Change, death and taxes - guess what can be avoided

I was of the mind these three things were immutable to life, unless you happened to be a gold fish. In which case as doing yet another circuit of your pretty bowl it would all be all seem new again no matter what time of day, due to the existence of an exceedingly short term memory. It was the not very honourable head up his own arse Georgie porgie Osborne who made a budget speech saying he intended to clamp down on tax avoidance schemes.  As though startled I recall looking up thinking to myself well that sounded interesting, considering most of his rich friends are probably running those schemes. Or perhaps it was a measure which was going to bring in millions of tax revenues from the likes of Google, Apple, Starbucks or Amazon.  Well whatever it was the home front news on tax income from these very wealthy companies is about as informative as the amount of tax they pay.  Not much at all.  In fact the creation of the General Anti Avoidance Rule (GAAR) may be of benefit to the many tax dodgers there are because it defines in such narrow ways what is an unacceptable avoidance in paying fare tax.  It's wonderful. Every fat cat company with a few bob in its pocket can now ensure they are rightfully dodging the bullet of tax.  Tax which pays the welfare bill, tax which should be funding schools, paying for the NHS or building better efficient infrastructure stays again in the swelling pockets of the wealthy.

In a similar vein Barak Obama has now decided to get real tough with the multinational corporations who are registered in Luxemburge or anywhere else. He is saying they will be liable for 14% tax on profits made in the US.  Again at first sound this comes across and a good idea, whether it will work in reality is another thing. I'm sure those companies will have multiple smoke and mirror strategies to hide away the profit they make. The wonderful phrase "creative accounting" pops in mind. Something mere mortals of the taxpaying world do not know anything about. The news reported the US could have an additional income of $238 billion if Obama's strategy works. 

In the meantime the UK with it's offshore crown dependencies has still is unable to lock the safe door and grab back what belongs to the people.  This is infuriating, nearly British Islands hold billions in money of which a proportion should of been put back in our very own coiffures. You could say there is an engendered arrogance the rich and multinationals now have. For money can be transferred around the world at the touch of a button and if you have enough of it it doesn't matter where you live most of the year as long as you own a passport to a country where they turn a blind eye and genuflect at your feet.

Death can not be avoided, change is inevitable but taxes the rich and ultra rich can now safely say are a thing of the past and not applicable to them.