Using ISAs and share schemes are not tax avoidance though. The article DaveO linked to specifically said that avoidance does not include tax planning (making use of tax relief for the purpose they were intended). They define tax avoidance as:

Ok. You don't want to answer the question, fair enough. We can move on to the next one you prompted: where does the cash they use to buy back shares go?



Whether it's the right thing for a business to buy shares back (or sell owned shares) is far too complex to look into here. There are reasons a business might buy it's shares and reasons it might not. Without a serious analysis of Wal-Mart's business we couldn't answer that, and even then I suspect professional analysts would differ on the answer.

I think it is admirable that you seek to see what in your eyes is a better society - for me it is about being realistic i.e. what is genuinely possible. I mentioned times when fairness/equality was forced on people and it didn't work. Given the chance it would appear most people prefer a society where opportunity is available to better yourself at the expense of others.



On food banks - it is half of 1% of the population - this is unacceptable and your quite correct in that - however how many people do we have willingly living on the streets and how many of them use food banks? What I am trying to understand is what is the true increase and how much of that is down to cuts in benefits? Saying a million people is too sensationalised a number to be accurate.



On benefits - the genuine claimers i.e. the mentally/physically disabled society has an obligation to support these people. Of the rest it depends on your view of what benefits should provide. Should they provide for a very basic existence or should they provide for a lifestyle as if you were working? Should those on benefits be better off than somebody who is prepared to go out and work?



On ethics - I have my own standards of how I treat people - that is what matters to me. I will give a chance to a young person wherever possible - and in that my actions are tangible/verifiable and speak much about the person I am than an words on a thread in a nameless message board. I have numerous Apple products, even though I know their business ethics 'may' be questionable - why because they improve the quality of my own life. I know what is coming now - my ethics stink etc - but I bet if you look around at all the products you use to enhance your life a sizeable chunk will fall into the same ethical category. It is almost impossible to avoid them.



I suspect you would like to be a full time writer - your blog heading suggests you are? However I suspect this is a market where capacity far exceeds demand and it is difficult to making a living from it full time.



I have said this again - the world is bad place where equality simply doesn't/cannot exist. Every human is different with different experiences, different morals, different ideals and very different methods in how they hope to achieve their goals to standardise that is unrealistic.



On jobs paying a living wage - of the 34m working in this country the stats suggest 5m are earning below the living wage i.e. 14% that still says 86% are earning above the living wage. How many are drawing more on benefits - all included i.e. rent, child support, rates support etc - in a week than the living wage for 40 hours work after tax and NI.

That is the endless loop that, if a politician could fix, would ensure him/her the Prime Ministers job for a long time.



1. You earn less than the notational "living wage".

2. You are below the Income Tax threshold and pay miniscule amounts of NIS

3. You are entitled to tax credits to top up your income.

3. Your nett take from the Benefits Agency exceeds your nett contribution, but you are working, you are one of the good guys and not a scrounger.

4. Repeat for decades.



Meantime the employer benefits from cheap labour which only stays because the benefits system allow them to be housed and fed and the employee continues to be a nett draw-down on the tax take for decades.



At least it keeps some civil servants in a job I suppose.

I think that you're conflating things.



It would be factually correct that some people, in the UK, today, feel that fairness and equality are "forced" on them. The B&B business where the owner doesn't like gays.



They want to be able to run a business where they can refuse to serve customers on the basis of an individual belief about an entire group.



As Jerry has pointed out in the past, this is no different from the 'no blacks or dogs' signs of a few decades ago.



Change to something fairer and more equal was forced on people by law.



What sort of percentage of the population today would really think that being able to post such signs again would be acceptable?



The point is that we can – in the UK – occasions of greater fairness and equality being created by, one might say, legal "force". And the majority accept it and move on – move forward.



An idea of equality/fairness is not the sole preserve of the USSR or the Eastern Bloc.



Indeed, if this country (and others) had not made many other moves forward, and changes to law etc over the centuries, where do you think we would be today?







Those doing the foodbank work at the point of handing it out don't just give it to anyone who walks through the doors. Much of the increase in foodbank use is down to falling wages (and hours – underemployment, in other words) combined with the rising cost of living.



Huge numbers of those using foodbanks are in work.



On those living on the streets, this has been rising for years. It's been shown over the years to include many ex-service personnel who can find it very difficult to fit back into civilian life. There is also a long-term issue of not enough safe, residential care for people with mental illnesses.



