It isn't just rich people but companies who are making use of tax havens. That is where the figure comes from. It is a figure Oxfam estimate as to the amount of money held in tax havens.

It is held in a tax haven for a reason you know. Can you guess what it is?



What is that about?

Yes they are a tax havens but for example jersey (not sure if this is consider one anymore) but a lot of people bank in jersey because of the strong banking and accounting systems in place.

The 2nd part was a reply to another post somebody using a statistic that there is a higher rate of young adults living with there parents.

The data is for up to 30-year-olds.



So you consider that an average UK house price of £242,415 (to last October – and flats are slightly higher at £250,101) and an average UK income of £26,000 have nothing to do with it?

And do you consider £250K for a one-bed flat in a not-particularly-genteel area of a city to be 'a good thing'?

To remind people: it used to be considered sensible that nobody paid more than three times their household income on a mortgage. So for that £250K for a one-bed flat, a sensible mortgage would require a household income of £83,333.

That is a kind of Peter Mendleson view of being comfortable with some people being excessively wealthy despite not being so oneself.

There are two problems with this. First of all we aren't discussing the last 30 years but what has happened since 2008 and from them till now living standards have declined. The fact they may have declined from a high point doesn't mean it is right that your and my living standards take a hit while the 1% are unaffected and are in fact becoming even wealthier.

However, your and my position is I am guessing still pretty comfortable. The ones really taking the hit are the working poor of this country and no doubt others who in the UK are going to see more cuts to what benefits they are entitled to while at the same time there is enough cash hidden away in tax havens to make Osborne's £12bn seem like chicken feed.

The other problem with this situation is the concentration of wealth also concentrates the power. You might be comfortable with Bill Gates helping run the world but I certainly do not want a bunch of plutocrats subverting national governments and I do believe we are entering a phase of history (if we are not there already) where we face this possibility. Concentrating wealth and power leaves to self serving interests doing just that.



How on earth have you swallowed this propaganda? Most people who claim benefits work. Benefit fraud is a tiny fraction of what the majority perceive it to be. It is a huge amount [iless[/i than tax avoidance and evasion cost the country.

Why are you not even more indignant about that than you are benefit cheats? It costs us far more money and if we got a handle on it would mean the very real cuts that disabled people are facing (never mind the working poor or those on benefits street) would not have to face the cuts they do.

With all this wealth in the world why has it not trickled down to these people?

Are benefits scrounger annoying? Yes, but wipe them out tomorrow and that will not deliver the £12bn Osborne wants.

Are benefit cheat any more annoying than the Saudi Prince who wrote to Forbes magazine complaining that they wrongly listed him as having a personal wealth of $10bn when it was in fact $20bn?

The issue Oxfam highlight is not someone who works hard setting up an SME taking some reward from that. The directors of the company I originally worked for here in Runcorn sold it and received between £250K and £3m each. Do I begrudge them that? No, why would I?

People like them are not the target of the Oxfam report. It is people sat on half the worlds wealth doing naff all with it except hoarding it while (in the case of Walmart) their employees have to make use of food banks.

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And perhaps it would go down if we didn't subsidise the likes if Virgin Trains to run the West Coat main line when the publicly run East Coast is proving the most efficient of the lot and delivering more revenue to the government?

You really need to do some research into just how much benefit fraud costs and if you did I can't see how you would not conclude the government is spending far too much effort for far too little return when there are bigger fish to fry elsewhere.

Completely agree with this – including (for the sake of clarification) your comments on SMEs.

Just to add, really, if there are billions or trillions of dollars sitting in tax havens, those are doing nothing to boost any economy, be it local or national.

And I think that we're already in the realms of supra-national corporatocracies, which exist over and above any nation state and have no loyalty to any nation state, irrespective of where such companies first emerged.

And that is completely anti-democratic in any sense that most people here would consider the concept of democracy.

The problem is whilst we continue to consume their products this will always be the case. Apple is one of the worst for hoarding money, yet that has not stopped you buying their products - you have reasons that you can justify.

You cannot have it both ways, you cannot be so principled until it impacts you and then when it does your principles go out of the window.

As much as you want equality - that will never happen, we are not equal and we do not value all skills similarly. I find it slightly mad that soccer players can earn 200k a week for what is entertainment, that is what society value them at. There will always be outrageously wealthy people either through graft e.g. Gates/Ellison etc or through inherited wealth e.g. Duke of Westminster.

As I said the genuinely unemployable should be looked after by society as a whole. I am not sure my wife's niece with three children to three different fathers is quite the same.

The difference is one is legal one and if you live in a democracy then you have to go by the will of the majority. Tax avoidance will always happen - has always happened - until every country has exactly the same tax rules, we all know that will never happen. The tax laws in this country are set by a freely elected government in power by the rules set in place for that election - a democracy. The majority of these hoarders do employ millions of people world wide so are contributing in some way.

Benefits are much higher now than they were fifteen years ago so it has trickled down to them - there has to be a balance whereby those in work are significantly better off to create the incentive to work. I am not convinced the differential at the lower end is significant enough to create the incentive and that is wrong.

The fact the Saudi prince $10bn or $100bn who cares it doesn't impact me, benefit scroungers do so yes it frustrates me.

If you had a huge business generating huge amounts of operating capital what are you going do - you are going to store in the most efficient place until you need that money - the prudent amongst us do it with our savings so why would companies not do the same. There are very few companies that were trading 70 years ago that are still trading now - Boston Matrix idea - businesses have a life span having a treasury helps to prolong that life span.

