The Chairman Mao resembling, Monarchy hating, threat to Britain, Labour Party thread

[blandy]

18 minutes ago, peterms said:

Tax is a good example of a case where there's not the political will to do something effective.  From the lack of staff employed in tackling tax dodging, to letting the private firms of accountants write the tax code, to the lack of tough sanctions, we demonstrate a lack of political will to deal with the issue.

Yes, there's 2 aspects to it. Political will is certainly one. The other is how you actually do something complex, where do you get experts from and how do you balance that with independence from the experts former or future "interests". For example the various accountancy businesses pay skilled, qualified, chartered tax accountants a lot of money, because they can find ways around and loopholes in national tax laws. Their job is , in part, to be smarter than the government people. Given that, you need poachers to turn gamekeeper, and then you worry that they may "betray" some of the principles of their new roles as they might want to create new loopholes, or get an insight into future plans and then move back into the private realm and work round them...

So it's not at all straightforward. Of course most people employed by the government will be honest and upright, or at least abide by the law, but the lure of better paid jobs with Anderson accounting or KPMG will not disappear.

Pretending it is easy, just a matter of will is IMO naive. And not trying to reduce inequality because "it's too hard" is also wrong. But it is imperative to come up with better than (however well intended) catch phrases or gimmicks. I see the tories as (you say) not willing and Labour as "moral" but seemingly a bit clueless on it.

[Sam-AVFC]

1 hour ago, blandy said:

I get that, as a starting point. Do it though and you won't half struggle to recruit into the public sector at management level, when they can earn way more in the Private. Right now, there are a lot of overpaid chief execs across the board, and there's a good moral argument to say that things like NHS trusts, those Free schools (whatever they're called, I forget) are just schemes for sometimes borderline useless Execs to get paid an awful to of Taxpayer money. I completely sympathise with the aim of a more equitable society and a return to reasonable pay ratios, I just struggled to see a practical way to implement it, even over time.

I don't think there would be that many public sector bodies where the CEO is earning over 20 times the lowest paid employee. I guess it's the places you mention like the NHS and freeschools where it would be a problem, although with most cleaning jobs etc being outsourced to private firms I really don't think it would be that hard to find someone to do the job capably at 20 times the lowest paid staff members salary.

I worked for a civil service organisation that is an industry that's hugely understaffed in the private sector so pay freezes have completely stopped them hiring anyone good and a lot of people have left. Despite this there are a lot of people who really wanted to stay to make the most of other benefits, but couldn't justify it as their effective pay went down every year. This is a much bigger danger to them than enforcing salary ratios as the chief exec was only on about 8 times the salary of lowest paid employee...more like 5 before the rank and file got their pay frozen 10 years ago.

2 minutes ago, blandy said:

Of course most people employed by the government will be honest and upright

Tongue in cheek or serious? As unfortunately, in my experience, it was a relatively small number that gave a shit about doing the job properly and pay freezes had ensured all of those left (many taking early retirement) by the time I did.

Edited November 13, 2019 by Sam-AVFC

[peterms]

7 minutes ago, blandy said:

Pretending it is easy, just a matter of will is IMO naive. And not trying to reduce inequality because "it's too hard" is also wrong. But it is imperative to come up with better than (however well intended) catch phrases or gimmicks. I see the tories as (you say) not willing and Labour as "moral" but seemingly a bit clueless on it.

The administrative detail of how to implement a scheme with little scope for evasion would no doubt occupy a number of skilled people for some time.  It would be very far from the hardest problem we would face, and the techical difficulties are not in my view the obstacle, rather the political will is the big issue.  And dealing with people trying to find wheezes for escaping it would be made far easier with decent sanctions.  I see in today's news a suggestion that travellers (gypsies) who are deemed to have trespassed on a piece of land might have their homes taken away and their children taken into care.  What might a similar level of sanction do to forestall dodgy accountants trying to dodge new requirements?  Withdrawal of licence to practice plus confiscation of assets, perhaps?  As a society, we seem quite content to visit pretty harsh penalties on the weakest among us, but these things may be more effective deterrents for those with more to lose.

