Quote:
Originally Posted by ianch99
You are clearly advocating the ethos that "If I can get away it, great! I want as much wealth as I can get and I want it for me. Stuff everyone else".
You, and Chris, are deliberately focusing on the strictly legality of what you can and can't get away with. What you should be doing is stepping back and asking what is the best solution for society as a whole.
As societies evolve, they attempt to improve the moral underpinning of what constitutes fairness and equality. The normalisation of wealth distribution is part of this journey. It is inevitable and we just need to work out the best path to arrive at this destination.
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Not correct. I’m insisting that if you want to win an argument on this you can’t afford to give your opponents a way out by needlessly sloppy language.
If you choose to rail against tax avoidance then fine, that’s your right, but then it’s also the right of those who do it, because it’s legal. End result, you may feel you have the moral high ground but so what ... tax avoidance is still legal and nothing changes.
If, on the other hand, you focus your energy on that which is actually against the law (and apparently costing us £12bn a year), then that’s an argument that forces those who have the power to account for their efforts to enforce the law. That’s an argument that’s unanswerable. If as a society we lobby for that, maybe things will change. It’s also likely that in tightening procedures, some things that are presently legal tax avoidance may become outlawed tax evasion. In which case you get more of what you want.
Or you can continue to insist that words should mean what you want them to, rather than what they actually do, and live with the constant frustration of your arguments constantly getting diverted by matters of semantics.
Personally, I find it easier to work with language rather than against it.