A Mark In Time
Mark Knopfler Discussion => Mark Knopfler Discussion Forum => Topic started by: foma on July 10, 2014, 08:43:45 AM
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http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/tax-avoidance-celebrities-named-in-leaked-documents-revealing-offshore-financial-dealings-9595904.html
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/jul/09/offshore-tax-dealings-celebrities-sportsmen-leaked-jersey-files
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just wanted to post this when i saw your post.
not much on the knopf though...
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Mark Knopfler, Dire Straits guitarist
Jersey trust for his ex-wife Lourdes, a US citizen who has been living in London, and their two sons. His accountants said: "All relevant details concerning the trust have been made in tax returns to the authorities both in the UK and the USA."
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The government in the UK are becoming seriously ludicrous in their austerity measures. Incidents like this have already been reported in the past but it is a well known loophole in the law exploited by their accountants and quite rightly so. It's actually the fault of the government and not the celebrities - they should close the aforementioned loophole! Why should anyone pay more tax than they need to!
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I'm not sure quite how the question of "austerity" crept in here. Tax avoidance schemes were in existence long before this country's present financial difficulties.
I agree that no one should pay more tax than they are required to do but the rich can afford to employ financial advisers who seek out the gaps in any one country's tax laws and the differences between the arrangements in different tax jurisdictions and exploit those gaps. Those advisors can be quite creative but, sometimes, create what I would regard as artificial arrangements to avoid their clients paying tax. For example, to the best of my knowledge, neither MK nor his former wife has any genuine connection with Jersey, which has a tax regime that encourages such arrangements. While I am as cynical about politicians as the next person (possibly more so than most), most governments are playing "catch-up" all the time, while other governments set out to establish financial structures deliberately to attract the money of the rich.
The average person cannot afford to employ these financial advisers. What is irritating is that certain of the rich who do use these somewhat artificial schemes are the very people who express concern about the downtrodden working man and woman, seemingly oblivious to the fact that the less well off pay more tax because the rich pay less than their share.
Such tax-avoidance schemes may or may not be well-known and may or may not be above board but there is a moral dimension to everything in life.
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Let's hope Mark will write a song about this situation just as well :D
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I wonder how MK's Socialist/communist supporting late Father would feel about these tax avoidance schemes. I wish I was rich enough to join one.
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Thank god we all know that MK does not care for money the slightest... ::)
LE
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I'm not sure quite how the question of "austerity" crept in here. Tax avoidance schemes were in existence long before this country's present financial difficulties.
I mentioned austerity because it seems the government are now applying pressure on HMRC to seek out such high profile instances of tax avoidance in order to make the ordinary man wake up and ensure they are paying what they should. :)
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Thank god we all know that MK does not care for money the slightest... ::)
LE
Hmm...I remember reading an article back in DS days about him being angry about the huge bill at his dentist, so he walked into the surgery to pay for it with small change! :lol
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Tax avoidance is a natural human behaviour. My job is to make sure people pay as less tax as possible within the laws. Both UK and Netherlands (and other countries) have loopholes. If you only have a job, a house and a small saving account there's no legal loophole. But if you have more than that, especially when you have some business overseas as well, there are possibilities.
U2 actually is a dutch company ;-) All legal taxconstructions. Governments shouldn't cry about that but solve the problems or bear it like a man.
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My job is to make sure people pay as less tax as possible within the laws.
Good to know! :)
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I wish that my musical hero would pay the taxes that he has to pay, not of my bussiness anyway, but rich people that uses tricks to save money, when they earn LOTS of money, its not something I look to with good eyes, if I have to pay 300 euros in taxes of my 1200 euros salary that means a lot of money to me, that rich people try to save thousands per month that means that they won
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MK has payed millions in UK tax over the years.
The real villain here is Phil Collins who buggered off to Switzerland with all his money. ;)
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MK has payed millions in UK tax over the years.
The real villain here is Phil Collins who buggered off to Switzerland with all his money. ;)
I dont mean he didnt, i was talking more about the rich people in general, and about Mk in particular by this news. Over the years, and every year, is the same thing?
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Taxes are different though for the super rich and that's why most of them live in tax havens like Monaco or Switzerland so as Dusty said we should at least be grateful he is still here paying taxes.
Chances are that he would be unaware of it anyway letting his advisers get on with their work. Maybe Ingrid would know more at this point.
