Watch out, tax-dodging Queen, the revolution may be coming
Do we just expect rich people to avoid tax? Is tax just for the poor and middle class? We live in a world that faces huge issues that can only be dealt with collectively, a world that has gotten to this phenomenal point in history not through being individuals but by working as a group.
Yet here we are, at a point in time where the rich seem to think they don’t have to play by the same rules as everybody else.
The Paradise Papers were released in the media this week. The leaked documents revealed how the rich are using expensive lawyers and accountants to play complex games with their money that even governments can’t understand.
In a nutshell, the documents exposed what we already knew – the rich are so in love with money that they’ll sail dangerously close to the law if it means retaining it.
And there’s a whole industry of expensive-suited men and women that exist to prop up these systems: Lawyers, accountants and consultants whose moral code is based on one god – money.
Who is the face on our twenty dollar bill? That’s right. Tax scammer Queen Liz – exposed by the papers for the cheat that she is – who seems to feel it’s okay to be propped up by her Government financially while at the same time actively evading paying her share.
While we’ve got a tax scammer printed on our money let’s get rid of the honest faces – Sir Ed, Kate Sheppard, Sir Apirana Ngata, and Lord Rutherford – and replace them with some more ratbags.
Lewis Hamilton can be one of them. Because the man who has ushered in the most boring era in Formula 1 history seems to have worked his way around the system to avoid paying tax on his private jet.
Yip – that’s right – poor darling didn’t want to have to pay tax on his private jet. That’s like the textbook example of an out-of-touch rich guy.
Luckily Formula 1 sucks these days – it’s full of spoiled babies like Hamilton. Watch the Moto GP if you’re looking for decent motor racing.
And the cheek of those that have been exposed. They’re all falling back on lecturing us about how they don’t manage their accounts and they can’t possibly know what’s happening with their money. And not one of them – not even the bludging bloody Queen – thought it appropriate to say that this behaviour was morally wrong and that they intended to do anything about it.
Won’t someone please just say sorry and tell us that they’re going to manage their money openly and ethically moving forward.
Sadly the sorry saga hasn’t caused much of a splash. People have shrugged their shoulders, muttered ‘‘of course the rich evade tax’’ and gone about their business.
People even failed to recognise how much fun the Guardian was having with its headline: ‘‘Tax haven lobby boasted of ‘superb penetration’ at top of UK government’’.
I suppose we need a solution. I wonder if dropping the monarchy, nationalising all their assets and putting the silly old toffs on welfare might be a good start.
Or maybe bloody revolution is closer than we like to think. Looking back on history it seems obvious that revolutions were going to happen. But at the time they often came as a surprise.
I hope a revolution is coming. Sign me up. I already own a machete and I won’t go to my grave happy until I’ve been part of an angry mob baying for blood.
It’s 100 years since things really kicked off in Russia – maybe someone needs to explain to Queen Liz how that went for the Romanovs.