Only this morning I spotted a story about numbers of children locked in police cells for exactly the same reason. [url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-25900085Story[/url.







A number of points here, but I'll stick with just two:



• what is the "lifestyle as if you were working", when we have working people needing benefits and using foodbanks?



• I don't think anyone has denied that there are pîsstakers out there. But until there is a job for everyone man and woman of working age, then politicians demanding that such people are forced into work is ridiculous. There are not enough jobs for the willing let alone the unwilling, who I'd suggest they far outnumber. Indeed, as the BoE boss has now acknowledged, there are masses of people who are in some work, but cannot get enough to meet their own needs. The entire business about the 'scroungers' is a deflection. Similarly with getting the disabled into work when there are not enough jobs to go around – and not least when the same government scraps Remploy.







Well, I'm not going to have a go at your ethics – I never have: just your previous apparent refusal to discuss ethics in any terms other than what you perceive to be mine, which you have had more the odd dig at, remember.





As I've said before, it's difficult to be as ethical as one might wish in 'the real world', but where possible, I try.







It would be part of what I'd ideally do, although in terms of day-to-day work, sub-editing is probably one of my favourite aspects – I like the geekiness of solving layout puzzles, for instance, and doing (some of) the photography that I do.







And again, I'd say that much of what we take for granted today had to be worked for in the past and would have been resented by some at the time.



Equally, to reiterate: to talk of society being 'fairer' is not to talk of, for instance, everyone being on the same pay.







I'm not entirely sure I'm getting what you mean here, but if I do ...



To clarify, most people with a child will receive child benefit.



Otherwise, this seems to be returning to the issue of a situation where (some) businesses are happy for the taxpayer to pay subsidise them. That – and the cost of living in general and housing in particular.



Just to take this one a little further (and again, it's been discussed before).



We have a shortage of housing, which is a factor in further driving up the costs of housing to what some people are suggesting is dangerous in terms of yet another bubble, and what others certainly see as unsustainable.



If you were to embark on a massive council house building/refurbishment programme you could, in the slightly longer term, deal with the housing shortage. It would also mean that many people would no longer need housing benefit or possibly even other in-work benefits, because their own pay might stretch further.



In the process, you'd create jobs in order to build or refurbish those homes, therefore taking at least some people out of unemployment (or underemployment) and thus cutting benefit costs. Indeed, if they're paid a decent wage, they then start paying tax and NI. They also have money to spend in local economies – at the pub, watching RL, at the cinema or the local restaurant. We know where that goes – more job creation etc. And all that is good for the national economy.



To repeat: nobody that I can see is suggesting that everyone should be paid X sum, regardless of the work that they do.



But a fair[ier[/i society is possible and, even at the most pragmatic level, since it would benefit the majority of individuals and the country as a whole, would seem to be a worthwhile and sensible aim.



The situation we have at the moment, on the other hand, is unsustainable. Endlessly rising housing costs at the same time that many jobs are continuing to be cut – it's not just new jobs that have limited or zero-contract hours, but many existing jobs are being reduced.



That's one of the factors that is hampering local economies and the national one.

Nobody on here has yet proved this mythical government supporting big business - is the amount paid to supplement incomes of the lower paid higher or lower than the sum of NI, Corporation tax, Tax on Dividends combined? If its lower then the myth that government supports big business is just that a myth.

Off the top of my head:



• concentration on 'benefits scroungers' and refusal to do anything meaningful about tax avoidance/evasion by big corporates;



• creation of 'workfare' as a scheme that big businesses were able to use in order to lay off paid workers (IIRC, Asda being a particular culprit) and reluctance to do anything about it;



• continued privatisation – even to companies that have already screwed up more than once: G4S, for instance;



• reluctance – at best – to do anything meaningful in terms of banking regulation, and continued efforts to pretend that big finance was not behind the recession;



• fracking – with added financial benefits to companies to get involved.



And so on.



Edited to add the following: it's a read, but here's another quite specific one – [url=http://thevoluptuousmanifesto.blogspot.co.uk/2011/03/meaty-advice-thats-tough-to-chew.htmlbig business and public health[/url.

Taxes on the business profits are irrelevant to the argument on direct taxation on wages, you may as well argue that a busy business pays more tax on fuel for their deliveries, more VAT on the supplies of paperwork they generate etc, its peripheral but not relevant.