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Its better than his accountants take his money to Jersey than to Paraguay ;D
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"We don't pay taxes. Only the little people pay taxes", the super-rich Leona Hemsley is reputed to have said. Read about her here:-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leona_Helmsley
OK, she was done for tax evasion (an illegal activity) not tax aviodance (which is not illegal) but some of these tax avoidance schemes, as I said before, seem artificial to me. If they were clearly illegal, the authorities would have gone after them but, if they are on the borderline between tax evasion and tax avoidance, then it is difficult to pursue a case. Some tax jurisdictions are opaque.
I was aware that U2 transferred their companies to the Netherlands to save tax and it caused a lot of animosity in Ireland at the time. I seem to recall that the Rolling Stones, having sold tickets for a concert in the UK, then postponed it (to another tax year, I think) because they gained a tax advantage by doing this.
As is well known, Amazon and Google minimize their tax bills by routing their money through Luxembourg. Yes, they pay some texes in the UK but not as much as they should if they had not set up elaborate corporate structures deliberately to reduce their tax liability in the UK. No wonder smaller UK-based companies cannot compete. It is not a level playing field.
No one should pay more in tax than is required of them and I'm sure that MK (and other very rich people) pay large chunks of money in taxes to the Exchequer but that doesn't absolve them from having to pay more if it's due. People who advocate a fairer, more just and more equitable society should not set out, by artificial means, to minimise their contribution to that society.
I am no revolutionary but please be clear - you and your families, even your elderly grandparents, pay more in tax than would otherwise be the case because large corporations and wealthy individuals use clever devices to keep their taxes down.
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The Rolling Stones case is a little different. They postponed their 1998 UK tour into 1999 because a new UK law had been voted AFTER they did set it up.
See ROLLING STONES CANCEL UK DATES IN GOVERNMENT TAX SNUB (http://www.nme.com/news/nme/281)
BUT at the same time, Sir Mick did have his Rolling Stones business operating from Netherlands where companies such as these are taxed to a very low rate of just 5% ::)
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Re Rolling Stones: whether the change in the tax law would genuinely have affected the financing of that tour to the extent stated, is open to some doubt in my mind. We are talking of a guy who married someone, lived with that person as man and wife, then, when the divorce was taking place, said that the marriage wasn't a genuine one. I seem to recall that, at the time the UK shows were cancelled, Jagger also said he was concerned that the road crew would have been adversely affected by the change in the law.
The tour in question lasted a year, played around 100 concerts to 4.5 million people and was the biggest Stones tour to that date. Why did Jagger isolate the European leg of the tour in his justification? Well, on the European leg of the tour in question, five shows in mainland Europe (in France and Spain) were cancelled entirely - that is, they were not rescheduled. This is in addition to the shows that were postponed and the shows that were postponed were not just the ones in the UK.
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It's all depends how you look at it. As if paying taxes is a good thing? Criminals have taken over our goverments and most of the tax money goes to these private interests nowadays.
I rather have Mark avoiding taxes to put it to some good work then his tax money being used for some bad work, like a bomb paid with tax money that will blow up some innoncent childern in the middle east area. Mark atleast puts joy into peoples lives. We can't say that about the politicians who put the money through to their friends who are the captains of industry, the militairy industrial complex or the banks or whatever.
In the Netherlands we have had the privatisation of goverment run organisations in the 90s, which has been nothing more then theft from the public, cause the so called investors didn't have the money to buy those organisations, which were build up by the public over generations. No they colluded with the banks, who printed the wealth/money out of nothing for them. Politicians said everything would become cheaper because of rivalry. But that was not the case. Proper health care is now almost unaffordable. Besides that the goverment repelled the organisations (hospitals, energy, transport, telecommunication etc.), but it didn't mean that we have to pay less taxes. With other words the goverment provides less and less services, but we still have to keep paying the same amount on taxes. Someone explain that to me.
So all with all it depends how Mark uses the money that he gained/saved throug tax evasion. If he employs some extra hands at his studio, or for the artwork for his new cd or for on the road/tour. I really could care less.
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Well the article said the specific item in question for MK was a trust for his ex-wife Lourdes and the boys. Lourdes is a US citizen living in London. The tax shelter may be as much about sheltering the income from US taxes as British taxes because the US has a pretty oppressive tax policy towards US citizens living abroad. Not only do those citizens pay taxes to the government where they reside, they also must report and pay US taxes as well, even if the income originates and is taxed outside the US. It seems that policy is pushing record numbers of US citizens living abroad to renounce their citizenship simply for tax reasons.
