UK Bank Tries To Evade Taxes

McKenzie Fink
North County Times
"UK says bank tried to avoid $800 million in tax"
http://www.nctimes.com/business/uk-says-bank-tried-to-avoid-million-in-tax/article_08feb53c-2c28-50ec-b486-8b0ef81e56b7.html

A British bank has been ordered to pay half a billion pounds ($800 million) in unpaid tax that it tried to avoid paying by using loopholes. This bank-supposedly Barclys PLC-carried out two schemes: one was an accounting scheme to make sure they didn't have to pay taxes and the other was to lie to the government to get "repayment" from the government for taxes they never paid. The British treasurer, David Gauke, stated both practices were "wholly unacceptable, against the intentions of Parliament and the spirit of the law." Evidently, the bank in question had signed a code of conduct in which they promised to pay any taxes they were charged with. The bank has now been told to pay more than 500 million pounds in tax. Also, a new law has been created close the loopholes and "prevent further billions of tax from being lost and maintaining fairness in the tax system."

This connects to what we are learning in class because in this situation British citizens are now getting annoyed with Britain's taxing, just like when the British started taxing Americans and they got annoyed. Another situation is during the Revolutionary War because the British people got really annoyed with tall of the ridiculous taxes for a war that they didn't care about. Not to mention that the bank not paying taxes is almost like when the Americans started boycotting British goods. Both situations ended up making the British government lose money. Plus, the British government is really cracking down on that bank now and making sure to set up more laws that would close the loopholes, almost like when the British set up the Intolerable Acts. This article is like a modern-day version of the revolution, except it is about British citizens getting annoyed.

This connects to my life because taxes are becoming more and more ridiculous not only in Britain, but in America and many other places. The government is so needy for money that they will tax as much as they can on anything they can. It is becoming apparent that governments are not paying enough attention to their spending habits because Americas debt is just getting worse and worse and we are stuck paying more taxes. For example, crossing the Lincoln Bridge used to cost only about $8 not too long ago and now it costs $12! Governments need to learn to pay more attention to how they spend their money. Another way this connects to my life is through my friend Louise because her and her family actually live in England.

My opinion is that this bank should have taken a more legal approach to fighting against the taxes. They have good ideas of not wanting to pay the high taxes. However, this bank had a bad way of presenting their thoughts. Maybe if their government was more like ours, the bank could have tried to petition or possibly started an occupy movement or some sort of legal way to fight taxes. I do believe that the bank should be punished because they did not do the right thing. Doing a bad thing for a good reason still makes it a bad thing. The bank could have attempted to handle the entire situation in a better and legal way to keep themselves put of trouble and help the government realize that the taxes are just too high.