If you want to see what Working Tax Credits and Child Tax Credits for working people can amount to then here's a link [urlhttp://www.hmrc.gov.uk/taxcredits/payments-entitlement/entitlement/how-worked-out.htm[/url these are maximum figures of course and dependant on qualifying circumstances but as you can see they are not small amounts and frankly they shouldn't be because they were designed to make it preferable for the unemployed to find SOME work rather than NO work, designed to make it more profitable to get off the unemployed register than to remain on it.



I'm sure you'll understand from those figures what the potential level of subsidy to employment is for an employer, it may not happen in your business sector but I do know for a fact that in the world of low minimum hours contracts in the hotel industry its normal for an employee to state at the time of job application that they are "only looking for 16 hours" or 20 hours, or whatever the tax break figure is that year and it suits both employer and employee for there is a big drop-off in credits when you work above the specified figure.



It also suits the government of the day of course for two people splitting 32 hours a week between them is the main measure of their policy success, no-one ever asks "Ah but how much do you pay out in tax subsidies", more "look at the employment figures dropping, we must be successful"

Some really interesting points much of I actually agree with - I think you are misunderstanding me or being deliberately obtuse. The point about equality is people don't like it forced upon them, they don't want the opportunity to succeed and reap the rewards of that success taken away because of an ideology that doesn't allow it. That is a world away from 'No whites served here' as we had in Bradford during the last petrol tankers dispute.



My idea of fairness/equality is access to opportunity - in this country there are very limited barriers to starting your own business. Anyone from any walk of life can do it they just need the drive and persistence to see it through. What I struggle with is the envy to those who take the plunge and risk it all from those without the balls.



Housing is an interesting one - I think we all agree there is a need for more housing, the question that needs answering, is the lack of housing a reflection of the inability of potential buyer to access the funds to complete the purchase?

Gary - if your are saying government is supporting big business and thus enabling them to pay less wages then you should be able to produce the data that qualifies that. As yet nobody has shown the amount paid to subsidise the low wages of the people they employ is less than the contribution to the pool made by business, through employers NI - a tax on employing people, corporation tax - a tax on the success of a business and tax on dividends - another tax on the success of a business. I am not talking about VAT, fuel duty etc.



My point has always been remove the employers NI on low pay and pay it directly to the worker i.e. increase the minimum wage by 14% therefore cutting out the need to collect and redistribute the tax. That seems logical and efficient to me but I suspect that would be a loss to the treasury?

As I posted earlier if this is so obvious the data must be there - I suspect it isn't the case just a scare tactic from the left.



None of the above prove the point your raising that big companies can pay lower wages because the government pick up the difference?



What the above shows is government trying to encourage inward investment and job creation/maintenance.

Two points: I was responding to the idea of government supporting big business in general. Admittedly, I do think it's hard to beat: 'we'll invite you onto public health committees and then pay for you to advertise your products under the guise of health advice'.



Second, in-work benefits are paid to people who are in work, but cannot afford to live on the wage they're paid.



Unless no such person works for any major, profitable corporate, in-work benefits are subsidising corporate profits.



There is also plenty of anecdotal evidence of Asda in particular reducing the hours of staff – at the same time as taking on people under the Workfare scheme. There's also plenty out there about campaigns to get the likes of Tesco, Sainsbury's, Morrisons, M&S and John Lewis to pay their cleaning staff a living wage rather than just the minimum one.



Some of the above are in long-term negotiations on the subject.



In some cases – such as at B&Q in Stoke – stores have awarded the living wage locally after campaigning.



These are all big, highly profitable and successful companies.



From 2001 research from the department of economics at Cambridge into the impact of the national minimum wage:



"Total spending on in-work benefits is somewhat more sensitive than the poverty rate. Expenditure would be 2.7% higher if there were no NMW and 5.5% lower if the NMW were set at £5 per hour. The scale of spending is particularly sensitive for groups not eligible for the Working Families Tax Credit (WFTC): single people and couples without children. For example, benefit spending on single people without children would rise by 4.4% if there were no NMW and would fall by 11.5% if it were set at £5 per hour. [Table 8" [my emphasis, but it's all relevant



[url=https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/bitstream/handle/1810/290/mu0102?sequence=1Full report[/url.



Mind, one of the pledges from late last year to deal with in-work benefits was to say that some people aren't working enough hours. Because obviously we know that underemployment doesn't exist and people can simply work the hours that they need/want.