I think that policy is absurd and I don't have any problem with someone sheltering their income from it.
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I dont know how this things works in the Uk, but if Lourdes, a US citizen, marries MK, a UK citizen, then Lourdes is a UK citizen by marriage, even after the divorce, doesnt it?
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I dont know how this things works in the Uk, but if Lourdes, a US citizen, marries MK, a UK citizen, then Lourdes is a UK citizen by marriage, even after the divorce, doesnt it?
No she would have to apply for it. So maybe she never has. It is also ridiculous that a Yank continues to pay tax in the US even if they dont live there. It happened to my wifes family and they chose the cheapest state to be "resident" in before leaving the US.
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I'm not sure the marriage route applies now. Someone I know in Britain married a woman from Eastern Europe who had lived in Britain for several years but, some years after the wedding, she still had to apply for British citizenship. It didn't happen automatically upon marriage.
Double taxation is a vexed question. The country in which the person resides feels that the person ought to pay towards the services provided. The country of which the person is a citizen feels that the person ought to pay towards the services it provides. In the latter case, you may ask "what services?" so let me give an example. Should a US citizen resident abroad get involved in some kind of difficulty abroad (from losing a passport to getting caught up in political unrest), he or she would expect the US government to help - consular services perhaps or rescue even. The provision of those services cost money that is raised through taxation. It is not a straightforward matter.
On reflection, I think Google's European base is in Dublin. U2 moved their base from Dublin to the Netherlands and Google settled on Dublin. It sure is a mixed-up world
To move on, these various countries are not known as "tax havens" without reason. THE ECONOMIST, a well-respected and prestigious UK magazine, has adopted the following definition: "What ... identifies an area as a tax haven is the existence of a composite tax structure established deliberately to take advantage of, and exploit, a worldwide demand for opportunities to engage in tax avoidance."
It must have been 50 years ago that I bought a copy of Andre Hodeir's "Jazz : Its Evolution and Essence". My copy is a paperback, with now-yellowed pages, many of them loose, and I forget almost all of its content but I do recall two of the epigrams it contains. One was from Freud: "All attempts at definition give rise to difficulty; let us therefore not hope to escape them in our present effort". THE ECONOMIST acknowledged that the above definition of a tax haven is not without its difficulties but it is a start and, just because it is difficult does not mean that we should give up on refining it.
The other epigram I recall from Hodeir's book was from Camus: " .. where lucidity reigns, the scale of values becomes useless". Many of these tax havens offer secrecy, whereas transparency ("lucidity") should be the rule. If these tax arrangements are legitimate and comply with the appropriate tax legislation, what do these people and corporate entities (especially the corporate entities) have to hide? To reverse Camus' words, "where lucidity does not reign, a scale of values becomes necessary" - very necessary in my opinion.
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My job is to make sure people pay as less tax as possible within the laws.
Maybe MK will be looking for a new tax person after this adverse publicity. Ingrid, get your resume ready! ;)
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My job is to make sure people pay as less tax as possible within the laws.
Maybe MK will be looking for a new tax person after this adverse publicity. Ingrid, get your resume ready! ;)
No resume is needed for Ingrid. Guy can be the reference that she's the biggest MK fan in the world.
That's enough to get her hired. :)
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My job is to make sure people pay as less tax as possible within the laws.
Maybe MK will be looking for a new tax person after this adverse publicity. Ingrid, get your resume ready! ;)
No resume is needed for Ingrid. Guy can be the reference that she's the biggest MK fan in the world.
That's enough to get her hired. :)
Ingrid would want to move all his money to Iceland. ;D
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Ingrid would want to move all his money to Iceland. ;D
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If only I had money ;-p
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I think that we should wait for the facts. Pottel has good information. Thanks. Not only does MK pay loads in tax, he also devotes loads to charity. Yes, I know, charity donations are tax deductible--but only so far. Better it should go to worthy cause than to bureaucrats anyway.
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Funny to hear complain from the US tax system at a time when in my country as rich celebrities or anonymous are settling outside to avoid to pay taxes in their own country...
