Thoughts on submitting year-end business returns.

[davywavy]

If you give a man a fish, he will eat for a day.

If you teach a man to fish, he will eat for a lifetime.

If you wait for David to come along and dig a pond, use his own money to stock it with fish, make himself a fishing rod and teach himself to use it, and then take any fish he catches off him and hand them out then the Trisha-watching population will never have to learn to do anything at all.


Whilst you're at it, why not punitively tax shovels, pond-digging and fish food? There's no sense in actually encouraging people to act entrepreneurially, is there?

Comments

[the-mendicant.livejournal.com]

My sympathies - though the jolly old Inland Revenue sent me a cheque this year!

[robinbloke.livejournal.com]

Claim religious benefits; form the cult of the holy brick who speaks to believers through monthly advertising.

[(Anonymous)]

You have my sympathies. But, with a 20% increase in the proportion of GDP wasted by the government over the past 8 years, someone's got to shell out for 'essential services' like rainbow outreach workers and the like. And my accountant is for too good for that to be me, hence, it's you!

Sort of like the national lottery in reverse, for people stupid enough to still believe the system works.

[colin-boyle.livejournal.com]

That must be me your talking about. I pay my 40% + NI.

[(Anonymous)]

Don't get me started on that ridiculously low 'upper threshold' or the pointlessly arcane 'tax credits' system. Best just to opt out.

[colin-boyle.livejournal.com]

Opt out of what? Living in the UK?

[(Anonymous)]

Well, you could, but I decided to spend a few years self employed (until we get rid of Bliar) which seems to save me a few bob. An expat assignment to a country with a more sensible tax regime would be a good idea if you can swing it.

[colin-boyle.livejournal.com]

Ah, so setting up the magazine was really a tax dodge! And I thought the reason you weren't paying any tax was because it hadn't actually made any money in the first place!

I'm quite comfortable with the amount of tax I pay, personally. And I'd happily see a £100k+ 50% tax band be put in place, which would have the happy co-incidence that when you're a publishing magnate you'll pay lots (although hopefully I will be doing so to!)

[(Anonymous)]

"I'm quite comfortable with the amount of tax I pay"

Me too, and isn't that what it's all about: Feeling we aren't getting ripped off? Since spending money on a thing, whatever it may be, is to devert resource to the supply chain behind that thing, (so buying a Chinese TV is a tacit acceptance of slavery, and buying McDonalds food a knowing wink to animal cruelty) then diverting money away from a government I disapprove of is a political act. Wow, I'm a revolutionary, and getting paid for it! It feels good.

[colin-boyle.livejournal.com]

As long as you don't use the product or service - otherwise that is effectively stealing.
So no going on public transport, no using roads, no using the NHS etc. How are you doing on that score?

[(Anonymous)]

Pretty well, I still pay about 15% of gross in tax, which covers roads, hospitals, police, and other important stuff, but doesn't stretch to regional assemblies, fact finding missions for eurocrats, misadministered tax credits, or bloody silly wars. I'm very careful to only use what I pay for.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

Ah, so setting up the magazine was really a tax dodge!

You're labouring under a misapprehension - it isn't me you're talking to. You just happen to be talking to someone who agrees with me.

And I thought the reason you weren't paying any tax was because it hadn't actually made any money in the first place!

When did I say I wasn't paying any tax? My company is paying shedloads, I'm just not paying any Corporation Tax on profit. However, that hasn't stopped the government slurping tens of thousands out of my company's coffers in the last year in the form of varies rates, levies and taxes. If they hadn't done so then we would have made a profit rather than had to borrow more to pay off Gordon Brown, but, like I say, there's no sense in the state encouraging me to build a successful business, right?

As for my opinions of the tax regime, I agree with the anonymous poster's assertion in that I don't mind paying for something which delivers value for money. As has been agreed by even the most tax-happy of people who I know (raggedhalo), the public sector is incredibly inefficient, wasteful and even corrupt. Sort out the wasteful inefficiences before you ask me to pay more for them, and then we'll be more in agreement.

[colin-boyle.livejournal.com]

Good point, it did read like you! I shall check more closely in future.

The public sector is inefficient in absolute terms - that's why they need people like me. It is also relatively efficient and equitable compared to
a - the rest of the world
b - any other way of delivering the goods and services in question.
Just ask my girlfiend about her experience on the inside of a leading UK corporation and you'll see just how inefficient the private sector can be.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

Inefficiency in the private sector is another matter, because I'm not (usually) required to do business with or pay for it (except PFI, but we'll leave that aside). I have no choice whatsoever than to pay for the public sector; if I don't, I'm sent to prison. To expect the same quality of efficiency and service as I expect from a private organisation I pay to do business with is not unreasonable, and the public sector does not provide that.
Talk to [Unknown site tag] about working in the NHS about just exactly how crap they are, or my opwn experiences dealing with them, or...well, the list is a very long one. I resent being legally required to pay for waste.

[chess]

Surely the nature of this 'waste' is such that the only way to get rid of it is to throw more money after it getting sufficiently competent bureaucrats in to work out which bits really are wasted and which bits turn out to be essential for delivering services, though?

Then those bureaucrats get slated for being 'useless eurocrats on fact-finding missions' or whatever and the cycle goes round some more...

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

I tried that one on my bank manager when my company was struggling, but he didn't bite.

[chess]

Neither does the electorate, more's the pity; hence there will always be waste in public services.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

If waste is inevitable, the sensible thing to do is minimise the role of the public sector, in order to minimise said unnecessary profligacy.

