400,000 people protest in London against government spending cuts.

Should we have similar invetigations in Canda?

  • Yes

    Votes: 2 100.0%
  • No

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    2

PoliticalNick

The Troll Bashing Troll
Mar 8, 2011
7,940
0
36
Edson, AB
On Saturday March 26th, 2011 approximately 400,000 people from all walks of life gathered in central London to protest major spending cuts by the governmnet aimed at the poor and working class. The protest was initiated by a group called UKuncut whose platform revolves around some major corporations and wealthy individuals using offshore tax havens to avoid paying billions in taxes while the governmnet is cuting spending on education, daycare and many other programs that benefit the working class.

One of the main culprits is Vodafone who has dodged and delayed on over 6 billion British pounds of taxes and has just recently reached a settlement to pay almost nothing after entertaining the head of HM Revenue & Customs at their offices in Luxemburg for a week.

A group of MP's are now pushing for full invetigations by parliament of some of Britain's largest corporations including Barclays Bank, Vodafone and the retail giant Arcadia.

MPs to investigate corporate tax avoidance | Business | The Guardian
 

Machjo

Hall of Fame Member
Oct 19, 2004
17,878
61
48
Ottawa, ON
I would think investigating illegal tax evasion would in fact be part of Revenue Canada's mandate already, no?
 

PoliticalNick

The Troll Bashing Troll
Mar 8, 2011
7,940
0
36
Edson, AB
I would think investigating illegal tax evasion would in fact be part of Revenue Canada's mandate already, no?

That's the catcth here.

Tax Evasion is illegal and can be investigated by the CCRA and RCMP.

Tax Avoidance is the legal practice of hiding assets or profits in offshore tax havens where we cannot touch them unless the funds or assetts are repatriated into Canada. A quote form RBC's 2010 anual reprt actually admits that if their offshore profits were repatirated for the last 3 years they would owe CCRA almost $2.5 billion. This does not include all the indivdual's accounts in those susidiaries, only the banks tax obligation.

The law needs to be changed and the loopholes closed to put this country on its financial feet again.
 

Machjo

Hall of Fame Member
Oct 19, 2004
17,878
61
48
Ottawa, ON
That's the catcth here.

Tax Evasion is illegal and can be investigated by the CCRA and RCMP.

Tax Avoidance is the legal practice of hiding assets or profits in offshore tax havens where we cannot touch them unless the funds or assetts are repatriated into Canada. A quote form RBC's 2010 anual reprt actually admits that if their offshore profits were repatirated for the last 3 years they would owe CCRA almost $2.5 billion. This does not include all the indivdual's accounts in those susidiaries, only the banks tax obligation.

The law needs to be changed and the loopholes closed to put this country on its financial feet again.

To investigate tax avoidance would be pointless since it could not be legally enforced anyway. Perfectly legal. Now if you're talking about researching the matter so as to reform the law so as to close off tax loopholes, that's another matter.

But then we must be careful not to hurt people with it either. For instance, imagine international businessman who has to live abroad and pay foreign taxes sometimes, or inversely a foreign businessman who lives in Canada. Though the name sounds important, there is no guarantee that all internatinal businessmen earn large incomes. There may be a few earning average incomes in spite of the prestige of their job. One way to avoid issues there I think would be to make taxes based on residency. In other words, if you reside in Canada, you pay taxes to Canada, and if you don't reside in Canada, you don't pay taxes to Canada. That might be one way to avoid such problems of double taxing, the opposite problem of tax evasion.
 

PoliticalNick

The Troll Bashing Troll
Mar 8, 2011
7,940
0
36
Edson, AB
To investigate tax avoidance would be pointless since it could not be legally enforced anyway. Perfectly legal. Now if you're talking about researching the matter so as to reform the law so as to close off tax loopholes, that's another matter.

But then we must be careful not to hurt people with it either. For instance, imagine international businessman who has to live abroad and pay foreign taxes sometimes, or inversely a foreign businessman who lives in Canada. Though the name sounds important, there is no guarantee that all internatinal businessmen earn large incomes. There may be a few earning average incomes in spite of the prestige of their job. One way to avoid issues there I think would be to make taxes based on residency. In other words, if you reside in Canada, you pay taxes to Canada, and if you don't reside in Canada, you don't pay taxes to Canada. That might be one way to avoid such problems of double taxing, the opposite problem of tax evasion.

The main goal is aimed at the corporations. If you do business in Canda and use our infrastucture and profit off our people you pay taxes here. You may be OK to watch billions of $ in potential tax revenue disappear to the Bahamas and the Caymans and Switzerland but I am not.

