h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Yes I think that's a good example of something that's both immoral and illegal.

We often talk of "soulless corporations"> Do we expect them to have souls? What does that mean exactly?

And I caught a bit of last night's Panorama on how people end up homeless - what about banks who repossess houses where the mortgage hasn't been paid, so making a family homeless? Is that immoral?

"what about banks who repossess houses where the mortgage hasn't been paid, so making a family homeless?"

What about people - parents - who put themselves in a position where they owe more money than they can afford to repay?

Why, in this scenario, is it the *bank* making the person homeless, rather than the person themselves? When did personal responsibility become a dirty word?

Well...

One oculd of course make the argument, visa vie personal responsibility, that lots of people currently unemployed are in such a position because of a collosal, biggest in a 100 years depression. Which was caused by incompetance and recklesness by banks.

So if one wanted to follow this line of argument Mr and Mrs Bloggs who had both been in continuous employment since their teens have lost their jobs, and can't get new ones because of said banks behaviour, and are now being punished by the self same banks.



FB

And subtitles for those on thread determined to have a row at all costs.

That was meant to be a jocular post, from which maybe there was a little grain of truth even if post itself very hyperbolic.

So no need to fisk me Hoo!

FB

"When it comes to buying tickets for children, that may well be against the rules. The question wasn't wether it was legal though, it was wether it was moral. I'd say it is immoral, wether it is illegal or not."

Oh good grief.

How many times am I going to have to ask this question before you finally see the point here?

Is an adult who can fit into children's shoes doing something IMMORAL by buying them, and thus avoiding the VAT charged on adult shoes?

Yes, or no?

We must be, by now, pretty clear on the letter of the law in this regard.

Does the spirit of the law have no place?

There's another point that hasn't been covered yet as part of this argument...

For the time being we've been discussing whether this avoidance of taxation is immoral or not...

Each individual in this thread has their own definition of immoral and whether it applies to the situation... And that's a good thing...

What nobody has commented upon yet is the fact that once this situation was pounced upon by the media and brought to the notice of the general public, then the GOVERNMENT started bleating on about the fact that this was immoral...

Firstly, in my opinion this is, yet again, politicians attempting to bend over backwards to appear to be in tune with the media... Secondly, they're using the 'immoral' argument to deflect attention away from a ruddy great hole in the tax laws, which they're responsible for drafting...

Finally, do we really want our governments to start making decisions on what the media consider is moral or immoral? I'd prefer they stuck to what's illegal and what's legal... We vote for a government, they make the laws (of course, based upon their own morals), but I'd rather they stuck to those laws once they've brought them in rather than arbitrarily deciding what's right and wrong on a 'morality' basis.

No, it has to be the letter of the law. Lawyers have made sure of that.

IMO, our tax system is horrendously complex thanks to a previous Chancellor. This from the TPA -

"The tax system has steadily grown more complicated:

Tolley’s Yellow Tax Handbook of the British Tax Code was 4,555 pages in
1997. In nine years it doubled in length to 9,841 pages.
The Inland Revenue’s spending on administration increased by 75 per cent
from £1.6 billion in 1997 to £2.8 billion in 2004.
Over the 2000-05 period the Finance Act averaged 481 pages compared
with 157 in the early 1980s. The most recent five-year period saw an
increase of over 50 per cent on the previous five-year period.
There were over 240 reliefs and exemptions providing £157 billion in
2005-06.
A business survey for the Tax Reform Commission in 2006 found that:

60 per cent of firms were increasing their spending on tax planning and
compliance with tax law. Only three per cent were decreasing spending.
78 per cent said that the level of tax complexity has increased over the
last five years. Only 2 per cent said that it had decreased. " http://www.taxpayersalliance.com/gordon_browns_economic_failure_embargoed_00.01AM%20FRIDAY%2019%20SEPTEMBER.pdf



Simplify the tax system and it becomes more difficult for loopholes to exist. I'd disagree with the "inexpert government" comment only insofar as the correct term is "incompetent" and at the time having an Exchequer run by a micro-managing egotistical fool.

Some really good food for thought here, thank you to all contributors!

Morals is too personal a word - my morals are different to yours, so I'm going to use the word "questionable".

Here are practices which I find questionable:

Payday loans. Outrageous rates of interest attached to loans to those in desperate need. But then, isn't any form of interest usury, and contrary to some religions?

The lottery - seen by some as a tax on the poor or the stupid. But administered by a quasi govt body, and raises money for good causes, so it must be OK really.

Advertising. This is trying to persuade me to buy something I don't want or don't need, because if I wanted or needed it I'd already know about it.

