[The Final Shortcut]

There was recently a new Canadian court case on this subject that freudling brought up in typical fashion a while back - a decent summary of the decision is here. Would've liked to add this post to that thread but unfortunately it can no longer be bumped.

Basically, it's a new test (in Canada) for determining where a trust "resides" - in this case, the trustee was a Barbados corporation, but the beneficiaries were residents of Canada. Simply put, the trust sold shares it held and requested to pay Barbados capital gains tax instead of Canadian tax (which was, obviously, higher).

Our Supreme Court found that the traditional test of "a trust resides where its trustee resides" should be replaced by a management and control test, just like the one used for corporations. In this case, the beneficiaries actually controlled the trust and simply used the Barbados corporation in an administrative function (which is a nice way of saying "legal smokescreen").

Yet another method of living in a country but paying taxes at an offshore rate is cut off. The noose is tightening.

[turtle777]

This all could be avoided if we made people serfs and took all their assets from them. There.

We're getting there, one tax increase at a time.

-t

[The Final Dakar]

Ha, first post goes directly into the melodrama. Thread already delivers.

[The Final Shortcut]

Originally Posted by The Final Dakar 

Ha, first post goes directly into the melodrama. Thread already delivers.

Don't know if it's me or what, but melodrama seems to describe turtle exactly these days.

Serfs? Taking all assets? Tax increases? Ye gads, man.

(I'll leave alone the humourous characterization of "blocking a loophole that allowed someone to pay far less tax" as a "tax increase." )

[turtle777]

Contrary to popular belief, I'm not against taxes, or closing loopholes.

Give me a simple tax system w/o loopholes, that doesn't have the tendency to ever expand and try to increase tax rates, and I'm all for it.

Besides that, I'm just sick of the tax debates. None of it is really about fairness. It's all posturing and politics, and making other people pay for some interest groups pet projects.

-t

[The Final Shortcut]

You won't get much argument from me on that, but the problem - as with everything - is that any "hard and fast" rule will end up being grossly unfair to someone, in either a good or bad way. That's when exceptions start to creep in, and then it balloons from there. There's no question that tax codes for US and Canada should probably be re-written and would probably halve their size as a result...but there still wouldn't be a "simple system."

At the end of the day this thread is about ways to reduce/avoid paying taxes, according to the original thread created by freudling. He was specifically interested in the "offshore" method, which may or may not have been appropriate for his business. (Of course, it was a freudling thread, so you have to take things with the appropriate grain of salt....)

[Big Mac]

Originally Posted by turtle777 

This all could be avoided if we made people serfs and took all their assets from them. There.

You should submit that as a campaign slogan to Obama 2012-he could insert it on the stump after droning on about the Buffet Rule incessantly.

[olePigeon]

Originally Posted by turtle777 

Give me a simple tax system w/o loopholes, that doesn't have the tendency to ever expand and try to increase tax rates, and I'm all for it.

If there are no tax increases, how would you account for inflation, wage increases, materials price increases, etc.?

[olePigeon]

Originally Posted by Big Mac 

You should submit that as a campaign slogan to Obama 2012-he could insert it on the stump after droning on about the Buffet Rule incessantly.

Didn't Mitt Romney make the bulk of his money by running a company that fired people?

[turtle777]

Originally Posted by olePigeon 

If there are no tax increases, how would you account for inflation, wage increases, materials price increases, etc.?

Growth of government needs to be indexed to inflation or GDP.

-t

[nonhuman]

Originally Posted by olePigeon 

If there are no tax increases, how would you account for inflation, wage increases, materials price increases, etc.?

By settings taxes as a percentage of income rather than a simple static number?

[Waragainstsleep]

Originally Posted by turtle777 

This all could be avoided if we made people serfs and took all their assets from them. There.

We're getting there, one tax increase at a time.

-t

Come and see the violence inherent in the system! Help! Help! I'm being repressed!

[ghporter]

Originally Posted by olePigeon 

Didn't Mitt Romney make the bulk of his money by running a company that fired people?

He actually ran a firm that bought companies and reorganized them. Think if it as a process of "flipping" companies, Many of the firm's projects were very successful and most employees stayed on, but a few were extremely unsuccessful and the companies went under.

But Mitt was not the one choosing what company to buy, nor how to restructure it once it was bought. He was the top boss who did the windbag stuff and some amount of cheerleading, rather than deciding what to do when. Oh, and he started out with a considerable bankroll from being the son of an auto executive who DID make the real decisions and ran a very successful company until the entire market (and the automobile paradigm) changed. So much for "knowing and understanding business", eh?