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"We don't pay taxes. Only the little people pay taxes", the super-rich Leona Hemsley is reputed to have said. Read about her here:-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leona_Helmsley
OK, she was done for tax evasion (an illegal activity) not tax aviodance (which is not illegal) but some of these tax avoidance schemes, as I said before, seem artificial to me. If they were clearly illegal, the authorities would have gone after them but, if they are on the borderline between tax evasion and tax avoidance, then it is difficult to pursue a case. Some tax jurisdictions are opaque.
I was aware that U2 transferred their companies to the Netherlands to save tax and it caused a lot of animosity in Ireland at the time. I seem to recall that the Rolling Stones, having sold tickets for a concert in the UK, then postponed it (to another tax year, I think) because they gained a tax advantage by doing this.
As is well known, Amazon and Google minimize their tax bills by routing their money through Luxembourg. Yes, they pay some texes in the UK but not as much as they should if they had not set up elaborate corporate structures deliberately to reduce their tax liability in the UK. No wonder smaller UK-based companies cannot compete. It is not a level playing field.
No one should pay more in tax than is required of them and I'm sure that MK (and other very rich people) pay large chunks of money in taxes to the Exchequer but that doesn't absolve them from having to pay more if it's due. People who advocate a fairer, more just and more equitable society should not set out, by artificial means, to minimise their contribution to that society.
I am no revolutionary but please be clear - you and your families, even your elderly grandparents, pay more in tax than would otherwise be the case because large corporations and wealthy individuals use clever devices to keep their taxes down.
She has been born in Marbletown. Is Knopfler's Marbletown about her?
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In Greece we all know by now that such "leaks" are just a smoke screen. The government is in position to know anytime, but refuses to do so, in order to incriminate the average citizen and hold them by the balls anytime they feel like doing so, especially when they try to hide their dirty dealings. And yes, the wealthy are left with loopholes to tax evade.
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While I do understand people who try everything legal to avoid taxes (or have accountants do so), there's no excuse for tax evasion in my opinion. In a democratic country, the tax system - however flawed it may be - was established by the people's will. If you don't like, try to change it - or go someplace else.
The whole issued could be fixed, by the way, if all taxes where replaced by one single consumption tax (VAT). With that, whoever spends more money (the rich) pays more - and vice versa. It's the most simple and fair tax system of all.
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Tax avoidance and tax evasion are not the same thing. Tax avoidance is legal, tax evasion is not.
For example, in the UK many ordinary people have ISAs which are perfectly legal and there are many other legal ways of paying less tax!
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VAT is deemed as one of the most unfair taxes of all. The reasoning is not very complicated. Every person has to pay for the essential (food, clothes, health, education, rent etc). Rich people have to pay for the same essentials. Paying for luxuries (fast car, hi-end systems, boat, luxury housing etc) usually has a higher VAT rate, but then again creating an off-shore, or creating a company to lease the house/cars etc, etc, is a way to tax evade or avoid, that is commonly used. The fact that only people with a certain income can afford to use the laws and avoid paying taxes creates on its own a very big inequality. It means that the rich can enjoy their money without paying the equivalent tax, while paying the same VAT for the essentials. (if that, since they can write them off as expenses and get a VAT refund).
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Let me start by saying that VAT is what is known as a regressive tax - in other words, those who earn less have to pay a higher proportion of their earnings in VAT than those who earn more. Those who earn more may pay more VAT as an absolute sum but it is generally a lower proportion of their earnings.
That said, VAT is paid out of earnings that have already been taxed (either in the form of income tax, social service charges and the like) and, generally speaking, those who earn more pay more in those sort of taxes. It varies, I know, but I'll leave that as a general statement.
I think it was vgonis who referred to VAT being applied to food. That is not generally the case in the UK, where most food items are zero-rated (that is, VAT technically applies but it is set at 0%). I will try to explain this, as it is quite complex. I may get the technical details wrong but this is what happens.
Having a VAT system is a requirement of EU membership. In the United Kingdom, we had a system called Purchase Tax - the title sounds the same as VAT but was, in fact, different. I won't bore you with the details. When the UK joined the EU (as it's now known) Purchase Tax was scrapped and VAT was introduced.
VAT rates here have changed over the years (sometimes going down, even) and the range of goods/services covered has also changed (or been subject to redefinition as products have developed - for example, books and maps are zero-rated but e-books are subject to the standard rate of VAT) but there three rates of VAT permitted under EU law.
