Importing used boat from the USA

[zarathustra]

Well, it does not please me. If you do not pay taxes you are required to pay, not only is it illegal but the rest of us have to pick up your share.

That is total nonsense, very naive and shows a clear misunderstanding of what the taxes/your-hard-earned-money is actually used for. The government do not run like a sensibly run private business with meaningful budgets. The government pitches for what it can absolutely get away with, and it could easily run on 50% of what it collected if it had even the smallest desire to do so. If your tax is unpaid then it doesn't mean someone else picks up the bill at all, and you will note that if the government has a particularly good year on the tax returns that it is never passed back to the people who actually own the money, they simply decide further ways of spending/squandering/stealing the money on moronic projects, most of which you will never hear about, of which the private sector taxpayers get zero value for money. I have dealt with numerous public sector departments and the amount of waste of taxpayers cash is simply staggering and criminal in my view, or at the very least totally irresponsible and shows an enormous disrespect to the public. I won't go into specifics but at all levels from local to governmental the waste is enormous, leaving aside the bailing out of banks, the new criminal and ridiculous carbon taxes, politicians lining their own pockets, department officials dreaming up ways of starting meaningless projects that are really a benevolent fund, the catastrophic waste in the NHS/HSE etc etc etc. I won't go into specifics here but if you took a real interest in where the tax-payers money actually goes you would not be amused. The VAT you pay or don't pay on a boat you bought at a fair price from someone makes zero difference to the government budgets, you don't imagine that if you refuse to purchase that boat that the government now have to collect the sum you "might" have given them if you decided to purchase something????

 

[Tranona]

Oh dear! perhaps you should stick to reading the Daily Mail and do your moaning in the letters page there. You write as if you are the only one who knows how money is spent - I thought everything you said was common knowledge.

My objection to your post was because you seem to be pleased about breaking the law and evading your responsibilities. If you undertake an activity that is taxable, you have to pay the tax. You can avoid the tax by not undertaking the activity. You have no direct control over how tax revenues are spent so why try and use your playground arguments to justify not paying your taxes. So if you don't want to pay VAT on an imported boat, don't import one, then your conscience is clear.

 

[Resolution]

And I have evaded the taxmans clutches on numerous other occasions, and yes I am pleased about that

On a point of English usage: the practice in this country when talking about taxation is to distinguish between "avoidance" and "evasion". Avoidance is used to describe managing your affairs so they attract as little tax as legally possible, whilst evasion is the illegal non-payment of taxes that are, by law, due. Avoidance is good sense, evasion is basically criminal.

Would you like to reconsider your wording above?

 

[zarathustra]

Avoidance is good sense

it sure is