5 ms·

The kicker: The burden of proof falls on you, not the government. If you don't prove the funds were clean, Her Majesty may be presumed entitled to k

by fao_ 7y ago

The kicker: The burden of proof falls on you, not the government. If you don't prove the funds were clean, Her Majesty may be presumed entitled to keep the goodies. That doesn't sound too goo- oh, The asset must be worth at least £50,000 Given that the average annual income of someone in the UK is 22,000£, and there are currently 4 million children in the UK that cannot afford to eat (https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/sep/05/four-million-uk-children-too-poor-to-have-a-healthy-diet-study-finds https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/sep/05/four-million...), with a preliminary study from the UN claiming that 8.4 million people in the UK are affected by food shortages, this just falls under 'rich people problems'. Besides, if you buy something that is over 50,000£, surely you would keep the reciept for insurance reasons, or just plain book-keeping. If you don't, and the taxman shows up and asks where you got it, then that's your fault for not having possession of those records. If you can afford to buy a single thing that is twice the average salary, then you can afford to pay someone to do that book-keeping for you, surely.

nickthemagicman 7y ago
That 50k is an arbitrary number and can be lowered at any moment. Rich people's problems may one day be everyone's problems. This is a scary law on my limited understanding.
- heraclius 7y ago
  The problem with slippery slope arguments is that they need to show that the initial step taken somehow leads to the bad outcome mentioned. The obvious solution is to stay at 50k. I think that the political situation still would create a huge uproar if it were lowered significantly.
  - deogeo 7y ago
    So for a slippery slope argument to be valid in this case, you would have to show that governments (or the UK government specifically) tend to slowly expand their repressive powers?
    - fao_ 7y ago
      You can use the exact same argument to argue that the speed limit will decrease forever.
  - miemo 7y ago
    and what if the 50k figure never changes? 50k will conveniently be worth less over a few decades - the slippery slope is a built-in feature unless actively changed
- esarbe 7y ago
  There are lots of laws with arbitrary numbers in them. That's because don't get justice from fair laws, you get justice from a fair legal system. You can have the bestest and fairestest laws in the world, that doesn't give you anything if you are facing a corrupt legal system. If you've got a ridiculous code of law and a somewhat competent legal system, you should be fine. So, in my opinion you should be worried to get competent people into the right places.
- fao_ 7y ago
  Rich people's problems may one day be everyone's problems. That's a worthy dream. But in the last 1000 years it hasn't become a reality.
chrismcb 7y ago
This is why we Yanks have the fourth amendment. So the government can't just arbitrarly take things from the citizens... And just ignore the civil forfeiture...
- fao_ 7y ago
  Rich people are rich because they have stolen from society. You don't think Jeff Bezos became the richest guy in the world by refusing to cut corners or underpay workers? No, amazon routinely does both of those (https://stallman.org/amazon.html https://stallman.org/amazon.html). There is always, always, a hidden human cost to large sums of money. I'm not scared of the government coming in and taking my stuff. What I am scared of is rich people taking my labour and not paying me for it, and rich people using their vast sums of money to pay for coverups that allow them to keep their vast sums of money and avoid paying their taxes. And, oh, wait. We have ample evidence that rich people all over the world are doing that en masse: https://www.icij.org/investigations/panama-papers/ https://www.icij.org/investigations/panama-papers/ https://www.theguardian.com/news/2016/apr/03/what-you-need-to-know-about-the-panama-papers https://www.theguardian.com/news/2016/apr/03/what-you-need-t... The poorest 10 per cent of households in the UK pay a greater proportion of their income in tax than the richest 10 per cent, new analysis has revealed. [...] Dr. Wanda Wyporska, Executive Director of The Equality Trust, said: “When the super-rich are paying less in taxes than their cleaners, you know something has gone disastrously wrong with our broken, regressive tax system. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/lowest-earners-more-tax-richest-office-national-statistics-inequality-council-tax-vat-equality-trust-a7704331.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/lowest-earne... The companies, which include tech giants such as Amazon and Netflix, should have paid a collective $16.4 billion in federal income taxes based on the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act's 21 percent corporate tax rate, according to the left-leaning Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. Instead, these corporations received a net tax rebate of $4.3 billion. The analysis is based on the corporations' annual financial reports, which were filed earlier this year to report their 2018 results. [...] Amazon won't pay a cent in federal income tax this year, despite its profits soaring to $11.2 billion in 2018, nearly double the $5.6 billion it earned the previous year, ITEP said. In fact, Amazon claimed a federal income tax rebate of $129 million, the study found. It would be the second year in a row Amazon paid no federal tax, giving the retail giant an effective tax rate of -1 percent. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/2018-taxes-some-of-americas-biggest-companies-paid-little-to-no-federal-income-tax-last-year/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/2018-taxes-some-of-americas-big... https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/12/rich-people-are-getting-away-not-paying-their-taxes/577798/ https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/12/rich-pe... https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/21/here-are-5-ways-the-super-rich-manage-to-pay-lower-taxes.html https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/21/here-are-5-ways-the-super-ri...