(# 1) The standard rate of VAT applies to most goods and services and the minimum allowed in Europe is 15%. In the UK, the standard rate is 20% at present. In addition, each EU country can have up to two rates of VAT lower than the standard rate for a limited range of goods and services. In Britain, we have two lower rates of VAT.
(#2) There is a range of goods and services on which VAT is at a reduced rate of 5% (such as domestic energy and certain, what I shall call, health-related products).
(#3) We have other goods and services on which the VAT rate is set at 0%. These include: children's clothing, public transport tickets, domestic water supplies, some safety equipment, very large manufactured products (such as aircraft and ships) and most foodstuffs.
I should add that some foodstuffs are chargeable at the standard rate of VAT (that is, at 20%). These include ice cream, chocolate-covered biscuits, chocolates, sweets (candy for those across the water), fruit juice and bottled water, amongst others. I supposed these are regarded as "luxuries", though I would dispute that in some cases.
In addition, there are goods and services which are regarded as "exempt" from VAT (such as educational services, health services, finanacial services, postage stamps, and tickets for concerts and other "cultural" activities).
Then, there are activities regarded as "outside" the VAT system, including goods and services supplied by people or organisations that are not registered for VAT. The latter include small businesses where the turnover is less than
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Thanks twm. As you correctly mention, each country has its own set of rules regarding VAT. Here in Greece books, children clothes and food all get VAT (from 6%-23%). Generally, things that are considered luxury are getting the higher tax rate, while in other cases two sets of VAT can be applied. (If you buy for take out,it is 13% but if you sit at the restaurant-cafe it is 23%). Tickets for museums, stamps and postal services are exempt from VAT, but are rare examples.
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There is an interesting side to the UK's old Purchase Tax system that preceded VAT - and it had an effect on a record release just a couple of years ago. But let's go back to the start.
Back in the days of Purchase Tax, so-called luxury goods (jewellery, for example) were taxed heavily. The Purchase Tax on LPs was 40% but there was an exception. If an LP was pressed in low numbers, there was no Purchase Tax. I think it was for "up to 100 copies" manufactured. Anyway, Dylan (under the pseudonym Blind Boy Grunt) contributed to a small label LP recorded in London in January 1963. The label pressed the LP in a small quantity but sold the LP at more or less the normal price for an LP. This allowed an otherwise uncommercial LP to be financially viable. What the label then did was a bit dubious. When the first run of LPs sold out, they pressed another small run and sold these. By my estimate, they did this at least seven times!
Now let's move forward to a couple of years back.
The EU had changed the copyright laws. I believe that the Sony Music executives in New York didn't really understand the details of the new EU law but that's another topic. They saw Dylan's 1961 recordings seemingly go out of copyright and being released by all sorts of record companies in Europe, so they decided to do something about it. What they did was to release Dylan's 1962 recordings - those that had not been released before including some not previously available to collectors - and called it the "50th Anniversary Copyright Extension" collection. They issued this as a set of CD-Rs available in Europe but only made 100 copies. In my opinion (and the opinion of others in Dylan World), this did not constitute a "release" under EU law, so why did they choose 100 as the minimum quantity? My understanding is that they listened to someone in Britain who remembered that small label LP with "Blind Boy Grunt and the old Purchase Tax system, and advised that 100 was the minimum number to make the release. Apart from the quantity, there was also the question of whether CD-Rs was a good enough standard for a release.
Similar releases in subsequent years have been in the form of vinyl LPs and in greater numbers - still not large numbers. The most recent box-set (for 1964) had 9 LPs and was quite pricey, even if you could find it to buy. Goodness only knows what they'll do next, as there are so many Dylan recordings from 1965 that have not been officially released.
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the UK childrens' clothing VAT being zero only applies to clothing up to size 146 (textile size meaning 146 cm) as of that and upwards, VAT does apply at a higher then 0% (forgot what though)
same thing is the case in luxemburg (different% values, but same princuiple)
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Good to have a few accountants on the forum. :)
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So twm, the law for 50 years is still under dispute for Europe? I know that in USA they have raised it to 70 years and with the Sonny Bono clause up to 100! And since this was not in retrospect, new music will be in public domain after 2023, again.
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First - I am not an accountant and never have been.
