Whilst large corporations avoiding paying tax properly is a big issue and one that often gets forgotten when looking at the money 'wasted' on benefits, I have to disagree with the general feeling behind your post. The rich pay far more tax than anyone else does as a proportion of there own income and as a monetary value. People who earn large salaries are the ones paying for this country. This doesn't mean there isn't a large problem with tax avoidance, particularly amongst large businesses, but SME's and the upper middle class pay huge amounts of tax. Poorer people tend to occupy jobs that are a necessity to our civilised society, there is a benefit to society as a whole to having these jobs filled and thus a benefit to society to have people working those roles, even if they then do not generate much tax revenue from them. It's just as naive to ignore the positive impact of tax paying rich people as it is to ignore the benefit of non tax paying poor people. Each end of the spectrum has it's problems and those who avoid paying there fair share and each end of the spectrum is a necessity for society in its current form to work.
Just to give you a flavour of the 'drain on the economy' between the rich and the poor. 2012-2013: Jobseekers allowance - £4.61bn Unpaid corporation tax, tax fraud and tax owned by foreign corporations to HMRC - £120bn
I'm never one to defend our pricing structure but at least the BBC made a point of recognising the 7 cup vouchers that are included within our season tickets prices, something no/very few other clubs do. I'm not bored enough yet but maybe some day I'll do a net calculation of what our ST prices equate to without the cup games. And for the record, Arsenal have done this for as long as I can remember, my 1986-7 season ticket included 7 cup vouchers ! And in years where we did not host 7 cup games the club gave a reduction in renewals or refund, again, not something that's widely communicated....
Something that the media should be talking about, instead they find inordinate amounts of time hunting down and laying into benefits claimers and the normal Joe. But should we be surprised when all the media outlets are owned by huge corporations and skew the truth for their own benefit. Good to hear well thought out and enlighten debate from JPF and Piskie
Somebody said the other day that programmes like 'Benefits street' are popular because it's easy to lay blame on somebody in poverty who is trying to bend the rules, they are an easy target. The man in a grey suit, sitting at a computer swindling the country out of billions of pounds just doesn't make as interesting viewing. But as long as the rags like the Daily Mail, The Sun etc keep banging on about benefits cheats, immigrants stealing jobs etc then the real issue of massive wealth being creamed off for a disproportionately ultra rich minority, whilst we bail them out and see our public services go to the wall, just isn't going to get addressed. You're right to point out that it suits the big media outlets, because they are owned and financed by these ****ing leaches and it's in their interest to get the working man blaming the unemployed for the financial mess we're in.
You're focusing on those who don't pay their taxes, rather than the millions of people who do. Way to deflect blame.
Yes but you conveniently ignore his earlier post when he mentions the amounts of money these people con the system out of. 2012-2013: Jobseekers allowance - £4.61bn Unpaid corporation tax, tax fraud and tax owned by foreign corporations to HMRC - £120bn £4.61bn v £120bn, that is a massive difference...
the report is one sided bollocks as it only quotes our dearest ticket price. the only way to work out ticket prices fairly is to multiply the number of tickets issued in each price band and then work out the average price. then do this for every club. then compare the average price for a ticket. that would be a fair representation. but no lets have lazy journalistic reporting and lets compare Arsenal highest ticket price [of which there are only a few issued] against the lowest price ticket from any other club than Arsenal. yes we have tickets @ £90 plus and we have tickets @ £35 plus. but we also have tickets in between that. i hate jounos as they are ****s
No, it's our club, so that type of rhetoric is bulls**t. We want to support our club, we shouldn't be put in a position of either don't and f** off. Btw OF thinks the prices are justified because Arsenal consistently bring us to our glorious 4th place trophy, which for him, is good enough. .
A few others on this board would like to support their club in their own way, but you and a couple of others continuously attack them when they do, so I don't think you are in a position to take the moral high ground about anything at all old chap
The prices are justified because the stadium averages over 99% attendance figures over the course of a season. From the club's point of view, as a business, they'd be mad to change their pricing policy when they are effectively selling the ticket allocation for every game; doing otherwise would eat into their revenue. Performance means nothing if the fans are still willing to pay.
