4 ms·

This is almost a perfect straight from template Graun piece. 1) Take something which is routine and well known to everyone except the Guardian's reader demogra

This is almost a perfect straight from template Graun piece. 1) Take something which is routine and well known to everyone except the Guardian's reader demographic (hysterically uneducable middle class outrage junkies). 2) Find an example of someone abusing it. 3) Blame it on Thatcher. 4) Profit! 3 is becoming increasingly tedious and of course when 4 actually happens, GMG are careful to use offshore vehicles to avoid paying any tax on it, which is OK when they do it, because reasons[0] Guardian columnist strikes me as one of those middle class jobs at risk of being 'decimated' by cheap AI. [0] http://www.theguardian.com/help/insideguardian/2011/feb/22/blogpost http://www.theguardian.com/help/insideguardian/2011/feb/22/b...

gadders 11y ago
Not only that, but the Guardian is owned by a charity as part of an inheritance tax dodge in the first place. http://order-order.com/2009/02/06/tax-justice-protest-against-guardian/ http://order-order.com/2009/02/06/tax-justice-protest-agains...
- junto 11y ago
  Isn't it also now in the US rather than the UK after the Security Services embarrassing Snowden-hard drive sledgehammer incident?
easytiger 11y ago
it is becoming a bit tiresome. Simply head over to /r/unitedkingdom and i'm quite sure you will find people using it to paint anyone who owns a home or has non trivial PAYE fiscal dealings as satan itself.
gjtempleton 11y ago
Disclaimer: I'm a Graun reader, make of that what you will. 1) and 2) are largely a definition of a newspaper's purpose, educating their readers on something they don't know about. They also don't purely blame it on Thatcher, they make it clear that every government since Thatcher's has made this easier. They even single out 2001 as a key year in this process. I'd also wager a large portion of the population don't know how easy and legal it is to create companies with no traceable actual human being responsible for their conduct. Private Eye has been banging on about this for years thanks to Richard Brooks, but that's not exactly mainstream. (See "Where there's muck, there's brass plates" https://privateeye.subscribeonline.co.uk/Products/digital-editions https://privateeye.subscribeonline.co.uk/Products/digital-ed... )
- stevetrewick 11y ago
  I'm aware of their purpose, and I'm not against it. Merely pointing out what a good example this particular article is of them having extracted a reusable pattern. The Guardian has always been an activist paper driving page views with outrage and this model has translated well into the digital age. They're very good at it. PE and Brooks, of course, were famously wrong about e.g. Vodafone who it turned out were in fact tax compliant. Like the Guardian.
  - willyt 11y ago
    I slightly raised my eyebrows when you called the guardian 'activist' because all papers are political in the UK. I would have said that the their news pieces (not the comment pieces obviously), while not free of bias, are amongst the least biased in the UK. Also you say that they drive page views with outrage, all headlines are click bait to a certain extent or they would be crap headlines, but the Guardian is nowhere near as guilty of outrageous headlines and recycled stories as the Daily Mail, Sun, Mirror, Express etc
infinity0 11y ago
Whilst everyone knows that corporate fraud and shell companies exist, it's highly unlikely that many know about the specific details mentioned in this article. And calling a whole group of people "hysterically uneducable" is laughably hypocritical in itself. As for "find [..] someone abusing it", they also showed that the abuse was quite significant. And for your claims about GMG tax avoidance, I'm not sure how you can say that with a straight face about 29.4%.
- retube 11y ago
  Given that GMG never make a profit I'd be interested in where that 29.4% came from. To my knowledge they pay very little tax as they're loss making. That aside they make well documented use of tax havens which per their rhetoric is BAD EVIL RICH COMPANIES AVOIDING tax so yeah, I do feel it's well hypocritical.
  - infinity0 11y ago
    I think judging someone based on the tools they use to structure their tax focuses on the wrong thing, though it can help point us in the right direction on the worst offenders. The final end result (effective total rate paid [1]) is what matters, and for GMG it's about the same as you or I. [1] globally and across a long period of time, ofc
anexprogrammer 11y ago
Both the Grauniad and the Torygraph have got a bit cliche with more of their pieces. I suspect this is a function of the move online. Back in the days of newsprint I'd often alternate to give myself a somewhat wider point of view. Meanwhile at the Torygraph 1) Take something which is routine and well known to everyone except the Torygraph's reader demographic (hysterically uneducable free market junkies). 2) Find an example of someone abusing it. 3) Blame it on Labour esp Corbin or The EU 4) Profit! 3 is becoming increasingly tedious You've basically enumerated "how newspapers work".
- stevetrewick 11y ago
  It's worse at the Torygraph, they've gone all in on buzzfeed SEO lists. "40 things to know before you're 40" and the like. They're a bit behind the curve with leveraging the Twitter outrage mob for clicks, probably because hardly anyone ever manages to read to the end of one their articles without dying of boredom.
- crdoconnor 11y ago
  The Grauniad's not exactly a fan of Corbyn either.
TheOtherHobbes 11y ago
I know a little about UK company law and company formations - what with running a company and all - but I had no idea that it was possible for a company to be a director and secretary of another company, or that it was so easy to bypass normal reporting and ownership requirements with shell games like these. I'm fairly sure the details will be news to most small business owners in the UK. It's the kind of insider loophole wrangling that's only available to people who know the right lawyers and accountants. It's not at all obvious from online searches, even if you're investigating offshore and/or holding companies. So dismissing people who learned something from this piece as "hysterically uneducable middle class outrage junkies" is self-indulgent virtue signalling. It's simply factually wrong.
sjcsjc 11y ago
"... the Guardian's reader demographic (hysterically uneducable middle class outrage junkies)." People who make sweeping derogatory generalisations like this are all idiots.

