Fair tax protest planned for comic Jimmy Carr's Poole gig (From Thisisdorset)
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Fair tax protest planned for comic Jimmy Carr's Poole gig
1:11pm Monday 10th September 2012 in Latest By Juliette Astrup
Jimmy Carr
TRADES unionists will hold a demonstration outside comedian Jimmy Carr’s gig in Poole to raise awareness of fair taxation demands.
Some 30 members of the Bournemouth Christchurch and Poole Trades Union Council will be leafleting the audience as they arrive for Mr Carr’s show at Poole’s Lighthouse arts centre on September 21.
The multi-millionaire star was pilloried in the press in June over his tax affairs when it was revealed he was using a tax avoidance scheme – a legal means of cutting the amount of tax he paid.
Prime Minister David Cameron called his use of the off-shore scheme ‘morally wrong’.
Carr later said he had made a ‘terrible error of judgement’ and publicly announced he had withdrawn from the scheme.
Neil Duncan-Jordan, chairman of the Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole Trades Union Council, said the campaign demo was nothing personal against Jimmy Carr – rather he was ‘a peg to hang it on’ after he had been associated with the tax avoidance issue earlier in the year.
He added: “It’s not about Jimmy Carr – none of the leaflets or posters make mention of him personally. This is about the need for the very rich in society to pay a much fairer tax and to call on the government to do more to stop tax avoidance and tax evasion.”
A spokesman for Lighthouse said: “We’ve been aware of the protest happening and don’t have any major concerns, other than obviously keeping an eye on safety. I’ve also no doubt Jimmy will make some reference to the protest in his act on the night.”
Comments(9)
rugby_dave
says...
2:15pm Mon 10 Sep 12
l'anglais
says...
2:25pm Mon 10 Sep 12
rugby_dave wrote:Tax avoidance, no matter on what scale keeps billions out of the national and local coffers.
Like liberal says why not aim at the big time tax dodgers will Vodafone and mps mates! Beside what jimmy did wasnt illegal! who here wouldnt want to cut down there tax bill?! O'well jimmys got use to this by now and will make a big joke of it all! :D
So the next time you hear of some builder, gardener, car mechanic doing cash in hand jobs and not contributing school and hospital up keep, remember it isn't just at corporate that things are morally wrong.
Britain was built on back-handers and bungs.
nothingtofear
says...
2:41pm Mon 10 Sep 12
rugby_dave wrote:The problem is that the tax avoidance schemes used by the likes of Vodafone & News International aren't illegal either. Do you really think that Cameron is sincere when he says that he wants to clamp down on these legal ploys given how dependent the Tories are on big business for funding?
Like liberal says why not aim at the big time tax dodgers will Vodafone and mps mates! Beside what jimmy did wasnt illegal! who here wouldnt want to cut down there tax bill?! O'well jimmys got use to this by now and will make a big joke of it all! :D
Wallisdown
says...
3:11pm Mon 10 Sep 12
Honestly if you were in Jimmy's shoe's and someone in accountancy said to you I can save you hundreds of thousands of pound a year totally legally wouldn't you do it? I would!
If Cameron along with is dodgey gang were serious about tackling tax avoidance after kicking off a witch hunt within their own ranks they should close the tax loopholes as the problem will never be solved until that is done.
Adrian XX
says...
3:20pm Mon 10 Sep 12
Arcadia don't have a case to answer, since the company is owned by Christina Green who is a resident of Monaco. Any dividend paid to Mrs Green is paid out of profits AFTER CORPORATION TAX HAS BEEN PAID.
Bob49
says...
3:38pm Mon 10 Sep 12
But would you then spout your gob off on TV repeatedly about the wrongs of others 'avoiding' tax ?
Live by the sword...........
The Liberal
says...
7:18pm Mon 10 Sep 12
Adrian XX wrote:Just because something is (borderline) legal doesn't make it right. That link you gave is for Vodafone's own website, so I would hardly expect it to be an impartial view – more like company propaganda.
Vodafone's tax affairs are very complex (as you would expect from a multinational and one of the biggest companies in the world), but they do not avoid tax unfairly. There are lots of myths concerning Vodafone's recent settlement with HMRC, but the facts are set out here: http://bit.ly/O8jASm
Arcadia don't have a case to answer, since the company is owned by Christina Green who is a resident of Monaco. Any dividend paid to Mrs Green is paid out of profits AFTER CORPORATION TAX HAS BEEN PAID.
While Arcadia does at least pay corporation tax, some huge firms (including Vodafone in 2011-12) don't. Amazon: £3.3bn sales in the UK in 2011-12; £0 corporation tax paid. All done by transferring ownership to a Luxembourg company. Do you really think that this is fair?
I certainly don't and believe it's time major governments closed loopholes and put massive pressure on tax havens to stop them operating as such.
Adrian XX
says...
11:18pm Tue 11 Sep 12
Do you really think that this is fair?
Well, it is hard to think of any system that everyone would think of as completely fair. Luxembourg is part of the EU and not some strange island tax haven with its own laws. If I want to start a European company selling to all EU member states, then it makes sense to have a single headquarters in one of them and it also makes sense to consider how much tax I am going to pay when selecting which country to use.
Should corporation tax be proportioned to each member state's treasury based on the amount of sales to that member state? If so, then corporation tax becomes something completely unlike corporation tax (in fact, it is just like VAT since it is based on sales). The UK government already collects VAT from all sales in the UK - do you want a VAT2?
The Liberal says...
1:39pm Mon 10 Sep 12