Talk:United Kingdom corporation tax
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 |
United Kingdom corporation tax is a featured article; it (or a previous version of it) has been identified as one of the best articles produced by the Wikipedia community. If you can update or improve it, please do. | ||||||||||||
 |
This article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page as Today's featured article on June 8, 2005. |
||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||
 |
This article is within the scope of Business and Economics WikiProject. |
 FA |
rated as FA-Class on the assessment scale |
| Mid | rated as mid-importance on the assessment scale |
 |
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Taxation, an effort to create, expand, organize, and improve Tax related articles to a feature-quality standard. |
| Assessment ratings and other indicators given below are used by the Project in prioritizing and managing its workload. | |
| FA |
This article has been rated as FA-Class on the Project's quality scale. |
| High | This article has been rated as High-priority on the Project's priority scale. |
 |
After rating the article, please provide a short summary on the article's comments page to explain your ratings and/or identify the strengths and weaknesses. |
Contents |
[edit] Useless?
A corporation tax is completely useless and a brainless inflation to further complicate tax systems and burden corporations. Why? Simple! A corporation has only 2 options of what to do with any gain made over the year
1. give it to the shareholders/owners/etc. in this case the money flows directly to a real person, which pays income tax anyway
2. invest the money to further extend the corporation. in this case the corporation makes an investment with the hope to increase its gains over the next years. how could you tax something like this? in fact, it isn't. in most contries investments are tax-deductible anyway.
So why on hell does a corporation need to follow impossibly complicated laws in order to calculate taxes that have absolutley no no effect, when it would be so easy for the state to just 'catch' the money when it flows to the shareholders of the corporation!?!?!?!
Good points but I think the idea is to tax the profits while they exist! Under your scheme (whoever you are) profits can be allowed to accumulate, then the board has a bright idea and "invests" them badly, losing the profits on which tax could eventually have been paid. The "investment" might even be offshore where they might never be seen again. Or the profits are otherwise "spent" or "loaned" in such a way that the shareholders/directors can get their hands on the cash tax free and then they are "lost". Paul Beardsell 07:31, 4 Jan 2005 (UTC)
As for the investments being tax-deductible point made in (2) above: In most countries corporate profits calculation is done on the value of the company. If GBP100 profit is banked or the GBP100 is spent on an office chair the value of the company remains the same and the tax bill similarly. The investment in the chair has no effect. (The chair is then depreciated over time, reducing the value of the company over the following years.) Only some investments of certain govt approved types attract allowances. Paul Beardsell 07:41, 4 Jan 2005 (UTC)
- Additionally Only dividends are subject to income tax on the individual (who has some exemption due to the fact the corporation has paid tax. If there are no dividends the only thing that can catch up with the tax on individual owners is Capital Gains Tax and Inheritance Tax and only when they are sold/transferred. These types of tax have more generous allowances and a multitude of schemes in which they can be cut right down or avoided (in fact, Inheritance Tax borders on being a voluntary tax.) Dainamo 10:40, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)
There is a point of view, to which I subscribe(!), that it is actually impossible to tax a corporation - no matter how hard you try. The argument is that corporations, as constructs of people who have got together with the common purpose of making money, can do nothing else than pass the taxes on to individuals. These individuals fall in to one or more of three groups:
- The corporation's officers & employees (taxes flow through as lower salaries/wages)
- The corporation's owners (taxes flow through as lower dividends)
- The corporation's customers (taxes flow through as higher prices of the company's products or services)
To put it simply, the argument goes, corporation taxes are a useful way for politicians to conceal from the gullible the true levels of general taxation. Fairalbion 14:53, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Contradiction
In the two sections about "imputation" it is said (i) the tax credit is never recoverable and (ii) it is offsettable by individuals. I think (ii) is correct. Anyway, it's a contradiction. Paul Beardsell 07:31, 4 Jan 2005 (UTC)
- It's not contradictory, as "recoverable" means that if you have no tax liability, the amounts in question can be paid to you. Offsettable only means they can reduce a tax liability. (This is important elsewhere in the Taxes Acts, for example see s468Q(5A) ICTA.) However, I'll make it clearer tonight, when I have time to amend it, jguk 08:15, 4 Jan 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Disambiguation
In this section, where should High Court disambiguate to? Should it be High Court of Justice of England and Wales or High Court of Justiciary? SWAdair | Talk 06:18, 7 Jun 2005 (UTC)
- The first one is correct for England and Wales. It is the Court of Session in Scotland and the High Court of Justice of Northern Ireland (I think) for Northern Ireland, jguk 06:51, 7 Jun 2005 (UTC)
- The page is now at High Court of Justice for the Eng and Wales court. Just go to the High Court disambiguation page for a list. FedLawyer 10:07, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Protect against vandalism?
As long as this is a Featured Article, should it be protected against vandalism? People seem adamant to change the article for the worse. -- Cugel
[edit] Vandalism in progress
Twice an anon has put some rather coarse language on this page in place of, you know, the page. If it occurs again it ought be placed on the Vandalism in progress page. An admin might want to ban this troll. Wally 17:14, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)
- I checked the user out, and it turns out he's the same one I just reverted on the page of the new President of Hungary. I've reported him as a vandal, and we'll see if we can't get a firefighter to put out this flamer. Wally 17:20, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Incorrect use of 'United Kingdom'
'United Kingdom' cannot be used adjectivally. The correct term is 'British', and so this article should be moved 'British corporation tax', I believe. I did move it myself, but found a very large of 'double redirects' would occur, and I didn't have the time to change them all. Lord Solar 11:20, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
In common usage, that may be correct. However, as British includes the Channel Isles, which have a very different tax system, 'United Kingdom' is almost always used in practice, for good reasons. Richard.
[edit] Update?
Post budget hasn't brown declared corporation tax will now stand at 28%?