I'm going to respond to those three based on my own opinions:

1. Payday loans: they're a service. You don't HAVE to get one if you don't want one. Sometimes people need cash fast, and they charge ludicrous rates because they're not designed to last for long. The rates only look ludicrous if you tot them up over a year, but you're not supposed to pay them off over a year. You might just as well bemoan the fact that car hire for one year costs more than it would cost to buy the damn car outright. Well, yes, but the prices are set for people who need a car for a day or a week, not a YEAR. If you insist, by reason of poor planning or simple idiocy, on doing something stupid that costs more than it would cost if you did it another way, or simply didn't do it, the person facilitating you can hardly be blamed. Personal responsibility again, see.

2. The lottery: questionable? I don't think so. So long as some of the "good causes" are things like gamblers anonymous, no problem. I quite like the thoughts of what I'd do with a win. It's a pleasant fantasy, and worth a pound when I can be bothered to buy a ticket. Again - purchase is not compulsory. Personal responsibility yet again.

3. Advertising. Hmm. If you wanted or needed something, you'd already know about it? How? Osmosis? Are you psychic, or something? Advertising can be funny, creative, impressive and stimulating, even if it's for a product I have no interest in. I have never and shall never own a Honda, for instance, but their "Cog" advert was a work of brilliance and I'm glad I saw it. Conversely, I own a number of gadgets that I only even knew existed because I'd seen the advert. The best example is the rather wonderful Slap Chop, the original advert for which was quite trite, but which formed the basis for such a brilliant mashup (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWRyj5cHIQA ) that I went to some lengths to obtain one of the things for myself. And I'm glad I did.

I have to say a lot of the time when I see people calling things "immoral" or "questionable", what they actually mean is "people more stupid than me might be taken in by these things, and that's bad". It's a bit of a patronising attitude, I think. I say unless something can be shown to be causing harm, then it should be permitted, and let the chips fall where they may. By all means ban something if there's evidence it's harmful...

... but if you actually followed that track you'd legalise cannabis and make tobacco illegal.

It's depressing to me that we'll not, in my lifetime, have evidence-based politics. We've reached a point in science where we understand very well how to tell whether something works or not. We know about statistical bias, and researcher bias, and clustering, and noise. We know how to correct for errors, and how to account for outliers. We know that trials need to be randomised, and double blind, otherwise biases will skew the results.

But we don't apply these things to public policy. We don't sit down and say "never mind what *sounds* right, or moral, or true. What WORKS?". I hope, one day, a politician, or hopefully a party, will emerge who will have the sheer brass balls to say "I don't have policies, because I don't know what will work. What I'll do in government is try things out. We'll set success criteria on the tests. And whatever works, we'll keep doing. And whatever doesn't, we'll stop doing." Once we started doing that, it might take decades to settle on stable, sustainable policies. But wouldn't life be better?

"What nobody has commented upon yet is the fact that once this situation was pounced upon by the media and brought to the notice of the general public, then the GOVERNMENT started bleating on about the fact that this was immoral..."

I don't think it's accurate to say that this is all some kind of fuss whipped up by the media. In fact, the mainstream media have been rather avoiding what should be a major issue and a major news story. Compare, for example, the media coverage given to tax dodging by major corporations and the 1% as against stories about scroungers and benefit fraud.

One might reasonably conclude that this is politically motivated (classic divide and rule) or that the major media corporations and/or their owners and holding companies are living in glass houses (even the Guardian, incidentally) about their own tax affairs. The only part of the media that's been consistently reporting about industrial scale tax dodging and the white flag being waved by HMRC in response has been 'Private Eye'.

The fact that Vodaphone were left off an absolute fortune in tax they owed, the fact that HMRC's own premises are leased (via the usual rip-off PFI deal) from a company *based in offshore tax haven*, and the fact that big business is *not* "in it together" with the rest of us should all have been massive news. It should have been something that interested the self-styled "Taxpayers' Alliance" if they really were what they claimed to be.

The recent coverage largely stems from the work of Margaret Hodge and the Public Accounts Committee, who have summoned various HMRC and various tax dodgers to appear before them. It's not something that the media have invented, and neither is it something that doesn't concern ordinary people - if we believe the recent stories about a surge in business for an apparently better behaved chain of coffee shops.

I've explained before why the model of "loopholes" isn't really accurate. But I agree that what we're seeing from the government is too little, too late, and too bandwagon-jumping. And that the last lot were also far too "intensely relaxed" about tax only being for the little people and small businesses. You expect that thing from the Tories - that's what they're *for* - but from a Labour government it was shameful.