by fao_ 7y ago

nickthemagicman 7y ago

That 50k is an arbitrary number and can be lowered at any moment. Rich people's problems may one day be everyone's problems. This is a scary law on my limited understanding.

heraclius 7y ago
The problem with slippery slope arguments is that they need to show that the initial step taken somehow leads to the bad outcome mentioned. The obvious solution is to stay at 50k. I think that the political situation still would create a huge uproar if it were lowered significantly.
- deogeo 7y ago
  So for a slippery slope argument to be valid in this case, you would have to show that governments (or the UK government specifically) tend to slowly expand their repressive powers?
  - fao_ 7y ago
    You can use the exact same argument to argue that the speed limit will decrease forever.
- miemo 7y ago
  and what if the 50k figure never changes? 50k will conveniently be worth less over a few decades - the slippery slope is a built-in feature unless actively changed
esarbe 7y ago
There are lots of laws with arbitrary numbers in them. That's because don't get justice from fair laws, you get justice from a fair legal system. You can have the bestest and fairestest laws in the world, that doesn't give you anything if you are facing a corrupt legal system. If you've got a ridiculous code of law and a somewhat competent legal system, you should be fine. So, in my opinion you should be worried to get competent people into the right places.
fao_ 7y ago
Rich people's problems may one day be everyone's problems. That's a worthy dream. But in the last 1000 years it hasn't become a reality.

chrismcb 7y ago

This is why we Yanks have the fourth amendment. So the government can't just arbitrarly take things from the citizens... And just ignore the civil forfeiture...

fao_ 7y ago
Rich people are rich because they have stolen from society. You don't think Jeff Bezos became the richest guy in the world by refusing to cut corners or underpay workers? No, amazon routinely does both of those (https://stallman.org/amazon.html https://stallman.org/amazon.html). There is always, always, a hidden human cost to large sums of money. I'm not scared of the government coming in and taking my stuff. What I am scared of is rich people taking my labour and not paying me for it, and rich people using their vast sums of money to pay for coverups that allow them to keep their vast sums of money and avoid paying their taxes. And, oh, wait. We have ample evidence that rich people all over the world are doing that en masse: https://www.icij.org/investigations/panama-papers/ https://www.icij.org/investigations/panama-papers/ https://www.theguardian.com/news/2016/apr/03/what-you-need-to-know-about-the-panama-papers https://www.theguardian.com/news/2016/apr/03/what-you-need-t... The poorest 10 per cent of households in the UK pay a greater proportion of their income in tax than the richest 10 per cent, new analysis has revealed. [...] Dr. Wanda Wyporska, Executive Director of The Equality Trust, said: “When the super-rich are paying less in taxes than their cleaners, you know something has gone disastrously wrong with our broken, regressive tax system. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/lowest-earners-more-tax-richest-office-national-statistics-inequality-council-tax-vat-equality-trust-a7704331.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/lowest-earne... The companies, which include tech giants such as Amazon and Netflix, should have paid a collective $16.4 billion in federal income taxes based on the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act's 21 percent corporate tax rate, according to the left-leaning Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. Instead, these corporations received a net tax rebate of $4.3 billion. The analysis is based on the corporations' annual financial reports, which were filed earlier this year to report their 2018 results. [...] Amazon won't pay a cent in federal income tax this year, despite its profits soaring to $11.2 billion in 2018, nearly double the $5.6 billion it earned the previous year, ITEP said. In fact, Amazon claimed a federal income tax rebate of $129 million, the study found. It would be the second year in a row Amazon paid no federal tax, giving the retail giant an effective tax rate of -1 percent. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/2018-taxes-some-of-americas-biggest-companies-paid-little-to-no-federal-income-tax-last-year/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/2018-taxes-some-of-americas-big... https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/12/rich-people-are-getting-away-not-paying-their-taxes/577798/ https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/12/rich-pe... https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/21/here-are-5-ways-the-super-rich-manage-to-pay-lower-taxes.html https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/21/here-are-5-ways-the-super-ri...