[hdsport82]

Reading about it all, I kind of hope that he really was just naive about it all (I know I personally don't understand loads about tax, and leave stuff up to my accountant to deal with returns etc), but I suspect that when you're dealing with the kind of money that's been at play here, you'd have to be more aware of what's going on, especially with the seemingly obvious unrelated car business!

Well the name of the company would surely ring alarm bells even for the most naive individual...NT Advisors (standing for No Tax). I suppose it could have been worse if he'd said I met Wesley Snipes and he told me it was a great idea!

I do wonder if we'll start hearing about the others who been involved in the scheme, or whether Chris will end up taking all the flak for it.

Chris was one of the test cases now HMRC will be pursuing the other members of the scheme so I'd say it's fairly likely other names will come out.

[Nicola_Red]

careers have recovered from a lot worse. It's a question of whether he wants to put in the effort to make it happen

I think the problem is more that unlike someone like Jimmy Carr, he's widely hated as well as widely loved. Just look at all the fat jokes people make at his expense, for example, despite the fact that a) he's been losing weight steadily for a few years and b) other famous fat men like peter Kay don't come in for anywhere near the same kind of vitriol. He's a fairly controversial figure to start with, so I think he's gonna find it much tougher to recover. I'm not saying it can't be done, just that it won't be easy.

[G-Sizzle]

Jimmy Carr made his scandal Into about an hours worth of comedy material.
I don't think Moyles has the platform or the popularity to do such a thing, and I think he'll struggle to do "get over" this


I think a tail between the legs return to the radio might happen of his pride allows, or he might go across the pond to start anew.

[chrysostom]

[wild-speculation]May go some way to explaining why Dave was so actively kept off the second album, as Chris would have needed as much cash as possible with this coming up while he could sell without a cloud over him - sharing the PRS 3 ways probably didn't appeal.

Do we think that sales from the second album & profits from the 'tour' (*shudder* I'd forgotten how awful it was) would have totalled £1m?

One more thing...with EVERYONE including the papers being so quiet about the rifts (aside from 2/3 tiny articles) in the team, might there be a legal reason that they're not discussing it (as in ongoing procedures).[/wild-speculation]

[bmstinton93]

I just think the most upsetting thing about all this is the fact that this is clearly another reason for the ending of the show.

[Travis Bickle]

I just think the most upsetting thing about all this is the fact that this is clearly another reason for the ending of the show.

The tax situation? I don't think so. The show ended because it was way past its best (partly due to Chris and Dave no longer getting on) and Radio 1 wanting rid of Moyles older listeners. The show would have ended with or without this. It's slightly pathetic to be so interested in the private lives of these people, but I have to admit I am very curious what the cause of the breakdown in their relationship was.

I think we've all got a rough idea, or an idea of who was involved in it, but we don't know the details. And the details are crucial, so it would be wrong to judge, like some have.

The saddest thing for me is that Moyles has gone from being at the top of his game a few years ago to pretty much a non-entity, and a ridiculed one at that. Ordinarily this story wouldn't have any significant impact on a celebrities career if handled correctly and they were currently working, but with him being so inactive he will surely find it harder to come back. Far from impossible though.

For what it's worth, this tax thing hasn't altered my opinion of him in the slightest. If I was in his situation I most likely would have tried the same thing (or something similar) myself.

[Sophie.]

Any publicity is good publicity in my opinion. To be honest, Chris has majorly fallen off the radar, so perhaps this is what he needs to get his name out there again. He needs to take any gig he can get while he is still vaguely famous, so he can work up to getting that Radio 2 show that he deserves and could be amazing at.

He needs to make the most of the attention because I get the feeling it's the last time he is going to be in the press if he continues to do nothing publicly.

[Badger Mark]

Is Chris still officially under contract with the BBC? If so, I've wondered for awhile now that his inactivity, aside from JCS, was part of the arrangement they came to after his show was over. He couldn't do anything else until his contract was completely over. Of course if he's not still under contract than never mind.

[JayE]

I believe his contract expired at the start of this year.

[neilt0]

This can't have been a coincidence. It really can't:

https://twitter.com/Team_Moyles/status/ ... 4531001344



I'm really annoyed with Chris that he destroyed his career because he decided he didn't want to pay any tax. Not less tax, no tax. So bloody stupid and it's causing a hardship for the nation.

[The Deadly]

He was very smart. The only unfortunate thing is he got caught. You'd pay no tax given the chance, anyone would. If you say otherwise you're a liar.

[neilt0]

He was very smart. The only unfortunate thing is he got caught. You'd pay no tax given the chance, anyone would. If you say otherwise you're a liar.

There is nothing smart about pretending to be a used car dealer when you aren't one. And lying about £1m losses on £3,400 sales.
Monumentally stupid.

And no, you're wrong. Some people think taxes are the price you pay for a civilised society.

[The Deadly]

He was very smart. The only unfortunate thing is he got caught. You'd pay no tax given the chance, anyone would. If you say otherwise you're a liar.

There is nothing smart about pretending to be a used car dealer when you aren't one. And lying about £1m losses on £3,400 sales.
Monumentally stupid.

And no, you're wrong. Some people think taxes are the price you pay for a civilised society.

I very much doubt he had anything to do with the details of it regarding the used car thing. He'd have just paid someone else to take care of the finer details. He is smart to enter into a scheme to not pay tax though. I applaud anybody who can get away with keeping hold of their money.