gadders 11y ago

Not only that, but the Guardian is owned by a charity as part of an inheritance tax dodge in the first place. http://order-order.com/2009/02/06/tax-justice-protest-against-guardian/ http://order-order.com/2009/02/06/tax-justice-protest-agains...

junto 11y ago
Isn't it also now in the US rather than the UK after the Security Services embarrassing Snowden-hard drive sledgehammer incident?

easytiger 11y ago

it is becoming a bit tiresome. Simply head over to /r/unitedkingdom and i'm quite sure you will find people using it to paint anyone who owns a home or has non trivial PAYE fiscal dealings as satan itself.

gjtempleton 11y ago

Disclaimer: I'm a Graun reader, make of that what you will. 1) and 2) are largely a definition of a newspaper's purpose, educating their readers on something they don't know about. They also don't purely blame it on Thatcher, they make it clear that every government since Thatcher's has made this easier. They even single out 2001 as a key year in this process. I'd also wager a large portion of the population don't know how easy and legal it is to create companies with no traceable actual human being responsible for their conduct. Private Eye has been banging on about this for years thanks to Richard Brooks, but that's not exactly mainstream. (See "Where there's muck, there's brass plates" https://privateeye.subscribeonline.co.uk/Products/digital-editions https://privateeye.subscribeonline.co.uk/Products/digital-ed... )

stevetrewick 11y ago
I'm aware of their purpose, and I'm not against it. Merely pointing out what a good example this particular article is of them having extracted a reusable pattern. The Guardian has always been an activist paper driving page views with outrage and this model has translated well into the digital age. They're very good at it. PE and Brooks, of course, were famously wrong about e.g. Vodafone who it turned out were in fact tax compliant. Like the Guardian.
- willyt 11y ago
  I slightly raised my eyebrows when you called the guardian 'activist' because all papers are political in the UK. I would have said that the their news pieces (not the comment pieces obviously), while not free of bias, are amongst the least biased in the UK. Also you say that they drive page views with outrage, all headlines are click bait to a certain extent or they would be crap headlines, but the Guardian is nowhere near as guilty of outrageous headlines and recycled stories as the Daily Mail, Sun, Mirror, Express etc

infinity0 11y ago

Whilst everyone knows that corporate fraud and shell companies exist, it's highly unlikely that many know about the specific details mentioned in this article. And calling a whole group of people "hysterically uneducable" is laughably hypocritical in itself. As for "find [..] someone abusing it", they also showed that the abuse was quite significant. And for your claims about GMG tax avoidance, I'm not sure how you can say that with a straight face about 29.4%.

retube 11y ago
Given that GMG never make a profit I'd be interested in where that 29.4% came from. To my knowledge they pay very little tax as they're loss making. That aside they make well documented use of tax havens which per their rhetoric is BAD EVIL RICH COMPANIES AVOIDING tax so yeah, I do feel it's well hypocritical.
- infinity0 11y ago
  I think judging someone based on the tools they use to structure their tax focuses on the wrong thing, though it can help point us in the right direction on the worst offenders. The final end result (effective total rate paid [1]) is what matters, and for GMG it's about the same as you or I. [1] globally and across a long period of time, ofc

anexprogrammer 11y ago

Both the Grauniad and the Torygraph have got a bit cliche with more of their pieces. I suspect this is a function of the move online. Back in the days of newsprint I'd often alternate to give myself a somewhat wider point of view. Meanwhile at the Torygraph 1) Take something which is routine and well known to everyone except the Torygraph's reader demographic (hysterically uneducable free market junkies). 2) Find an example of someone abusing it. 3) Blame it on Labour esp Corbin or The EU 4) Profit! 3 is becoming increasingly tedious You've basically enumerated "how newspapers work".

stevetrewick 11y ago
It's worse at the Torygraph, they've gone all in on buzzfeed SEO lists. "40 things to know before you're 40" and the like. They're a bit behind the curve with leveraging the Twitter outrage mob for clicks, probably because hardly anyone ever manages to read to the end of one their articles without dying of boredom.
crdoconnor 11y ago
The Grauniad's not exactly a fan of Corbyn either.

TheOtherHobbes 11y ago

I know a little about UK company law and company formations - what with running a company and all - but I had no idea that it was possible for a company to be a director and secretary of another company, or that it was so easy to bypass normal reporting and ownership requirements with shell games like these. I'm fairly sure the details will be news to most small business owners in the UK. It's the kind of insider loophole wrangling that's only available to people who know the right lawyers and accountants. It's not at all obvious from online searches, even if you're investigating offshore and/or holding companies. So dismissing people who learned something from this piece as "hysterically uneducable middle class outrage junkies" is self-indulgent virtue signalling. It's simply factually wrong.

sjcsjc 11y ago

"... the Guardian's reader demographic (hysterically uneducable middle class outrage junkies)." People who make sweeping derogatory generalisations like this are all idiots.