I am aware that Emma Thompson and Greg Wise are threatening to go on tax strike until HSBC are prosecuted for assisting tax evasion.
I admire their conviction and courage and wish them well but cannot suggest that others follow their action.
The penalties for paying taxes due later than law requires are substantial and automatically imposed and there is no possibility of waiver for acting out of conscience. For most people this gesture will, then, be very expensive indeed.
I am also not sure that refusing to pay tax is the best way for most people to show their commitment to paying it, although headline cases like this might work.
There are ways of protesting about tax but I am not sure that this will be the best for most people and so I cannot endorse a widespread tax strike.
But campaigning for a Tax Dodging Bill is something anyone could do. And should, in my opinion.
How would someone on paye manage to stop paying tax. If you can go on ‘strike’ it reinforces the suggestion that paying in the first place is somewhat optional. – PAYE FOR ALL!
Of course everyone who is campaigning for tax justice is reticent to endorse withholding of tax. However let’s think about it. If this celebrity led initiative gathers pace, we might get to the stage where the government sits up and takes note. We might even get to the stage where celebrities taking part in Comic Relief make a statement about their tax affairs. We all know that Comic Relief is needed precisely because of industrial scale tax cheating.
If celebrities take an initiative, surely we should be with them.
However, they will increase their credibility if they announce that the the withheld tax is to be paid into a trust which will be paid to HMRC when certain listed conditions are met. If that trust must be held offshore to save them paying penalties to HMRC, that is just a symptom of how the present corrupt system works.
Seems to me that their is need of a scheme to help them.
Fair Tax Mark is the nice way of doing it. And yes we must campaign for a Tax Dodging Bill. But maybe there also has to be a more punitive way of getting government action?
After all – “there is more than one way to skin a cat”.
Glad to see you are on the mend.
Regards
David Lucas
David
You are welcome to do this
But please be aware of the risks and consequences
I will not ask people to do it because I think there are better ways to achieve the goal at present
Richard
Is it not the case that the UK/Swiss tax co-operation agreement of 2012 exempts HSBC from criminal prosecution, or have I got that completely wrong?
It makes it a great deal harder
The thing with a tax strike is that unless you’re convinced it’s going to take the entire system down (and seemingly impregnable regimes have fallen before – the Eastern bloc in 1989, for instance) you’re going to face big fines or a prison sentence. So unless it’s done on a really massive scale it’s a big risk. I’m not ruling out the idea that in a few years we might reach a situation where British democracy has been destroyed and the only way forward is mass civil disobedience – effectively revolution. But I don’t think we’re there yet.
Agreed