OldGoldenVision said:

are there any english internet companies? our g'ment will allow these overseas companies exploit tax laws to produce a situation in which the high street can't compete and there arent, so far as I am aware, many UK based net retailers who are in a position to compete because the same tax laws would catch them (as the high street)...

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sambo applecart said:

always wondered the same myself.......i ca understnad it (sort of) being half 10 week days, but on a weekend why dont they extend breakfast hours til 11 or half 11? cos lets be honest, breakfast is the only meal worht having at mac d's.....

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ToffeeCup said:

I'm kind of split on the tax issue.....excuse the long rant here...

Its a_shit situation, my other half works in tax for a multinational company which is in the process of redesigning itself purely for tax (kind of not the time to be doing it, but these things are years in the planning at this scale of company)... and make no bones about it. At that level of business... tax is considered an art form, not an exact science.

But at the same time there is no real way around position that you need to let people/companies "organise their affairs in a tax efficient manner". What is the alternative... let a bloke come in, have a gander, and tell you how much you owe?

Much as you could argue that the world could have done without New Labour and its sexed up dossiers... you can't help but think that we could do with a new conservative party. Their automatic answer to everything 'privatise it' is now just embarrassing... it hasn't worked with rail, it hasn't worked with energy... oh go on then why don't you rape the NHS with it.

I'd like to see a different approach to the situation taken, in line with what is now the modern world. If you look at the very top of the fortune 500 you see three industries disproportionately represented... the reason is more than likely because we just can operate without them in the modern world. They are not businesses, they are semi controlled monopolies... Banking, Energy and Insurance.

And everyone of those industries offers horrific value for money.

Let companies avoid tax.... but those three industries should be in the hands of the nation states that act on behalf of their people.

I'm not taking overdraft facilities or credit cards, they are commercial products, just the ability to have an account with your money sat in it earning next to naff all interest interest.... if the government wants to lend that money over night to a trading company in exchange for a healthy profit to the public purse so be it. If you want to offer financial product to UK citizens you pay a levy to the government for the upkeep if the financial network... and are at liberty to avoid tax.

We be more careful where we built homes if we all paid into a public home insurance pot too. And everyone who have a right to have their home insured. Not something that happens now, and as for car insurance... it is little more than a dirty racket these days.

I'm not sure anyone needs to make the case for energy.

I'd be interested to see what the profit is on those three industries are within the UK (when interest rates are at a normal level). I'm not saying privatisation or nationalisation is right or wrong. Just that in this day and age, some things are a businesses, i.e the things you can elect to or not to have. And other things are not a business, they are a fundamental to modern life and as such should be under public control.

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