Thought Id start this one going because its rather dead on this board at the moment and I suppose all my usual muckers are either at the Stella tennis event watching Dim Tim (lose again) or at Henly Regatta eating cucumber sandwiches (they wish,...NOT).

Anyway please feel free to just talk to yourself blast away and let it go on any company or subject you wish. Just wish Id thought of this one before.

cheers GF.

No - I walk to the gym (about 10 minutes) and have, after a couple of months of walking etc, just started running again.

Its not keeping fit that's the hard bit - its getting fit in the 1st place! :-(

skinny

you need to do weight training as well otherwise you will lose your muscle mass , did you know that we start loosing it from about 30 years old but don't notice it until we are in our mid to late 40's

I am - and yes I did know. I was probably at my fittest (youth apart) in my early 40's, but haven't done anything of note - other than walking, for about 10 years.

Hence my comment in post 17258!

Skinny,

I hope you expect to live longer than that.

Longer than what Fred?

Anyone else think its very hypocritical any MP criticising Jimmy Carr and others for using 'morally wrong' tax avoidance schemes, when their favourite hobby was 'House Flipping' to avoid CGT.
Also their attitude, 'We have a better pension than you, so up yours', which once again knocks their message that pension reform and retirement ages are necessary, which of course they are.

Not forgetting that they are still not required to show receipts for all expenses.

Fiddling Barstewards the lot of them!

I can't see the 'morally wrong' part at all. There are no 'morals' incolved with tax. Taxation rates are arbitary. If you can pay less then why not. If you can get everyone else to pay more and you less then so much better. I would prefer all taxation to be at a flat frate of say 20% and no increase as income rises. Income tax was only supposed to have been a temporary phase to pay for one particular war. I can see how there may be benefits to the majority to get people to pay more than 1% and it may be a useful tactic to make them feel bad about it. But taking the moral highground is a bit silly.

I wonder how much Jimmy Carr regrets his mistake in using the tax avidance scheme. Does he regret it it enough to pay back the tax he has saved? I notice that no one has mentioned the tax he was supposed to have paid.

Haystack - were /are you as I was - ie a freelance IT consultant? If so, how did you operate pre IR35 days?

It seems the tax is for ordinary people.

The very poor (as we know them) are also misusing the system. It is hard to believe, and I hope is wrong, but I heard that some people on benefit, mainly foreigners, use a couple of different names to get benefits a couple of times under each name, and even use different names for each child (even borrow child from each other when necessary) to increase their benefit!!! Do/Can the councils, doctors or whoever responsible check the validity of the records!!.

I think they should exempt all the foreigners (non-British) from receiving any benefit, including free doctor visit (GP), free treatment (hospitals), free buss passes, disability allowance, housing benefit, and etc.... They should have medical insurance before coming here, and if they don't have don't come here.

It appears that the system cannot check properly.

skinny
As self employed for many years then through a limited company for many more years when the law changed. Then I had a software company with premises employing quite a few people.

ahoj I can tell you a fact I new a polish person useing is own and is brothers passport and he was claiming for is brother and working on is passport . he as now gone somewhere else they move around to stop being caught out they no all the scams

and the people working in the offices will not say anything because of being sacked for being racist . that is why all immigrants are safe from being found out they no this . benefits are out of control because of being called a racist , not fiction fact

'House Flipping' was illegal , what Jimmy Carr did was legal good luck to him i would do the same then i could choose if i wanted to donate money to a charity and not let my tax be wasted on benefit parisites

Why the government do not act? How can i contact them?

The people in the government are either ignorant, stupid, busy finding ways to avoid paying their personal tax, or overloaded with minor issues.

No country in the world is run like this. Human Right is (mis-)used (ONLY) by criminals. They are milking the country.

I wish I could contact Cameron and talk to him for ten minutes.

Haystack - the limited company goes without saying.

Pre IR35 all sorts of things were allowable and legal - most fellow consultants claimed legal expenses that other people doing similar jobs but in permanent PAYE situations, could only dream of.

Whilst I think that what Jimmy Carr did was excessive, it was nevertheless, legal.

Haystack,

You say, 'I can't see the 'morally wrong' part at all. There are no 'morals' involved with tax.'
Fully agree.
If I could use a tax avoidance scheme, I would do. It is up to the authorities to make sure loop holes are not there to be exploited.
What I do feel though, is MP's flipping houses is totally corrupt, and that the HMRC should do something about it.
I can't see how it is legal for an MP to say that House A is their main residence for expenses purposes and then the next day say that house B is their main residence for Tax purposes.
It should be easy to prove which one they live in the most. I
If it was either of us, we would be done, faster than we could say, 'An error of judgement'.

Greek.

Skinny,

"Hence my comment in post 17528!"

I thought you were relating to the future!

Transposition now corrected! :-)

Skinny,

Being dyslexic, when I first read your post, I thought Transposition read Transportation.
A bit harsh, but it would work.

Having read the previous postings, I can understand more and more the increasing detachment of the young and their disillusionment with present “society”. It appears some are forgetting that much of the basis for the present financial “chaos”, is down to personal greed and “moral” decline of the more “mature” generations.

The morality of present public figures can be seen as a barometer society’s present state.

Wisteria’s condemnation of Carr’s was opportunistic and expressive of himself, like some of the postings on this thread. He is becoming a laughing stock and representative of corruption in the political arena.

Common “morality”, although constantly “changing”, is the basis for the majority of a society’s law. Both can effect, or lead to change in the other.
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