Second - I'm not saying that European copyright law is in dispute, only that I don't think Sony's U.S. lawyers fully understood the European law, certainly back in 2012 when they first had to address it.
Moreover, it is pretty clear that the decision to "release" those 1962 recordings was made very late in 2012 - possibly as late as December - and they had to get those recordings "released" by the end of December that year. It was all done in a great rush. I have heard this from more than one person involved in the process and there is evidence of this within the content of discs - errors made in the selection of the "takes" for the set, for example. The error about the number of copies to be manufactured and released (and I do believe it was an error) was just part of it. The whole thing was done so hurriedly that mistakes were almost inevitable.
P.S. I am also not a lawyer and never have been.
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In Spain culture (music, cinema, theatre...) pays a 21% while porn vat is very lower, what means that is more expensive to see a play than a stripper. That's the kind if country we are.
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In Spain culture (music, cinema, theatre...) pays a 21% while porn vat is very lower, what means that is more expensive to see a play than a stripper. That's the kind if country we are.
I don't see the problem. :hmm
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In Spain culture (music, cinema, theatre...) pays a 21% while porn vat is very lower, what means that is more expensive to see a play than a stripper. That's the kind if country we are.
I don't see the problem. :hmm
Buy a cd, 21% vat, buy a porn DVD, 4% vat
It makes you proud to be Spanish.
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In Spain culture (music, cinema, theatre...) pays a 21% while porn vat is very lower, what means that is more expensive to see a play than a stripper. That's the kind if country we are.
I don't see the problem. :hmm
Buy a cd, 21% vat, buy a porn DVD, 4% vat
It makes you proud to be Spanish.
The permissive society is alive and well...and living in Spain! ;D
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Let me start by saying that VAT is what is known as a regressive tax - in other words, those who earn less have to pay a higher proportion of their earnings in VAT than those who earn more. Those who earn more may pay more VAT as an absolute sum but it is generally a lower proportion of their earnings.
That said, VAT is paid out of earnings that have already been taxed (either in the form of income tax, social service charges and the like) and, generally speaking, those who earn more pay more in those sort of taxes. It varies, I know, but I'll leave that as a general statement.
I think it was vgonis who referred to VAT being applied to food. That is not generally the case in the UK, where most food items are zero-rated (that is, VAT technically applies but it is set at 0%). I will try to explain this, as it is quite complex. I may get the technical details wrong but this is what happens.
Having a VAT system is a requirement of EU membership. In the United Kingdom, we had a system called Purchase Tax - the title sounds the same as VAT but was, in fact, different. I won't bore you with the details. When the UK joined the EU (as it's now known) Purchase Tax was scrapped and VAT was introduced.
VAT rates here have changed over the years (sometimes going down, even) and the range of goods/services covered has also changed (or been subject to redefinition as products have developed - for example, books and maps are zero-rated but e-books are subject to the standard rate of VAT) but there three rates of VAT permitted under EU law.
(# 1) The standard rate of VAT applies to most goods and services and the minimum allowed in Europe is 15%. In the UK, the standard rate is 20% at present. In addition, each EU country can have up to two rates of VAT lower than the standard rate for a limited range of goods and services. In Britain, we have two lower rates of VAT.
(#2) There is a range of goods and services on which VAT is at a reduced rate of 5% (such as domestic energy and certain, what I shall call, health-related products).
(#3) We have other goods and services on which the VAT rate is set at 0%. These include: children's clothing, public transport tickets, domestic water supplies, some safety equipment, very large manufactured products (such as aircraft and ships) and most foodstuffs.
I should add that some foodstuffs are chargeable at the standard rate of VAT (that is, at 20%). These include ice cream, chocolate-covered biscuits, chocolates, sweets (candy for those across the water), fruit juice and bottled water, amongst others. I supposed these are regarded as "luxuries", though I would dispute that in some cases.
In addition, there are goods and services which are regarded as "exempt" from VAT (such as educational services, health services, finanacial services, postage stamps, and tickets for concerts and other "cultural" activities).
Then, there are activities regarded as "outside" the VAT system, including goods and services supplied by people or organisations that are not registered for VAT. The latter include small businesses where the turnover is less than
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But nothing beats the logic behind Spanish VAT, music, cinema and theatre are deluxe items so it pays 21%, porn is a first need and pays 4%...
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Agree with you Jbaent, it's impossible to beat that IMO ::)