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At a guess this might not be far from the truth. For sub a few hundred pound almost no one would bother fighting it. Above a few hundred thousand almost everyon
by VBprogrammer 7y ago
At a guess this might not be far from the truth. For sub a few hundred pound almost no one would bother fighting it. Above a few hundred thousand almost everyone will. At best they'd have to expend a lot of time and money to get a fraction of the original amount back.
- marcus_holmes 7y agoMy wealthy great aunt paid an accountant to minimise her tax bill. She said it worked out around even, the costs of the accountant were about what she saved on the taxes, but she preferred paying the accountant than the government.
- yrro 7y agoOf course, 20% of what she paid the accountant goes straight to the government in the form of VAT. Then, 20% of what's left goes again when the accountant spends any of it (ok, some thing are zero-rated [books] but on the other hand others have extra duties on top [fuel])... Then there's the accountant's own tax bill...
- benj111 7y ago"but she preferred paying the accountant" Why? At the extreme, would she have preferred to pay 100% to accountants rather than the government? If everyone took that view, who would pay for the schools and roads etc? I suppose that wouldn't happen, the tax rate would be increased, so everyone's paying tax and a massive accountants bill, so really the rational move is to pay the tax.
- markkanof 7y agoThere are a lot of things that government spends taxes on that many of us don't agree with. Better to spend that money employing someone providing a useful service than contributing to fund things that you find immoral, such as fighting unjust wars.
- marcus_holmes 7y agothis. exactly. She'd lived through WWII, been bombed by the Luftwaffe, operated one of the first radar stations, and had firm opinions on governments.