[blandy]

11 minutes ago, peterms said:

The administrative detail of how to implement a scheme with little scope for evasion would no doubt occupy a number of skilled people for some time.  It would be very far from the hardest problem we would face, and the techical difficulties are not in my view the obstacle, rather the political will is the big issue.  And dealing with people trying to find wheezes for escaping it would be made far easier with decent sanctions. 

That's a mix of innocent and draconian, if I might say so.

So first the Gov't of the day needs to get a bunch of experts in writing and implementing tax law from somewhere (KPMG etc), but they also need draconian powers to stop these folk leaving their jobs later then going back to the private sector by threatening disbarment, revoking of licenses to work etc. Good luck with attracting them with that "package" Oh and they'd have to take a pay cut, too. Sweet deal.

Government threatens to disbar people working for it if they dare to leave their jobs sounds a bit George Orwell to me.

[blandy]

As a constructive comment, there are incentives as well as the stick that a Government could use to push towards more equitable pay scales. There's obviously just increasing the top level of income tax, There's taxing bonuses. On the ratio itself, if a ratio is set at (say) 20 times, then possible things like only awarding Government contracts to Companies/organisations who comply with the scale. As Sam and Dave said, applying it to organisations which are funded by the Government (though it would have to be gradual) might help, though local government, deprived as it is of funding cannot afford to suddenly increase their wage bills and cannot dismiss execs "for being paid too much". So even the "simple" steps are mostly difficult to implement. In part that might be why there's not much if any political will from anyone to do it (yet).

[peterms]

11 minutes ago, blandy said:

That's a mix of innocent and draconian, if I might say so.

So first the Gov't of the day needs to get a bunch of experts in writing and implementing tax law from somewhere (KPMG etc), but they also need draconian powers to stop these folk leaving their jobs later then going back to the private sector by threatening disbarment, revoking of licenses to work etc. Good luck with attracting them with that "package" Oh and they'd have to take a pay cut, too. Sweet deal.

Government threatens to disbar people working for it if they dare to leave their jobs sounds a bit George Orwell to me.

I was speaking about people trying to evade or defeat the measures, not people moving from one employment to another.

[blandy]

9 minutes ago, peterms said:

I was speaking about people trying to evade or defeat the measures, not people moving from one employment to another.

Ah, OK. Then my objection is that you cannot punish people or businesses for acting legally. That's the whole thing with loopholes - they're legal.

[peterms]

17 minutes ago, blandy said:

Ah, OK. Then my objection is that you cannot punish people or businesses for acting legally. That's the whole thing with loopholes - they're legal.

When it comes to someone scamming a few quid on benefits, we crack down on them.  When people scam billions, we treat it like some kind of parlour game.

This nonsense needs to stop.

[blandy]

52 minutes ago, peterms said:

This nonsense needs to stop.

Indeed. Which is why it's so important to have effective measures in place, not frilly warm words. The sentiment is admirable, the execution has to be effective and practical. Being right minded, but useless with it is just a waste. In the end a tory who sets out to help the privileged or a socialist who wants to make things fairer but doesn't have a way of doing so in an area is ultimately the same thing to those who need the help.

[bannedfromHandV]

1 hour ago, peterms said:

When it comes to someone scamming a few quid on benefits, we crack down on them.  When people scam billions, we treat it like some kind of parlour game.

This nonsense needs to stop.

Your average person scamming benefits can't afford to mount a legal challenge.

Your tax dodging millionaires have them on speed dial.

[peterms]

2 minutes ago, bannedfromHandV said:

Your average person scamming benefits can't afford to mount a legal challenge.

Your tax dodging millionaires have them on speed dial.

That's true, but the bigger concern for me is that it is tacitly accepted among the governing classes, so the penalties are trivial compared to the scale of the act, and there is little or no social disapproval among the people doing it - admiration, if anything, I suspect.  Which is where things like seizure of assets and removal of the ability to work in certain fields might be more effective sanctions.