I agree about Virgin - perhaps if the civil service had done their job correct Virgin would have been long gone?

This private education that your parents paid for, did it include basic English language by any chance?

Because if it did, they were robbed

Do you really think Oxfam would publish a report at Davos claiming what they do if someone at the back of the class could simply raise their hand and suggest it is just a coincidence the money is held in a tax haven because they also have "strong banking and accounting systems in place"?

Do you really not think they did some research before they made this claim?

I mentioned the gap between the elite and the rest and why this is a bad thing it has become so large. The Oxfam report was specifically about the fact (and the effects of) a mere 85 people have so much wealth and with respect to tax havens that companies and individuals have $18.5tn stashed away.

Sure soccer players get obscene amounts of money but even they aren't in this list or who the report is directed toward.

My point is that as Mintball mentioned while this wealth is sat there doing nothing the poor and disabled suffer in this country and elsewhere and we have Osborne saying it is this section of society he is gunning for post 2015.



It's not the same but it is no justification for what is happening to genuinely vulnerable people. It is the excuse all right.



But you object to the level of benefits people legally receive as according to you it does not incentivise enough. You disagree with something set by a freely elected government in power yet are saying because tax havens exist for the same reason that is just tough luck?

You can't have it both ways.

You are also reiterating the trickle down mantra once again. They contribute in some way so it is OK they hoard $18.5tn in a tax haven. Why is that acceptable when it could be so much better employed in the economy?

Why are they hoarding it? To what purpose?

As to the fact these places exist being due to laws set by government you do realise that part of the problem is attempts by government to change these laws are met with huge resistance that people who might be set to lose their housing benefit or facing the bedroom tax simply cannot muster against the same governments?

The attempts to get tax laws changed to make International companies like Amazon liable for tax on earnings here have been going on for years for example but face a huge amount of corporate lobbying against it. This does not seem particularly democratic to me.



There is a difference between incentivising people to work as a principle and how you go about it. A living wage would incentivise a lot more people if you think the differential is the issue. What this has to do with the overall point though I am not sure.



Benefit scroungers impact you far less than the "Tax Gap" does. According to HMRC that was £35bn in 2011-12. In contrast the government puts benefit fraud at $1.5bn.

Why are you so disproportionately annoyed at those committing benefit fraud compared to those who give us a £35bn tax gap?



They aren't using it. That is the point. They are hoarding it. If they didn't we'd all be be better off. I really do not think we are talking about sensible amounts of cash reserves.

Is this you?



Because you're trying to move the goalposts – and not for the first time.

Just as you have also, in this thread, dodged questions and points – yet again – by just launching into one of your usual bits of spiel about 'well, we can't all be equal'.

Most here have not and do not talk of 'equal' in the way you're using it. They talk of 'fairness', which you consistently avoid. If you don't believe in fairness, perhaps you should just come straight out and admit it.

As for "principles': are you still the same person who whinges about 'benefits scroungers', citing a relative of yours as being one – who you have allowed to continue to be a 'scrounger' because you haven't actually reported them?

Very little. Which is rather the point.

Indeed, you said

It's 'utopia'.

And so you see no reason to work to change that? You have no problem with your fellow citizens needing to use foodbanks, for instance?

Are you familiar with the word

You constantly 'deflect' – your introduction of the subject was just such an example.

They're you're "issues".

Mind, it's hilarious and utterly illogical. Apple are the industry standard, as I have previously explained, so in your little world, I should refuse to use the industry standard and find some computer that is über ethical (it probably doesn't exist) and probably lose work in the process, possibly to the extent of then needing to apply for benefits – which would please you no end, because then you could whinge about that.

I live in the world as it exists

You waited for the police to act?

Tut tut.

There's plenty of research out there suggesting that lack of opportunity and poverty are two factors in increased childbirth. Perhaps there's a reason that the well-to-do and those with good educations and with careers rarely have large numbers of children?

Perhaps, in a 'fairer' model of society, fewer people would be so inclined to have so many children.

That, and proper sex education and, one would hope, a decline in the sort of religiously-inspred attitudes that laud large families and damn contraception, abortion and, often, much in the way of the sort of opportunities for women mentioned fleetingly above.

OK BP in 2012 they had residual cash after tax of 19bn this included invested 23bn in capital projects - what do you think they should do with that money? When they have given all this money away how do they fund another Gulf of Mexico clean up. They pay huge dividends too which benefits loads of ordinary people through pension funds

These big companies generate huge sums of cash just through their ordinary activities Apple had 147bn of cash and that is after they paid $9bn in taxation.

These companies have to put the monies somewhere and like you with you ISA or share save scheme they are looking for the most tax efficient way of storing these monies

On the difference between benefits and working, I have consistently said remove employers NI from all low earners - say anyone earning <17k and pay it to directly to the employee. Even the government has woken up to the ideal it is the net that matters not the gross.

I've had a read of the article, and it isn't clear on how it measures "wealth"
Reading the thread, it seems we're assuming it's cash.
I'm not sure that's really the case though, and any measure of wealth would usually include assets. So if, for example, Bill Gates spend $10b on a yacht, he's still classed as having that $10b as part of his measure of wealth, but you would also think in spending that $10b it has also "trickled down" to the yacht maker, their workers and suppliers and their staff etc.