bonkers feature of the US tax system whereby Apple would pay punitive rates of US tax if they remitted cash held abroad back to the US. Unsurprisingly, therefore, they leave the cash abroad (where much of it is earned - this is not an artificial tax-avoidance wheeze) - a mind-blowing hundred billion dollars of cash. They are even being forced to borrow money on the US financial markets so they can pay out a dividend to shareholders, when they've got $100bn in various non-US banks. Talk about perverse incentives in the tax system.
Rather than flinging insults at Apple, why don't Senators turn their attention to the ludicrous features of the US tax system, which can be fixed without international agreement?
Much the same applies to those who moan about Google and Amazon here, with the difference that the UK government has no jurisdiction over VAT law. That aspect of the problem needs to be sorted out at the EU level - a big opportunity to do so was missed in Lisbon. Corporation tax also needs to be changed to reflect the new business models made possibly by internet commerce; however that really requires international cooperation.
When Cameron made it, UKIP was at (?) 3-4% in the polls. Now they are at c. 20%.
Let's assume that 1% of those numbers are "fruitcakes and closet racists". When you are talking about 25-33% (1/3 or 1/4) it may be a fair comment. When you are talking about 5% (1/20) it is clearly not.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/files/2013/05/BKThrO5CUAEhPM9.jpg
It really just rams home two things:
(1) The rate of decline in places like Portugal and Greece isn't even slowing. This suggests they really are better off just leaving the Euro.
(2) It's absurd to structure our trade policy around putting trade with these countries above trade with everyone else.
Labour have a wally, a headbanger and a blank sheet of paper.
Aint rocket science.
Your "punitive rates of tax" is just US corporation tax.
The history of the lie detector http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22467640
"The polygraph machine was invented in 1921 in Berkeley, California.
"Berkeley was a town with a very famous police chief, August Vollmer, and he was in charge of police reform and a leader of police professionalisation in the United States," says Ken Alder, professor of history at Northwestern University in Chicago.
"He actually wanted to use the science to make the cops more law-abiding themselves, to substitute this new scientific interrogation for what was formerly known as the third degree, which was a way of getting information from people by beating them up."
The Truth And Nothing But The Truth is on Tuesday 21 May on 11:00 BST on BBC Radio 4 or catch it later on the BBC iPlayer.
Berkeley police officer John Larson created the first machine, basing it on the systolic blood pressure test pioneered by psychologist William Moulton Marston, who would later become a comic book writer and create Wonder Woman..."
The problem is a corporation tax system which penalises remitting cash home.
And before I start reading the thread from the beginning; just an observation. Logging into this site (and why it is difficult).
We all remember the nightmare of having to create a new "Vanilla" password, right? The use of complex passwords constructed with non-standard letters, hey...?
Well here is the problem: Junior's site ain't too good at allowing access at times (or via various devices). [Who else clears their cache to avoid paying for "The Telegraph's" access to the madness that are the 'Scottish' threads?]
So logging into/onto OGH's site is something of a Liberal-Democrat; an abject, total failure. But here is what you should do:
~ Click upon some eejit's user-link to access the under-lying "Vanilla" infrastructure,
~ To the right of the menu-bar is a log-in option. Use it,
~ Log-in using your current credentials (of which I have saved wihin a text-file). [Now that is secure!] Finally,
~ Complete the process by retyping the normal web-site address in t'old navigation-bar.
It's no fault of Junior's: I fear that "Vanilla" have a 'white-list' of characters which are acceptable from 'remote' sites. [The point would be to stop XSS attacks, but you all know that, don't you?] So if your password - say - includes the '@' symbol (and, no, don't guess why I think it may) then direct login access may be difficult from this site.
Anyhoos, of to read t'thread.
This leads to all sorts of creative tax planning, distortions in the M&A market, balancing sheet grossing up, etc.
I doubt any US company would ever pay 35% on its repatriated profits. The amount of deductions is insane.
I suppose the Congress could just tax global income, and demand it be paid whether or not it was repatriated. Although that seems ripe for being exploited by corporations willing to lie.
Thinking he's it:
Tounge-in-mouth,
Dreams of licking lips.
Who knows best,
The taste just seems:
Some member,
Licking some cream.
The issue is that the US has a hybrid between global tax and domestic tax that doesn't really work. For it to be sensible they need to shift to either taxing cash or to taxing profits, but they can't mix and match. For years it didn't really matter, but from the mid 1990s onwards the ex-US growth of their big companies has been huge & that is what has created the issue.