[bannedfromHandV]

5 minutes ago, peterms said:

That's true, but the bigger concern for me is that it is tacitly accepted among the governing classes, so the penalties are trivial compared to the scale of the act, and there is little or no social disapproval among the people doing it - admiration, if anything, I suspect.  Which is where things like seizure of assets and removal of the ability to work in certain fields might be more effective sanctions.

You'll get no arguments from me on that!

[villa4europe]

24 minutes ago, peterms said:

That's true, but the bigger concern for me is that it is tacitly accepted among the governing classes, so the penalties are trivial compared to the scale of the act, and there is little or no social disapproval among the people doing it - admiration, if anything, I suspect.  Which is where things like seizure of assets and removal of the ability to work in certain fields might be more effective sanctions.

I think its because by and large these people only exist on TV if that, you kind of know its going on but these aren't "real" people, its shrugged off as the rich getting richer, when you're in that hemisphere of being privileged enough to fiddle your taxes you're living a life that people cant associate with or fully understand

on the flip side of that people who are deemed to be scamming benefits is an easier sales pitch from the media, the majority of people know who they are, what they look like, unlike the rich folk when they're told the mechanics of how to scam the system people can associate with it and claim that they understand it (even though its largely false)

its far easier to vilify them because they're far more real, which one are you more likely to bump in to at Tesco express - the guy "scamming his benefits" buying alcohol and baccy or the guy "fiddling his taxes" with a basket full of the finest range? the stereotype is way stronger with the 1st guy

[blandy]

3 hours ago, peterms said:

there is little or no social disapproval among the people doing it

In their own circles, maybe, and even then not really. Phillip Green? the general public hates it and resents it.

[peterms]

2 minutes ago, blandy said:

In their own circles, maybe, and even then not really. Phillip Green? the general public hates it and resents it.

Yes.  As I say, among the people doing it.  Philip Green and thousands more really don't give the slightest thought to what the general public think about them, or anything else, except insofar as it informs their strategies for extracting more money from them.

[Risso]

6 hours ago, peterms said:

Tax is a good example of a case where there's not the political will to do something effective.  From the lack of staff employed in tackling tax dodging, to letting the private firms of accountants write the tax code, to the lack of tough sanctions, we demonstrate a lack of political will to deal with the issue.

That isn't remotely true though, and is just an example of somebody (you) not knowing anything about the subject but thinking it must be true, because nasty Conservatives.

[Risso]

6 hours ago, blandy said:

So it's not at all straightforward. Of course most people employed by the government will be honest and upright, or at least abide by the law, but the lure of better paid jobs with Anderson accounting or KPMG will not disappear.

 

The lure of a better paid job with Andersen disappeared 17 years ago.  When it went out of business.

[peterms]

5 minutes ago, Risso said:

That isn't remotely true though, and is just an example of somebody (you) not knowing anything about the subject but thinking it must be true, because nasty Conservatives.

Osborne cut tax staff by 20% from 2010.

Targets were set which resulted in staff chasing small taxdodgers to hit quotas, while bigger and more tricky cases suffered.

The Public Accounts Committee found that accountacncy firms' staff seconded to the Treasury were using the knowledge gained to help clients dodge tax, for profit.

Sanctions are plainly insufficient to deter taxdodging.

I don't think you know what you are talking about here.  Or perhaps you do, and are misrepresenting because you have a financial or other interest in obscuring and defending what taxdodgers are doing.

[blandy]

19 minutes ago, Risso said:

The lure of a better paid job with Andersen disappeared 17 years ago.  When it went out of business.

picky picky picky pedant!

 

[blandy]

22 minutes ago, Risso said:

That isn't remotely true though, and is just an example of somebody (you) not knowing anything about the subject but thinking it must be true, because nasty Conservatives.

I'll take your word on it. I wonder how many tax havens under British control have been closed down? These sunny islands the the rich people have still seem highly non-transparent and rather popular with the extraordinarily wealthy. Caymens is it, Panama, Virgin Islands, Channel Islands, Isle of Man (not so sunny) - I mean there may be legitimate arguments for them behaving as they do, but somehow....