Payday Loans - I worked for a company who offered these things amongst others and I recall seeing the figures; the profits from payday loans are exactly the same as with regular loans. The default rate is horrendous, something like 60% so the relatively high interest rates simply reflects the risk to the lender. Remember these are loans of last resort for people whom the banks, Credit Unions, even family & friends won't touch. It's not "preying upon the poor", it's helping people in dire difficulties when no one else will. If Payday Loans companies are forced to cut interest rates they will have to refuse more people who in turn will be driven into the arms and baseball bats of loan sharks.

Having said all that ... I quit after a year because I was uncomfortable with this and other products.

>he default rate is horrendous, something like 60%<

Presumably though, the 'default' does not take the form of the company throwing up its collective arms in despair and giving up? Do they not sell the debt on to a company employing large intimidating gentlemen wielding court orders in one hand and baseball bats in the other?

I honestly don't know, but I do know that debts are sold on at about 10% of the outstanding balance so it's still a big hit. As for selling to companies employing men with baseball bats - I believe that would be illegal The whole point is failing to recognise that the interest charged is related to risk will inevitably mean more people *will* be getting their doors kicked in by loan sharks.

Well Hoo, if you want a yes or no answer I would say yes. You're an adult exploiting something set up to help children and families.

Re the shoes: yes. Mainly because I have taken size 8 since the age of 11.

Mol

I must say, Hoo, you've been on stellar form on this thread.

Some very interesting points there.

On the point that companies' only responsibility is to their shareholders, this is really quite a modern view, ie Milton Friedman to be precise. It's really quite a short-term view when you think about it. If firms screw their workers to the point where the workers can't afford to buy the kind of products the firm makes, it puts the whole economy in trouble. It's a *very* short-term view. To the point where the folks who came up with it must have their economic credentials questioned.

That's why noted socialist and liberal* Henry Ford paid his workers $5 a day, so they could buy his cars.

Also, I'd disagree with your football analogy: the equivalanet is Luis Suarez kicking the ball at the corner flag then tripping over the goalie's hand to win a penalty. This is within the rules, but is the sort of behaviour the rules were designed to prevent. It's called cheating, usually..

Some companies go into debt to do R&D, or to expand production etc; this is tax deductible, and rightly so. But, some firms load themselves up with debt precisely because these rules mean that debt repayments are tax-deductible: they're not really adding value to the economy.

I think the real problem is arising from companies gaming the tax system because making new, inventive products or investing in modern equipment/techniques is too difficult for them.


*hahahaha

As for the govt being there to implement a tax system which is the most beneficial to the people as a whole, well, that ignores the power that big companies have. How naive, Hoo. I would've expected better really.

"If firms screw their workers to the point where the workers can't afford to buy the kind of products the firm makes, it puts the whole economy in trouble"

Hmm... that's fine if you're employed tightening wheelnuts on a Model T, but do the guys on the production line at Bentley all drive home in Continentals? Come to that, do any of them have a house worth more than one of the products they make?

And to those who consider it "immoral" for a person to legally buy a pair of shoes that fits them, I'm sorry - you've lost me. I can't take you seriously if your morals are that far up yourself. You're the perfect demonstration of why we *have* to have laws, rather than relying on our moral compass to police society - some of us demonstrably have a moral framework that could charitably be described as "a bit strange", and I'd describe as "stupid". Again - sorry. My friend will continue buying her VAT-free shoes with a clear conscience, I suspect, partly because it's a glimmer of positivity in what is otherwise quite a trial (i.e. life as an adult small enough to fit in kids' shoes...).

" I'd disagree with your football analogy: the equivalanet is Luis Suarez kicking the ball at the corner flag then tripping over the goalie's hand to win a penalty. This is within the rules, but is the sort of behaviour the rules were designed to prevent. It's called cheating, usually."

One depends upon the referee to spot and prevent cheating like that - and what you describe there is clearly cheating, isn't it?

Then again, football is a bad example. I don't watch the game, because every single time I do I see examples of behaviour from players which, were I the ref, would see them sent off immediately - shirt pulling, barging, just the most blatant interference with play. And yet there are never any consequences for this sort of thing, but sometimes a player will make minor contact with another, or even no contact, and the "victim" will go down like a sack of spuds and roll around as though they'd been shot. Then once a free kick's been awarded, spring to their feet. Professional footballers are, bar none, the LEAST sportsmanlike sportsmen I'm aware of. And what drives this behaviour? The massive rewards for success in the game. And the fact that apparently, the horde of morons who follow football don't mind. The behaviour I'm describing could be stopped overnight if the referees and higher powers in the game at the FA or FIFA simply enforced the rules properly. But that won't happen. The analogy you offer is an example, I think, of breaking the rules - but I don't, to be honest, know the rules of football that well, and have no motivation to find them out.