WTF Lawyers

I understand, and to a large extent agree, that the solution is improving statute.

That is not to alter the fact that in our society there is a hierarchy of jobs -

Very valuable - eg the people who staff our hospitals and teach our kids

'Normal' - eg people who sweep the streets and man our shops.

Parasitic scum - eg lawyers and accountants whose job is to find loopholes, who make money by defying the will of the people by exercising their right to spend their time thinking about the letter of the law and not the spirit. When such lawyers and accountants are dealing with commercial matters / contracts then there is an argument that they are not doing much harm, but when they are fucking with the spirit of criminal law and taxation it is fucking immoral, IMHO.

It is sometimes said that our views on taxation are a mirror to the face of hypocracy.

You "must" pay your taxes, but I "should" pay my taxes. Whether these be based on millions in an offshore trust, or a bit of Ebay trading, it is always easier to see the the fault in fellow citizen's fiscal morals, than in our own skewed thinking.

Taxation is an intrusion of the state, into the earnings of its citizens. There may be a greater good in the c.£7 billion that the Iraq/Afghanistan adventures have cost this nation, and that has been collected from citizens, but I am not convinced that there is a moral angle to taxation.

Let the law be clear, let people pay what they are due to pay, but in the words of the the leading tax case

*Every man is entitled if he can to arrange his affairs so that the tax attaching under the appropriate Acts is less than it otherwise would be. If he succeeds in ordering them so as to secure that result, then, however unappreciative the Commissioners of Inland Revenue or his fellow taxpayers may be of his ingenuity, he cannot be compelled to pay an increased tax” *(IRC v Duke of Westminster [ 1936 ] AC1 (HL)).

(Oh, and regretfully, I am not a lawyer, but maybe a little mildewed around the edges)