[Nicola_Red]

I would love to avoid paying tax, but a) I earn a low wage anyway and b) if there was a legal way, everyone would do it and the NHS and whatnot would start to disintegrate before our eyes (not that it isn't in a bad way anyway but that's a different discussion). I'm not clever/stupid/brave enough (not sure what the right word is) to get involved in anything potentially dodgy or illegal.

I think the expectation is that people like Chris and big companies like Amazon etc make enough money that they should willingly contribute to society by paying their taxes. I'm not necessarily saying that's the right way to think, but that's the general public opinion, and someone like Chris who has a lot of haters anyway is clearly gonna bear the brunt of it.

[The Deadly]

Large companies get away with not paying hundreds of millions in tax. They are a completely different case entirely and should be the targets of the HMRC not the little man on the street.

[Travis Bickle]

The reason I say I would do what he did (or something similar) is that he was a 40% taxpayer. Purely from my own perspective I would seek to avoid paying that rate. We should all contribute to society, but if I fell into the higher rate of tax I would do what I could to pay less, purely on the principle that, percentage-wise, I shouldn't pay more than anyone else, given that I am already paying more than lower earners due to earning more.

It isn't a viewpoint that I would particularly put myself forward to defend in an argument, but I imagine it is how I would feel if I was required to hand over 40% of what I'd earned.

[neilt0]

Yes, I made the distinction between paying less tax and no tax.

As a business or self-employed person (as Chris was), it's perfectly reasonable to reduce your tax burden (not rate) by say 10 or 20%, that's pretty easy to do within the law but what he was doing was reducing it by 100%. That's called fraud. He got caught and now has to pay it all back.

[Topher]

He was very smart. The only unfortunate thing is he got caught. You'd pay no tax given the chance, anyone would. If you say otherwise you're a liar.

No I'm not. I'm pretty sure I would pay my fair share, as I'm pretty sure I would just be happy to be earning that sort of money. Not everyone tries to avoid paying their fair share either - JK Rowling is far, far richer than Chris and hasn't done anything with off-shore bank accounts.

40% sounds a lot but remember it's not 40% on the whole lot, it's 40% on anything over the threshold.

[The Deadly]

How do you know she hasn't done anything with off-shore bank accounts? It's good to see you're so honest and want to pay tax and wouldn't even think about fiddling the system should you be given a chance to. Not that I believe a word you're saying.

[Topher]

This Rowling quote is one of my favourite quotes ever:

I chose to remain a domiciled taxpayer for a couple of reasons. The main one was that I wanted my children to grow up where I grew up, to have proper roots in a culture as old and magnificent as Britain’s; to be citizens, with everything that implies, of a real country, not free-floating ex-pats, living in the limbo of some tax haven and associating only with the children of similarly greedy tax exiles.

A second reason, however, was that I am indebted to the British welfare state; the very one that Mr Cameron would like to replace with charity handouts. When my life hit rock bottom, that safety net, threadbare though it had become under John Major’s Government, was there to break the fall. I cannot help feeling, therefore, that it would have been contemptible to scarper for the West Indies at the first sniff of a seven-figure royalty cheque. This, if you like, is my notion of patriotism. On the available evidence, I suspect that it is Lord Ashcroft’s idea of being a mug.

What you are basically saying, Deadly, is that upon becoming lucky enough to earn the sort of money where you can afford to pay more tax than poor people, most people become contemptible scum who don't give a shit about those less fortunate than themselves - and in a lot of cases, you are of course correct. However, I would like to believe that I am principled enough not to be one of those people and that just earning the sort of money where I could afford to pay a higher percentage in tax would be enough for me - and I strongly believe that that's what would happen.

Edit: James Dyson is another one who pays his way.

[Nicola_Red]

So Toph, you now think of Moyles as contemptible scum? Obviously that's fine, you wouldn't be the first hater to post here and I doubt you'd be the last, I just want to clarify whether this tax dodging stuff has turned your opinion of him around to that extent. I think a few of us feel like our opinions of him have been coloured and I'm interested in the repercussions of his actions for us die-hard fans. For example, if he was to start a new radio show somewhere in this country, would you still listen?

[Topher]

Ha I knew someone would ask that... I still think he's the most talented radio broadcaster I've ever heard, but I've long wondered whether I would get along with him as a person. I think generally I probably would, but on financial matters I rather suspect not. I think having money makes a lot of people lose sight of where they've come from.... I certainly think this particular act is contemptible to say the very least.

[The Deadly]

Each to their own*


*copyright JayE

[JayE]

Each to their own*


*copyright JayE

You're goddamn right.

[Topher]

True, but it is rather a question of morality, especially when there are people (both in work and out) who need to use food banks in order to get by, 40p of tax in every pound over £34,000 is perfectly fair enough (as a guide, £34,000 before tax would have put you in the top 92% of earners in the country in 2012 according to IFS data; £34,000 after tax is roughly the threshold).

I don't begrudge him earning a lot of money for being extremely good at something, but I definitely do begrudge him trying to cheat the system and avoid paying in, when all the little folk have no choice (if they're lucky enough to even have a job), it's pretty shameful.

In case you hadn't noticed, I'm very much in favour of the 50p tax rate...