Posts by LucreLout

The purpose of unilateral action is to encourage the OECD/G20 to get their finger out. If nobody says we're going to do it anyway, the Americans can keep stalling and nothing gets done.

Last time this thread came up I explained at length why nothing (positive) is going to get done with the DST or rEU variants. Only an OECD level setup might work. That post is quoted at the bottom of my reply.

There's already so many loopholes in the DST proposals that those of us in the field are already so confident that we can structure around it that our only concern is the cost to the country of trying to make it work and inadvertently walloping domestic firms that were never the intended targets.

Any content publisher (Oxford press etc) will have content, a search engine, and users. They're far more likely to be hit with DST than Google is.

We will literally be spending a lot of money developing and trying to collect this tax, and we'll never raise more than it costs us. It's a waste of money on political engineering.

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Some facts:

1. DST is only intended to run until OECD/G20 tax comes in.

2. DST is in consultation with a 2020 implementation date.

3. OECD is in consultation also with a 2020 implementation date.

4. DST has a "safe harbour" exemption for those of a loss making persuasion.

5. There is no requirement to have a legal entity registered in the UK in order to have a web site accessible from the UK.

6. DST is intended to raise £400M

7. We have no means of determining how much Google makes from UK search Vs its Android division or any of the other letters in the Alphabet Soup.

Thus, we can determine the following opinions:

DST will cost the Treasury a lot of money (fact 1) and in all likelihood raise nothing because we'll implement OECD by the time DST is ready (facts 2 & 3).

Amazon won't pay a penny in DST because it makes a loss (facts 4 & 7). Google can probably restructure to achieve the same thing (facts 5 & 7). Apple might take a hit, but barely; we can't actually force companies to register for some type of self assesment by which we could calculate their DST if they don't require a physical presence here.

They're avoiding what is frankly a trivial tax split between even just the 4 main players (fact 6).

It makes for a good announcement but will in all likelihood either only raise revenue from unintended targets (How many web sites have a search feature that isn't google? Digital publishing step right up), or would in any case raise less than MPs spend on their pensions.

Re: Get me a babysitter

The reason children and teens and young adults support PewDiePie is because he is the last good thing on the internet.

LOL!!!

Really? The last good thing? The final one?

Have you perhaps considered that maybe you could use the internet to, I dunno, learn stuff? Head over to coursera and pick up some knowledge from people that actually have some. Maybe you could pop over to github/other and get involved in a hackathon, creating something of value to a worthy charity or two? Or maybe you could hit once of the finance sites and learn about how money actually works, when you have to work for it?

The internet has many good things on it. PDP ain't one of them.

Re: No matter what happens

Google is going to lose many of its best and brightest over this.

It's a top flight employer. There's more people want to work there than vacancies for people to do so. Google knows that.

At the end of the day, as a shareholder, I appoint Googles board of directors to determine how the company is ran; not the employees, they're simply hired to achieve the vision. I realise that offends a lot of you, but it's the same where I work too - the shareholders, whomever they are, vote to (re)appoint board members, who select at CEO to achieve certain corporate goals (dirty capitalist words like profit and growth); "my" shareholders presume if I don't like that I'm free to find somewhere else to work.

One of the biggest problems many young people have is confusion over their right to have an opinion, the time to keep that opinion to themselves, and the weight the rest of us should ascribe to their opinions: The staff instructing the management team is the tail wagging the dog I'm afraid.

Let the (red) arrows fly if you must, but they won't change the facts.

Re: Please let me know where you work...

your employer has said "Oh an AIDS test... you must be a druggie, you're fired

Boris, I totally agree with your post and have upvoted it.

However, the part I've quoted might vary more than many people realise. I've had an AIDS test, at a previous employers insistance. It was part of their hiring criteria, because they were privately funding life insurance for us and wanted to rule out pre-existing conditions that may have affected it. As you'll realise, this was a couple of decades ago.

So, yes, the receptionist should be punished because what she did was very wrong. However, not all employers will react badly - though she had no way of knowing how anyones employer would react.

Re: Lazy thinking

Exactly how many globally-significant professional boxers have globally-significant Oxford and Cambridge produced?

Are you missing the point deliberately, or have you been hit in the head too much?

The point is that not all boxers are thick. Thick people don't gain entry to elite universities and gain sought after places on their competetive teams.