And most corporations don't lie to the tax man. If they do then they should be ripped to pieces. So that is an unwarranted claim
At the moment they don't pay US tax if they leave the cash abroad. They get penalised for remitting it to the US, so they don't remit it to the US and don't pay the tax. It may well be reasonable for US-based corporations to pay US tax on some foreign earnings, but US tax law is structured in such a bonkers way that, not only do they not pay US tax on those earnings, they are also actively discouraged from bringing the funds back into the US.
An elderly woman whose home was destroyed by the Oklahoma tornado found her pet dog among the rubble during a live TV interview.
The footage of Barbara Garcia came as fellow survivors began reliving the terror they felt while winds of up to 200mph obliterated their neighbourhoods.
Mrs Garcia was standing among the twisted wreckage of her home as she was interviewed about her experiences by a reporter from CBS.
"I was sitting on the stool holding my dog," she said.
"This was the game plan all through the years, to go in that little bathroom (together). I rolled around a little bit and when it stopped I was right there (and) that stove cooker is what I saw.
"I never lost consciousness and I hollered for my little dog and he didn't answer, he didn't come, so I know he's in here somewhere.
But as she spoke, a member of the camera crew spotted a dog's head poking out of the twisted remains of her home. Mrs Garcia is seen crouching down before exclaiming with joy as she spots her pet.
"Well I thought God just answered one prayer to let me be OK but he answered both of them," she said, before being led away from the ruins with her dog. http://news.sky.com/story/1093711/tornado-survivor-finds-dog-during-tv-interview
The notion of a lie-detector is little more than a lie itself, as it's barely better than tossing a coin. It's only real use is persuading the intellectual subnormal to incriminate themselves before the Box of Magic reveals their deceit.
Thank you for your comments.
The problem is, it is extremely difficult for US tax authorities to work out whether US companies are being honest amount money that it has earned in the rest of the world.
The equivalent in the UK is the Controlled Foreign Companies legislation.
I posted this last night. Not many saw it or disregarded it:
Massive tornados of unusual ferocity have been hitting the middle west of the USA for the past week.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-22604251
I dont want to worry anyone but didn't the film "The Day After Tomorrow" have scenes of giant twisters presaging a new ice age? Just a thought before you go to bed.
For me the bigger and much more damaging immigration issue - and the one which Labour got spectacularly wrong - was the loosening of controls over arrivals of non-contributors from outside the EU.
It's also worth noting, by the way, that Maastricht greatly increased the incidence of QMV and reduced the power of the British veto.
However, is this a correct interpretation? I thought YouGov kept a database of the replies its respondents gave to various questions over a period of time. Thus, I don't think the weighting relates to those who identify themselves as UKIP today, but to those who did so in the past. This is probably a correct weighting to apply - if you don't apply it, on a panel-based polling system you'll get a distortion from increased enthusiasm to respond from supporters of whichever party is currently on a roll.
Tebbit does of course represent a strand of Conservative and Ukip thinking but even many of them will wish he just retires and sleeps peacefully on those red benches.
RIP
I totally agree re Mr Tebbit - he's the darling of the DT Kippers and whilst I sympathised with several of his views back in the 80s - he's totally disconnected from what seems to be the political centre-ground today.
Generational shifts over 30yrs keep cropping up over the whole spectrum - be it class war, or nostalgia or whatever. I find this all very peculiar.
You really don't help yourself do you "tim" ?
So US companies need to pay tax both when they earn the money overseas and when they repatriate it? Are you sure?
Your attempt to sound like a Nineteenth Century Unionist would be more convincing if you could explain how England managed to trade with the world - just think how we would have struggled against India and those 'Chinks' - prior to accession in 1973. Please don't do irony: Pata's attempts are bad enough....
Chahs',
Indeed, and well said.
"Vote Labour if you want to leave the EU"
http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/blog/europe-referendum-labour-lib-dems/#.UZtOu7WceSk
"A Labour victory in 2015 might actually be the worst option for those wishing to avoid a UK exit. Not only would Labour come under immense pressure to hold its own referendum, but it could be forced to do so without having attempted or achieved any meaningful reform. Worse, a mid-term (and unpopular) Labour Prime Minister campaigning for an “in” could be faced with a new Conservative leader campaigning for an “out.”"
Under the CFC rules, you can defer tax on overseas profits by holding it offshore, typically for eighteen months, and then if you do not remit most back home, you pay UK tax on them as if you did (so you you may as well remit and suffer the UK tax.)