[chess]

Except waste is also inevitable in the private sector; so the trend of 'minimising' the involvement of the public sector by continuing to tax people for money for services, but then paying the money to the private sector instead of running a public sector provider, just reduces transparency and probably increases waste (due to all the extra overheads of private sector companies mentioned above).

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

"continuing to tax people for money for services"

I may have explained badly, butI think you misunderstand what actually reducing the role of the public sector would actually involve.

[chess]

When the Conservatives say 'reducing the role of the public sector' they generally mean 'privatise things but continue to subsidise them' which works about as well as you might expect.

OTOH when Libertarians say 'reducing the role of the public sector' they generally mean 'let people starve / lack for basic medical care / education / housing'.

Which sounds okay until you figure out that the people hung out to dry - however much it's their own fault - suddenly have no stake in society and no reason not to turn to crime for their own survival. I prefer to live in the world where feckless wasters are anaesthetised in front of a nice big TV in a bedsit somewhere rather than out on the streets trying to nick my phone so they can pay for food (or just because they're bored).

Also you end up with bad public health outcomes (if the poor don't have medical care they spread disease) and general loss of potential (as the children of feckless wasters don't get rescued by the state and given at least some degree of food and education). And infrastructure degradation (compare US and UK roads) as no-one wants to pay for common-use areas.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

Well, the system we're currently using doesn't appear to give people a stake in the system either and from your description (" I prefer to live in the world where feckless wasters are anaesthetised in front of a nice big TV in a bedsit somewhere rather than out on the streets trying to nick my phone so they can pay for food") instead appears to operate on the same lines as the Kingdom of Wessex paying the Danegeld, which didn't work out very well either as I recall.

As such, the system fails in your stated objectives (people having a stake in society) and mine (people taking and giving nothing back, which I suppose is a way of saying the same thing), the sensible thing to do is change that system.

[chess]

It does when it's working - we've just been carefully gutting the relevant bits of public spending which prevents stuff like the riots (see: all those video clips of people blaming the closing of youth clubs) until it frays around the edges, then blaming too much public spending for the results of too little...

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

So like King Aethelred borrowing money to pay the Danegeld, as soon as his credit lines dried up they came over the border. Yeah, I'll go for that.

Y'know, I pointed out we were going to have an economic crash back in 2004. i still rather think it a shame nobody listened.

[(Anonymous)]

I kept schtum: it isn't every day I am mistaken for a visionary & a genius. I was touched.

[gwaunquest.livejournal.com]

Have you considered selling a kidney? Are they both working? Perhaps an eye then? You surely don't need both. The religious thing is a good idea. Start the Cult Of Monetary Enlightenment. You enlighten the bank balances of your devotees. You're just not thinking of all the possibilities...

[adventink.livejournal.com]

If you set a man a fire, he'll be warm for the evening. If you set a man on fire, he'll be warm the rest of his life.

[chess]

If David can support several hundred people with his fishing endeavours, why should the other people be forced to do something they don't want to and are unsuited to, rather than be supported by him?

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

That, however, assumes I should be forced to do something I don't want to, so others can avoid doing something they don't want to.

I think you need to work on your pitch.

[chess]

Do you not want to fish?

I think that most people want to work, to do something useful with their lives; surely those who do can support those who don't? (Also, who knows what awesome things people would produce if they were freed from the burden of having to support themselves or feel bad about not doing so?)

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

Frankly, no, I don't. I'd rather do nothing.

Unfortunately, I'm too honest to do nothing and just take from other people.

[chess]

In what way is it 'honest' to do something you don't want to do instead of subsisting from the efforts of others (which, tbh, everyone in the modern developed world already does to a great extent anyway)?

It would only be dishonest to take from other people if they didn't know you were doing it, surely?

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

Taking from others and giving nothing in return isn't honest, however you dress it up.

Back when I was long-term unemployed I worked as a volunteer in my local hospital, as I was being given something and had a moral duty to give something in return. I ask no more from others.

And no less, either.

[chess]

Why is it not honest?

It might not be _virtuous_, but honesty is a matter of whether you're deceiving someone or not. Even theft is only dishonest if you bother covering it up.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

If you want to call the distinction virtuous and selfish, I'm totally fine with that. I rather like the idea of being a paragon of virtue.

"theft is only dishonest if you bother covering it up."

Try that one in court, see how far you get.

[chess]

Theft is against the law; that doesn't make a thief dishonest (although it's quite likely they are because theft by deception is easier than theft without deception).

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

I appreciate your point, but I'd not care to try to defend someone on that basis; jury of one's peers is the arbiter we use and saying "he may be a thief but he isn't dishonest" is unlikely to get much traction, either there or in society generally

To confirm: Are we agreed that honestly working for one's living is virtuous, and taking from others and giving nothing "because they don't want to" in return is indeed selfish?

[chess]

Doing useful stuff is virtuous. Taking from others and giving nothing in return is selfish.

I think that quite a lot of people who currently take from others and give nothing in return would love to give something in return if they had anything, and also that 'the satisfaction that other people's lives can go on to a decent standard' and 'not trying to set up tents on my lawn because they have nowhere else to go' are Something rather than Nothing.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

As I say; when i was long term unemployed I worked as a volunteer in my local hospital.

I see a lot of people saying they'd love to give something back, and a lot of hospitals who are short of cash. You'll forgive me, I'd hope, if I don't believe anyone who says they want to give something in return and doesn't do so. There's no more stopping them than did me.