As you demonstrate admirably, it is more than possible to be stupid and not box. You're seeing causation where only weak correlation exists.

Re: @Dave126

Right, so you propose an end to privacy for burger munchers, and a national database that will in practical terms identify their eating habits, movements, all added to the existing CCTV surveillance, just to address the problem of littering?

Between ANPR, your mobile phone, and your VISA history, they already have that data. There is literally no new data added in the mix, save potentially what you ordered, and I presume McDs know that already.

There's no new privacy invasion here - you already freely give that data to the state now. Of course, if you walk there without your phone and pay by cash you might have a point, but you'll still be able to do that with the face printing anyway. Just take your rubbish home and burn it - no DNA, fingerprints, or facial images left behind.

Re: Article unclear!

In this context what does "protected disclosures' and 'suffered detriments" mean?

Protected disclosure is a legal term with specific meaning, as is suffered detriments. I'll not paraphrase the facts as IANAL and may lead you astray. Terms may be found below:

https://uk.practicallaw.thomsonreuters.com/8-200-3427

https://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/detriment

Hope that helps.

Re: Advocatus Diaboli

Isn't this the sort of privileged life story we're supposed to look back on with, at best, mixed feelings nowadays?

Why on earth would you think that? The war generation are worthy of your respect. No caveats. No buts.

What exactly did she do for the Tories to get her title?

Probably a damn sight more than Chakrabarti did in the peeragewash.

Baroness Trumpington did a damn sight more for this country than I suspect you or I will ever do. So if you want to make empty headed, ignorant, and fact free lefty rants, facebook is over there --->

Re: The New Feudalism

Basic mathematics ensures nothing.

As far as wrong statements go, this might be winner of the week.

The sort of people in the top 1% aren't generally the sort of people that will just deposit their money in bonds and live off the interest, as you claim.

I completely agree, which is why I made no such claim.

Equally, they're the sort of people that have a lot of stuff - houses that cost a lot more than most, cars that cost more than most (and more of them), and other stuff, that they could sell if they went bust, and still remain in the top 1%.

You've succomb to the numerous fallacies present in the works of Piketty and Stiglitz.

Hardly. I'm a full blooded capitalist. It's the greatest game in town. Piketty started with his conclusion and then sought only evidence which backed it. A typical fallacy of the economically socialist left.

According to the IFS, I'm in danger of being in the top 1% at the moment. I'm not sure I believe their numbers - apparently you only need 1 million USD of investable assets. Given how mobile most of my assets are, I've already taken steps to diversify away from the UK to protect against a potential far left government. As soon as McMao started talking about seizing 10% of the FTSE, I dumped it and put the money elsewhere. I'm up about 20% on that trade so far - it was more but the markets have had a wobble. Am I in danger of going bust or losing most of my wealth? Hardly.

My point was that its going to be very dificult for anyone on minimum wage to catch up to me - I make too much passive income for that to happen. You've fallen for the trap of assuming I see that as a bad thing, when I don't. I used to earn way below minimum wage too, before there ever was one, and I managed to work my way up the earnings and wealth scale. There's nothing, literally nothing, holding back anyne else from doing as I did. They just have to stop investing their time in moaning about the system, and start spending their time understanding how it actually works.

Re: Home security problem

I ring your doorbell.

Bang, I instantly know if you're at home or not*.

Google "millennial doorbell" and once you've finished laughing, report back.

Hope there's no loopholes - e.g. transfer of assets to spouse

That is a loophole they could use, but not without risk. If spouse tranfers them to tennis coach and elopes, you're screwed. There's other loopholes too, such as using offshore people as directors where they're beyond the reach of our legal system.

Fining the directors is a good idea, but I don't think it'll achieve a drop off in calls.

Re: What could be better....

What could be better....

... than government snoops (and corporations) having a recording device in everyone's home and office and pocket recording 24 hours a day? We're heading that way.... No cooperation from me though.

I don't have an Alexa for probably the same reason as 99% of other commentards. However, I do have a mobile phone, which is basically a portable, GPS linked microphone that follows me around. Hmmmm.....

It's not paranoia if the men in the black helicopters kick the door in and shove your tinfoil hat up your arse!