The UK rules exempt capital gains, which is why many UK based international companies appear to pay very low rates of tax worldwide. The exempt gains dilute the tax on the other profits.
I believe the US capital gains rules are similar but as i said, I am not an expert.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQ2bvR3BT_g
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013/03/15/business/after-five-years.html?ref=economy
Two main differences. Greek exports have not crashed as much as in the US during the Great Depression. Greek government spending has been cut 15%, whereas it increased in the US - even before the New Deal.
Maybe it's what kept her going throughout the tornado, and whatever other suffering she's been through in life. Poking fun of the beliefs of disaster victims is the sort of thing that makes people dislike atheists.
Whilst I'm a great admirer of Lord Tebbitt in many respects, in this particular matter he really didn't need any assistance from David Cameron; he has made himself look like a total pillock completely unaided.
"So now Cameron has managed to make Norman Tebbit look like a total pillock."
On gay issues the old "Chingford Skinhead" is a stand alone pillock.
It's complicated. Let's take Apple. It's Irish subsidiary will make profits in Ireland, on which it will pay corporation tax to the Irish government. It will also pay remittance - for marketing support, or for LCD panels etc., - some of which will go back to the parent in the US on which it will not pay tax. However, if it pays a dividend back to Apple Inc. in California then that will be taxed by the US tax man. As that dividend will be paid out of post-tax earnings at Apple Ireland then yes, Apple will have paid tax twice. (Just as a dividend paid to you by Shell is after the company has paid corporation tax, and you will be liable to pay income tax on a portion of the dividend.)
That said, it's important to note that US companies file accounts that show the tax owed on repatriation to the US government as a liability. So, they will not have to declare additional costs on sending money back home.
Essentially, US companies like to show big cash balances in their accounts, because the cash number they show is before the liability they would incur on remitting the money back to the parent.
You have not read the link, so have misunderstood Mikes comment
He posted last night about the effect and frequency of the tornadoes, nothing to do with the dog story
You just hastily called him a "sad bastard" because you disagree with his politics
Maybe this will be the moment where you apologise for a incorrect assertion. Cmon, show Southam that its ok for a lefty to admit when theyre wrong
'Urgent Question from @andyburnhammp at 1230 on government's response to A&E crisis'
At least he's come out of hiding,has he apologized yet for mid Staffs?
Guffaws grimly ....
Mr. T, if God clearly existed faith would be unnecessary and religion would be science.
I'd call Social Services myself ;^ )
I'm not an expert on this stuff, but I believe Apple largely does not pay corporation tax in Ireland because it doesn't have a workforce there, with the income coming from patent ownership.
Shouldnt you apolgise to Mike for your misreading of his post causing you to call him a "Sad Bastard"?
It was a blatant error forced by haste on your part.
Yes, I'm sure. Used to be in the biz and I don't think the rules have changed that much.
Of course the US companies would very likely be credited with double tax relief on the overseas profits remitted back home, so the domestic liability would be substantially mitigated if not eliminated entirely.
That said, Apple does use an SPV that has no employees whasoever, and which is based in Ireland, to shield taxes IIRC. (This is all comes from memory, but Apple has been amongst the most egregious of all the US companies in using funny vehicles to avoid writing cheques.) Remember, though, that if it ever wants to spend the money then it has to remit it back to an operating company.
"Ah, but then Brilliant Dave Cameron decided to adopt a policy, out of nowhere, not in his manifesto, on this very same subject, so all his party's crankiness was exposed to the world. Not only that, such was his political smarts, Dave simultaneously drove millions of voters to UKIP and got not a single vote in return. Fab.
And he did all this, to make a tiny change to the law, which changes virtually nothing, and about which only a few Guardian-writing gay activists really care, and even they aren't that fussed.
Genius. Pure genius"
This has puzzled me from the moment it popped up - where on Earth did it come from? As you note - no one really cared at all.
It simply exercised the socially conservative/religious bit of the Tories for no gain.
I was chatting to a Tory activist the other day and had to say that Cameron is too Social Demo/Guardian reading for even me as a New Labourite. I think that says it all and I'm in favour of gay marriage now [but don't give a toss about it voting intention-wise].
I'm finding it very hard to support Mr Cameron at all - he's not appearing even right of centre anymore and needs a good crisis to get his party back on board.
http://www.rte.ie/news/business/2013/0521/451564-apple-tax-arrangements/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3UVHT4tcMM
It's part of the price we pay for all those hospitals, schools, roads and other stuff people seem to want from their governments.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-22606204