French tactics

[happy daze john in oz]

On our third house we built here we were at one time paying 18% that was in the early 90's.
Now at about 5.5% they are screaming it is too high.
But general cost of living is getting beyond a joke now.

Saw a bit on the net about a lady in UK complaining.


Shops at Morrisons and kept a tally of increases over six months on 10 items.
Complained that the total increase on these was some GBP 1.65 in total???????????????

[James Curry]

John, the fault lies with the financial institutions. They made borrowing money to easy. There is another world financial crash heading down the tracks. It does not matter what the chancellors or bankers say. It only needs a nudge and the bottom will fall out of the world economy.
Not sure were the Morrisons woman is tracking her prices. Thankfully the likes of heating oil is now falling as is petrol but they are still well above what they were before the nutter in Moscow tried to invade Ukraine.

[Keith Tindell]

And we have a couple of generations who are used to borrow borrow, to hell with later. But to most of us who have known high interest rates, lived in a world where a deposit was required to buy anything, TVs electrical goods, washing machines etc, and treated debt with a bit of caution. I have always said the world will bite em in the **** one day.

[Johnny Kieran]

I suppose it could even be our fault in a roundabout way? Most of us lived through the best years any generation could have, created by our fathers and ourselves. Maybe the kids just sit and wait till we move on to that ocean in the sky, so any debts will be cleared, and a good time had by all?
I can always remember a mate of mine telling my son, that he never worried about serious debt, because his dad (a millionaire) won't be around forever. He was right, and now he's a millionaire with no debt.

[Rodney Mills]

JSW, re #7.
John,* *Corporate tax cheating is not as prevalent*as people believe.* A company can buy a building that has a lifetime of say 30 years, we will say as a simple example they pay 30,000 pounds for it, if they wrote it off over 30 years they could deduct 1000 pounds a year for depreciation of a fixed asset which would lower their profit and they would pay less tax, what's even better the*governments under the international rules of accounting allow a corporation to accelerate depreciation, let's say to 10 years, that gives you a write off of 3000 pounds against your corporate*tax. I've put this as simply as I can and it is*not*an actual word for word quotation of the tax law.
**
A shipping corporation is not only writing off ships, but also any asset like cars, equipment,*crains, office equipment, and many things*are written off for tax purposes and never replaced.* There are certain rules and recapture*laws that allow the tax man to regain part of the written off asset if it is sold.* I'm not going to go further*on this as I am trying to keep it simple and will be confusing the subject.
*
I personally*do not under or overstate anything on my personal income tax, as with my retirement interest and the crappy returns banks have been paying the last few years have minimize my taxable income, so fudging*wouldn't gain me much. However, it would be hypocrisy*if I cheated, yet condemned corporations for cheating.* I deduct every penny I can that is legal to pay the least income tax I have to, so I can sleep nights and undergo a tax audit if called upon.
**
I had the same rule when I was employed.* I was president*and CEO of a multinational*industrial catering company for seven years, and the chief accountant and I were liable if the company was audited.* And prior I was managing*director of an Iranian*registered company for 3 years and I certainly didn't want to be found as a tax cheat there and end up in their prison or any prison for that matter. Who wants*to go to prison for somebody else's*money?
*
Cheers, Rodney

[Ivan Cloherty]

It always amazes me how people who have never run or owned a company, think that it's easy, that you can cheat at taxes and everything is tax deductible (whatever that means) and they think you therefore get it for free.

You cannot cheat the taxman, they get you in the end, you can legally mitigate your tax payments
You cannot cheat the VAT man, they want their money prompt, no ifs or buts and they do more checks than the taxman, especially if you are in the export business, normally you can expect a visit from the VAT man every 2 -3 years, if in the export business and say over 60% is export then expect a visit every year, and they don't give a rats ass if you have cash flow problems, they have first call on your money.
There is no 8 hour day when you own and run a company, there are no weekends off.
After the VAT man, your staff payments are your prime consideration, coupled chasing new business and bad debts, but as most of our stuff was custom made so it was always 50% down or Letter of Credit, but material suppliers always wanted 100% payable upon delivery

Yup its easy running your own company, everyone should do it, having said all the foregoing, once you've done it, you'll never work for anyone else again.

[j.sabourn]

The ones in Covent Garden , never hear them complaining. The Ginger Duke and his wife in running their Charity was recently reported that the work involved them only 1 hour a week or was it a month. Suppose it depends what kind of business and where you stand in the hierchy . As regards taxes I retired at 65 and paid taxes for the next 20 years , last year was the first time in retirement I paid no taxes , Fully expecting with the change recently in government to be shortly paying them again, who better to hit than the retired old age pensioners . And all this on a punitive pension. The recent discussions about saving money for retirement can be false Econonomy, easier to become a ward of the state. And spend your money and enjoy when you can. JS

[Ivan Cloherty]

#16 I forgot to add that your VAT payments are due every three months, if you miss the due date you are sent reminders, if you miss paying by the time the next return is due, then you get a visit, if you don't pay the visiting inspector he can attach your Company account, as said before he is not bothered by your cash flow problems.

[Des Taff Jenkins]

Well folks don't go and live in NZ there they tax your pension before you get it, and that's the ordinary pension. The way to go is a bloke here who put one $1million into Twiggy Forrest's ore mining company ten years ago, now worth $380 million, money for old dirt.
Des

[happy daze john in oz]

VAT man and Robin, knew them well when we had the pubs and restaurant in UK.
Regular visits and questions about simple things such as ullage, amount of dunny paper bought, how much is for personal use?
None mate, we only use the pubs public toilet.

Then the Customs and excise men would descend on us.
Check all the bottles to make sure it has not been watered down, where do you buy your stock etc.
But one day they got a shock, tested the Rum bottle and said something wrong here!!

They were using the normal testing equipment, but this bottle was over proof Rum, never seen that sort before he said walking away with no scalp.