?This is Economic Treason?: 500,000 March in London Protesting Public Spending Cuts and Corporate Tax Dodgers
 

PoliticalNick

The Troll Bashing Troll
Mar 8, 2011
7,940
0
36
Edson, AB
It's all about the golden rule, whoever has the gold makes the rules

Only because we the people let them. We have been trained to accept this BS corporate control of govt and we need to open our eyes and stand up together to make it stop.

1 person in a group can have all the gold but if the rest of the group want to do something different he is just a lonely guy with some gold.
 

Machjo

Hall of Fame Member
Oct 19, 2004
17,878
61
48
Ottawa, ON
The main goal is aimed at the corporations. If you do business in Canda and use our infrastucture and profit off our people you pay taxes here. You may be OK to watch billions of $ in potential tax revenue disappear to the Bahamas and the Caymans and Switzerland but I am not.

?This is Economic Treason?: 500,000 March in London Protesting Public Spending Cuts and Corporate Tax Dodgers

Simple solution: Introduce co-determination laws. This would require companies and workers to work together, thus allowing workers to negotiate fair wages with the corporations. This way, regardless of whether government raises or lowers corporate taxes, workers would always ensure any tax cut is shared equaly between workers and management.
 

BaalsTears

Senate Member
Jan 25, 2011
5,732
0
36
Santa Cruz, California
The leftists want a redistribution of income from those who are productive to those who are indolent.

Why did China abandon Communism? Because it doesn't work. If something doesn't work, it will ultimately fail.
 

PoliticalNick

The Troll Bashing Troll
Mar 8, 2011
7,940
0
36
Edson, AB
Simple solution: Introduce co-determination laws. This would require companies and workers to work together, thus allowing workers to negotiate fair wages with the corporations. This way, regardless of whether government raises or lowers corporate taxes, workers would always ensure any tax cut is shared equaly between workers and management.

It would seem you are describing a co-op type situation. This will not work in the corporate sector and might be a tough fight to force cooperative laws into the business models of ths world.

You always have to keep in mind that a corporatios is "a fictional legal entity". It has no morals and values and has only 1 legal obligation and that is to be as profitable as it can for the shareholder.

The leftists want a redistribution of income from those who are productive to those who are indolent.

Why did China abandon Communism? Because it doesn't work. If something doesn't work, it will ultimately fail.

That is why big corporate America needed over a trillion dollars to stay alive, because it works so well.

Most of us just want everyone to play by the same rules and pay their fair share.
 

Machjo

Hall of Fame Member
Oct 19, 2004
17,878
61
48
Ottawa, ON
It would seem you are describing a co-op type situation. This will not work in the corporate sector and might be a tough fight to force cooperative laws into the business models of ths world.

You always have to keep in mind that a corporatios is "a fictional legal entity". It has no morals and values and has only 1 legal obligation and that is to be as profitable as it can for the shareholder.

Germany has co-determination laws in place already:

Co-determination - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

There really is no need to reinvent the wheel here.
 

PoliticalNick

The Troll Bashing Troll
Mar 8, 2011
7,940
0
36
Edson, AB
Germany has co-determination laws in place already:

Co-determination - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

There really is no need to reinvent the wheel here.

Thank you for the link.

As I thought it is a co-op style set up which seems to work well and I can buy into it, but can big corporate Canada. They would most likely fight it all the way and then resent it for years until the harmony achieved in Germany came about.

I think I will add this to my platform for reform in this country.
 

PoliticalNick

The Troll Bashing Troll
Mar 8, 2011
7,940
0
36
Edson, AB
LOL

Can we get a bullet-point list of your reform platform?

Sure...

- reform government structure, accountablility and role.
- reform financial debt based money system
- reform corporate business laws
- reform anything else that isn't working with the common good in mind.


 

Machjo

Hall of Fame Member
Oct 19, 2004
17,878
61
48
Ottawa, ON
Sure...

- reform government structure, accountablility and role.
- reform financial debt based money system
- reform corporate business laws
- reform anything else that isn't working with the common good in mind.



Too ambiguous. Anyone can say that.
 

Machjo

Hall of Fame Member
Oct 19, 2004
17,878
61
48
Ottawa, ON
Can't really roll out the entire details here...post would be 10 pages long.

Honestly though, I'd rather a candidate in an election bring up one topic or a few topics and elaborate it or them in detail rathre than cover a litany of things they'd do with no clear details as to how they'd do it. It would show the MP's analytical abilities that way.