[Info-vax] OT: Politics - Was: HP stopping VMS paper documentation ?

[Paul Sture]

On Wed, 07 Dec 2011 12:04:18 -0800, John Wallace wrote:

> Thank you. I was going to mention the terms "carousel fraud" and
> "missing trader fraud" as opportunities for making money in the VAT
> setup. These frauds are widely documented, and apparently lose the UK
> billions of pounds of VAT every year. Occasionally people get caught,
> tried, and sentenced.

I heard about the "missing trader" one in the early nineties. Apparently 
no checks were performed for newly registered businesses when claiming 
the VAT on initial expenses for setting up an office, as long as the 
amount fell below a certain limit (2K?).  The case I heard of involved a 
chap having letterboxes manufactured to order and he was sticking them on 
the outside of buildings and then disappearing when the cheque came.

> Then there's the kind of long term multi-£billion corporate tax dodging
> you get from the likes of Vodafone, in the UK and in India (to name but
> one company in two countries).
> 
> In the UK Vodafone's activities even appeared to be officially
> sanctioned, in a rather unusual kind of way. The very senior tax
> official testifying about the to the relevant House of Commons committee
> was, again really rather unusually, asked to finish his testimony under
> oath: brief BBC coverage including video:
> http://news.bbc.co.uk/democracylive/hi/house_of_commons/
newsid_9633000/9633391.stm
> and plenty more elsewhere.

I sometimes get the feeling that it's OK for large companies to cheat and 
a blind eye will be turned as long as they are providing employment.

-- 
Fog differs from other clouds only in that fog touches the surface of
the Earth.

Paul Sture