You quickly find out how your mates are when you have been exposed as an immoral tax dodger. Jimmy Carr, it seems, has no mates. I checked out the twitter feeds of a couple of UK "comedians" including those insufferable bores - Stephen Fry and Graham Norton. There was no mention of Jimmy's rather taxing difficulties. Armando Iannucci also had nothing.
There was only some very lukewarm support Dom Joly. He qualified his comment with "From what I know" and then went to say "Jimmy Carr is a very nice man (a rarity in comedy) who does a lot for good causes."
Jimmy, insofar as he has said anything at all, played the victimisation card. Murdoch is out to get him. Furthermore, Jimmy assured us that he not taking any lessons in morality from him.
How about taking a lesson from the elected leader of the country - the Prime Minister, Mr. Cameron? He summed up Mr. Carr's behaviour perfectly.
"I think some of these schemes - and I think particularly of the Jimmy Carr scheme - I have had time to read about and I just think this is completely wrong.
People work hard, they pay their taxes, they save up to go to one of his shows. They buy the tickets. He is taking the money from those tickets and he, as far as I can see, is putting all of that into some very dodgy tax avoiding schemes.
That is wrong. There is nothing wrong with people planning their tax affairs to invest in their pension and plan for their retirement - that sort of tax management is fine. But some of these schemes we have seen are quite frankly morally wrong."
The liberal elite have been bitching about taxes ever since this crisis has started. They want the Coalition to push up income tax rates. However, as Jimmy Carr's tax dodging scams reveal, they don't mean to pay any additional taxes themselves. They want the hard press middle classes to pay more.
I would be more than happy to see Carr pay more tax. However, that can be achieved without a hike in the income tax rate. Close down his immoral tax avoidance scheme, and make him pay more. Leave the rest of us alone.
If you haven't seen Carr's repulsive Barclay's sketch, click here. I defy you to find a single funny moment. Apart from the obvious hypocritical BS on tax, I found it really quite offensive to women working in banks. But hey, it is OK to make out that hard-working tax-paying cashiers in banks are stupid, morally lax and part of a conspiracy to evade tax. They are fair game, aren't they Jimmy, just like mentally disabled kids.
If you want to see the full measure of the man, check this out.
12 comments:
Personally, I cannot live in the UK because I cannot stand seeing the faces of the endless collection of smug, stupid British celebrities from everywhere, as if the politicians were not enough. Happily, I've been away long enough I have no idea who Carr might be, but Stephen Fry and Graham Norton still give me conniptions.
One of the reasons I find myself visiting blogs like this is that I'm brassic.
I'd be out doing better things otherwise.
I've just completed an 8 day stint and this is my rest day - on my own with nobody else around as is bloody usual. Those weeks that I'm not late turn or nights I'm earlies - these start at around 4am which means really early to bed the night before.
I calculate that I give up 3/4 of my social life.
With a wife and kids I am unable to maintain any other friendships.
The money looks good on paper and it costs my employer a lot but it's all a right swiz.
I'm paying 40% tax
My cars are ten years old
We haven't had a decent holiday for four years
We can't save
The benefit dependants next door live exactly the same 3-bed-semi lifestyle that we do. Their brood of 7 daughters are all housed in their own flats, with their babbas, courtesy of the State - something my boys will not be able to do if they get a job and education.
Yet my boys will be classed as privileged and discriminated against for university quotas. This by virtue of that 40% classification, that they are white, and the fact that we encouraged to get them into grammar school.
Leave the tax system as it is for the rich - it's just too complex to tackle.
Get more people out of the 40% tax bracket and cut the state spending.
Tax and VAT really is stifling effort, ambition and growth in the striving classes.
Alice come on .....
Lessons in morality from the Eton boys ?
Has the expenses scandal been forgotten so quickly ?
How many people has Carr bombed ?
British democracy is buying votes with others people's money,the results you see every day on the way to work.
If Carr objects to well over half his income being taken I can't say I blame him .
In a previous life as a plumber I didn't notice any great willingness from the outraged British public to pay VAT on their household repairs .
Where's the morality in the inflation they are desperately
trying to create ? That not avoiding tax it's theft.
Whilst no lover of the comedian, I applaud his stance, tax avoidance is not a crime, nor is it morally repugnant to minimise the tax payable. As the late Kerry Packer said "anyone who would volunteer to pay more tax, needs their bloody head examined"!
LFB_UK
What Kitz said.
You see, David Cameron is only a green grocer. He doesn't have the means to put tax changes on the legislative agenda.
Every party rants against tax loopholes and fails to act on it. Why would they? PMs make good money and are chums with the wealthy. They want to keep it that way.
What EK said. Spending on benefits now outweighs income tax revenue. Everything EK is paying in tax is going straight next door to keep the feckless in beer, fags and Sky TV.
Personally, if I could do what Jimmy Carr has done, I'd do the same. It is soul destroying to work hard as he has done and see 50-60% of it disappear down the tubes at the end of the year.
This country is f*cked. It used to be that welfare was temporary and shameful. People took it to get by, but wanted to fend for themselves as they were too ashamed to depend on others for longer than they had to. Nowadays its a lifestyle choice, and a pretty good one too, that is virtually celebrated by the idiot liberal commentariat.
Jim - If I could do what Carr is doing I'd be a happy man. PAYE makes me a sitting duck - then again I don't have to chase around for work or sort out my own books.
Carr's only mistake, in my view, was lampooning a bank over its tax avoidance.
Perhaps what Ken livingstone says has some merit - an unavoidable flat tax. But this does not deal with state overspend.
Whether you like Carr or his comedy seems to me to be largely irrelevant.
Is there anyone sensible over 12 years of age who complains about another's hypocrisy?
Let's face it, Cameron could stop this tomorrow. If you hold a UK passport, you pay tax on any increase in value of your assets anywhere in the world. Job done.
But it ain't as simple as that is it?
And if Cameron thinks Carr's behaviour is immoral, but doesn't do anything to stop it, isn't he complicit in the immorality?
Oh dear, how can I have been so obtuse?
The correct response from Jimmy should be: "And Lord Hansen?"
@JM: so you are proposing that all UK citizens should be slaves from the moment they are born to the moment they die? That wherever they live and work in the world the UK deserves its cut of their labours? Like some sort of international protection racket?
"Nice passport you've got there Sir, be a shame if anything 'happened' to it now wouldn't it?"
"the elected leader of the country - the Prime Minister": oh do give over.
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