(Guest Post)
Everyone knows that a number of rich, wealthy people and organisations are avoiding paying their taxes through various nefarious means. This can be particularly frustrating for anyone on an average wage who has to save or live frugally despite paying their fair share. It is unusual for several big names to have their tax avoidance made public in a matter of weeks though; but that is exactly what has happened in the UK this month with several high profile tax cases being revealed by the press in June.
Jimmy Carr
Comedian Jimmy Carr is a very popular television presenter and stand-up comedian in the UK and is fairly well known in the USA too thanks to his appearances on Letterman and Leno and presenting Comedy Central game show Distraction. Carr has been in a bit of trouble in the last few weeks though due to the British tabloids exposing his far from ethical tax practices. Basically, Carr was putting his income into an offshore company not subject to British income tax and receiving his money back in the form of a “loan”.
This resulted in Carr, a man worth many millions, paying 1% income tax whilst your average Brit, earning around £30,000 a year ($46, 500 US), was paying 20% of their income to the tax man.
Understandably this caused outrage among the British public who took to Twitter to confront Carr themselves. After receiving a deluge of anger from his fans, and a public condemnation from British Prime Minister David Cameron, Carr made a full and frank apology on his show 8 Out of 10 Cats; prompting a great jibe from his fellow comedian Sean Lock “A lot of people put money away for a rainy day Jimmy… but your more prepared than Noah”. Carr has promised to be more careful about his finances in future.
Take That
Take That are a British boyband who put out a long line of teen-pop hits in Britain in the 90’s before reforming with a more mature radio ballad sound several years later; they are still one of the most popular groups in UK and recently performed to a worldwide audience at the Queens Diamond Jubilee concert. The groups main songwriter and frontman Gary Barlow, along with two other members Mark Owen and Howard Donald, were also to revealed to be involved in a scheme very similar to Jimmy Carr whereby they were dodging income tax by ‘investing’ in offshore companies.
Barlow and his band mates have not suffered quite the same scorn as Carr. Carr is known for making satirical jibe about Bankers and Politian’s so he may be seen as the larger hypocrite than the Take That boys, though a cynic might say that Gary Barlow’s support of Prime Minister David Cameron’s Conservative Party at the last election might have something to do with the PM’s silence on this particular case. Twitter was again abuzz with jokes and jibes about Take That; my favourite trending joke being “Why does Gary Barlow like the Queen so much? Because he doesn’t have to pay for her.”
Glasgow Rangers Football Club
Glasgow Rangers are one of the largest and best supported football (soccer) teams in Scotland; larger than many teams in the rest of the UK too. They are also the largest company to be exposed in the press recently for dodgy tax practices. It is alleged that Rangers had been paying players partly in tax decidable loans and bonuses in lue of wages. This is highly illegal as it means the team were able to employ players they could not afford if they were paying the correct amount of income tax; the worst part of this case is that it is alleged Glasgow Rangers have been doing this since the late 80’s.
Sure enough between 1988 and 2012 Rangers had won the league fifteen times, including one particular run in the 90’s of 9 titles in a row, whilst the rest of the Scottish league could only look on in awe as they got thrashed week in week out by big name players like Paul Gascoigne and Tore Andre Flo.
Unlike Carr and Take That a mere apology was not the punishment Rangers received – the club have now been liquidated and had their titles and trophies consigned to the history books. Rangers are currently in sporting limbo, attempting to re-enter the Scottish Premier League as a new entity. If you don’t follow Scottish football this would be like the Detroit Red Wings being thrown out of the NHL and having all their Stanley Cups taken away.
So next time you read about the wealthy working the tax system, don’t get too disheartened. The cheats always get caught eventually and you will have good karmic piece of mind knowing you dealt with your finances the right way.
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This post is on behalf of Norton Finance, a family run company who provide secured loans, debt consolidation and finance solutions. You can find them on Twitter and Facebook.