Re: women at the company make 99.7 cents

you cared enough about the Google pay policy to speculate reasons for the diffrences in pay

Caring enough to point out where the usual suspects are massively missing the point does not equate to caring specifically about Googles pay policy. I don't even massively care about my own employers - My salary is my business not anyone elses.

Doing a comparable role != doing the same job. There's simply too many other variables. You'd probably find a greater difference in salary between men named bob and men named bill, but that isn't really relevant any more than slicing by gender alone is.

Re: FUD and Ignorance

Seeing as how this whole situation has arisen because these companies use various mechanisms to ensure they make a loss and that is why they don't pay tax, I think it would be extreme incompetence on the part of whoever drafted this proposed legislation, if such a loophole applied.

Disallowing such a loophole, and I agree that this is what it is, would be the immediate death of our on-shore startup industry, whom we're not specifically targetting with the tax.

DST is utter junk and Hammond knows it. Which is why I'm reasonably sure it'll be dropped during consultation awaiting the OCED version, which might achieve their goals, at least in part.

Re: Interesting post-employment ban

It's not a bad idea per se (I can think of more than one colleague I'd not want back) but of course - as is alleged here - it's subject to abuse.

The bank I work at has a similar system, and I must admit it is horribly abused by exceedingly poor managers waging a personal vendetta. It costs them nothing to have you effectively barred for life from returning (its just a tick box - would you allow this employee to return) for no better reason than they don't like you.

Unfortunately the excesses of bad management are often covered up until called into court, and then issues are addressed quietly behind closed doors whenever possible. Sad but true. The simplest disinfectant is mandatory 360 reviews from all subordinates, thus both bad employees and bad managers will stand out, and can be managed.

Re: While true...

Why should people who get a higher percentage be considered better?

Probably because that is the only reason to give students a grade - so we can tell who tested better. Generally, that will be the smarter or otherwise harder working students, provided you issue grades on a bell curve. Top 10% get an A, next 15% get a B, next 25% get a C, and so on.

Likewise, those getting lower on the scores, may not be a reflection they are not "smart", as you put it.

True, they may also be lazy or they may choke under pressure. Neither is a good indicator of someone I want to employ.

Re: Just how much of what I earn do you feel entitled to? And why?

Tell me the tax take from "road tax" and fuel duty.

28.2 Billion from fuel tax but it also forms a substantial portion of VAT raised as VAT is due on top of the fuel & fuel tax price - I've not given a figure for that yet. Its about 4% of all tax revenues. VED is only 5.5 billion.

https://obr.uk/forecasts-in-depth/tax-by-tax-spend-by-spend/fuel-duties/

https://www.ifs.org.uk/bns/bn09.pdf

Then tell me the cost of maintenance of existing roads and building of new ones.

For class b, c and unclassified is costs 1.8 billion.

for class a and motorway it costs 2.2 billion

So a total cost of about £4Bn or perhaps better exprssed as about 12% of what is taken from the roads is spent on the roads, including building new ones. I've not included road or bridge tolls, yet either.

https://www.localgov.co.uk/Road-maintenance-spending-at-lowest-level-in-a-decade/44564

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/374676/FOI_712722.pdf

So, you have your facts and I'll bet pound to a penny your previous view simply no longer holds water. There's an annual surplus of £30Bn generated from the roads annually. Now, change your opinion from one of emotion to one of reason.

While you're asking for facts though, consider this link:

https://www.ifs.org.uk/publications/9178

27% of ALL income tax is paid by the top 1%.

33% of all NIC is paid by the top 10%.

The lower 50% need to work a lot harder and or longer as they pay only 10% of income tax combined.

The 50% of adults that pay no income tax somehow still get all the services.

That, however you slice it, is totally disproportionate and unfair.

Now, lets consider our operational risk here for a moment. You have 1/3rd of your recipts coming from about 1% of your people. That 1% make up the most internationally mobile part of your populace. If just half of that 1% get fed up and move their earnings or themselves abroad, you have to close the NHS, because you won't be able to afford it. IT raises about 200Bn and NIC about 130Bn. 1/3rd of that is more than half the current NHS budget.

Are you sure you've thought through your position? Because it seems wildly unfair, horrifically risky, and utterly dependant on the largesse of a very small number of very mobile tax payers who most probably don't use many of the services paid for (they Venn overlap between these people and private schooling & healthcare will be huge).