One of Britain’s
leading comedians, Jimmy Carr, has just got himself into a spot of bother. He’s
been publicly criticised by David Cameron for investing his wealth into a tax avoidance
scheme, which Cameron says is unethical. It’s a pity it had to be Cameron who
said it, since I’m not his greatest fan, but for once I agree with him. The
point is, however, that Carr isn’t the only person doing it (and he’s now
engaged in a public show of contrition anyway, and says he’s stopped doing it.)
This is just another example of how the free market mentality rewards the rich
and penalises the poor.
The majority of people in Britain
are in formal employment and don’t get a choice as to how they pay their income
tax. It’s stopped at source by the employer under the Pay As You Earn system. Such
‘ordinary’ people might vary in relative prosperity, but they never get ‘rich’
unless they win the lottery or something. The rich people are mostly the
entrepreneurs and celebrities who are self-employed and operating in fields capable
of bestowing a level of wealth beyond the wildest dreams of most of us. Those
who make the grade in such fields – and, in the process, get hideously overpaid
for their efforts and end up with more money than they can ever hope to spend –
get targeted by the tax avoidance operators. Since such operations are not
actually illegal, the rich folks get to pay proportionately less in tax than
the poorer people and garner even more
money than they can ever hope to spend.
We’re living in difficult economic times. Public services
are being cut, pension provisions are being eroded, and many of the cuts are
being borne by the poorest members of society. Cameron says we’re all in it
together, but we’re obviously not. The dictum ‘greed is good’ became acceptable
under Thatcher, but can it still be tolerated now?
* * *
And still on the subject of celebrity, this
woman expresses herself better than I do, so I’ll just point you to a small
article to reiterate a point I’ve tried to make on the blog several times. It’s
a quick read.
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