I think that 8 out of 10 cats episode saved him. Everyone had a go, he was figuratively put in the stocks and they all threw their verbal rotten tomatoes and had a good laugh. Everyone got it out of their system and he took it like a champ and came off looking likeable
It was brutal and he took it like a champ at least publicly. No bs excuses just admitted it and took a very public and very appropriate flogging. I still love watching them, it was straight up savage. Jimmy is a fantastic comic and I'm glad he didn't run and hide so we can still enjoy him.
@@smoking_monk3257 Comedian S still tease him and he has been very forthright about it in interviews and in his books so I think his public reaction and private reaction are the same. It’s not a front.
That comparison of depression being like having no appetite for life, even though you're favourite "food" is right in front of you, but no matter what you can't eat it, is very spot on. Thank you for that Mr. Carr.
My biggest gripe with the whole tax story was Jimmy getting a grilling from David Cameron, whilst he defended Gary Barlow for similar tax dodging escapades.
and then the Panama papers revealed that Cameron was avoiding tax in the UK by having millions stashed in an off-shore bank account. I also recall that the queen had £10 million stashed there too
@@chrisparti Not to mention wasn’t it sort of David Cameron’s job to close these loopholes. Maybe, just maybe, he wasn’t interested in doing any such thing to protect his own business interests and those of the cronies in parliament. And maybe, just maybe, it was a cynical attempt to scape goat someone instead of actually fixing a system that many capital owners abuse?
@@gefaehrlich Of course £10 million is nothing to the monarchy, this was just one offshore bank that was hacked, there are tens of thousands of other off shore banks offering tax evasion, so who knows how many millions they have stashed in accounts around the world... Don't you think it stinks when the monarch of the country is fiddling paying tax?
The 8 out of 10 cats episode after the tax scandal was possibly the best thing Jimmy could have done. He didn’t hide, he stepped up, took all the hits, ate a load of humble pie and came out of it with great credit. I think Sean Lock and Micky Flanagan were fantastic in that episode. It was obvious away from the camera they are all great friends and they wanted to support him by mercilessly taking the piss out of him. if anything they helped Jimmy with his public likability profile.
he fronted up before then to the most relevant people here - the fans who pay their money to see him; he was on stage 2 days later & talked directly to them without bullshitting them, unlike the pig fucker Cameron, whose moral outrage vanished in 2016, when it emerged his own father did exactly the same thing!
Spot on. It’s a great depth of his character to be able to handle the short term barrage knowing that his mates are behind him. I reckon a more guilty person would have totally disappeared but Jimmy always admitted that he made some bad decisions and those were just trusting someone who had financial qualifications and presented as legit. Took it on the chin and managed to come out the other side with a lot more respect than others who get caught in the wrong.
It was exemplary damage control. He didn’t do what everyone else does - try to hide, to soften the blow, to go ‘me, yes, but what about other guys?’. He went out there, knew he messed up, got rightly roasted for it and made it cleansing enough that everyone, him included, could just move on.
I genuinely wish Jimmy had been able to go on the offensive on this one-- It's not that he broke the law, it's that he (legally) avoided paying some tax by taking advantage of a tax loophole. In the US, that's expected. My response to David Cameron would have started with, "Well, if you don't like people taking advantage of the loophole-- CHANGE THE LAW. That's YOUR JOB, literally!!". And then you find out that Cameron didn't pay inheritance tax on his father's estate-- because it was offshore. What. An. Effing. Hypocrite.
Yeah, I would have liked Jimmy to say "Yeah I did it and would do it again, anyone who isn't doing it is an idiot". He certainly doesn't regret doing it because he now thinks it's wrong, he regrets doing it because of the backlash. The general public are, to be brutally honest, stupid and they can easily be manipulated into hating someone if it's framed the right way (Rich guy not paying taxes like the rest of us) so he just played it smart to save his career. People should be asking why they continue paying more and more in taxes and getting less in return, they should be angry at the state for shafting them, not at their fellow private citizens who are avoiding some of the shafting.
Read law on the matter -it specifically says nobody has a legal or moral obligation to.pay more in tax than the law requires -Ayrshire Motor Traction v Inland Revenue 1929 which us the specific legal ruling.
Sean Lock was absolutely magical in that episode. It’s a real skill to dig at someone but not come across as cruel or wanting to hurt them. Something British humour lends itself to a lot. You could tell Sean was close to Jimmy but also wanted to make sure he realised what he’d done was wrong, and make fun of it to help him get through it. He was a master and sadly missed.
Fully agree - tax dodges are set up by the politicians over time and heavily used by the political bunch, but they are quick to condemn people taking advantage that they don't see as in their club. Just grubby.
He is ssssooo spot on about the first time you experience a panic attack, you do think it will be forever. It won't be, if you talk to someone and get help.
I remember mine. It was the sensation of finding it really hard to just breathe. Like there was a gigantic weight on my chest that I couldn't shove off no matter how much I tried.
As controversial as Jimmy Carr has been, these words really resonate with me as someone who has depressive episodes and panic attacks from time to time. The way he's worded it is exactly how you feel and how it can feel to cope with these things. Appreciate the words of wisdom.
I can't speak for those with depression, but I can definitely say that panic attacks are a spectrum and can manifest in different ways at different times for different people. Mine can range from yours and Jimmy's, relatively mild, to the medical-textbook description of a heart attack. I don't mean to overrule your feelings, just adding an addendum to "it's exactly how you feel".
Same here, I’ve been fully agoraphobic for 7 years now, can’t leave my house - but when he said he was “keeping his meds on him like a talisman”, it reminded me of before it started and it was panic attacks all the time in public. If I had my meds on me, chances are I’ll not need them. But if I didn’t have the meds on me, I’d need them.
It's weird how Jimmy Carr got into all this hot water about this... But yet our PM and his wife still trading with Russia - which is against the law - or David Cameron's off-shore tax haven, or Nadine Dorries 2nd home expense claim, or Jacob Rees-Mogg not paying any income-tax for 3 years or... (ad nauseum) is just brushed off
Exactly. Let's not even get into the PPE scandals during COVID where they gave all their friends billions. My tinfoil theory is they started digging this hole of corruption, lies and misconduct and thought that if they dug deep enough the next government would never be able to find the bottom of it.
Or Gary Barlow using the same tax avoidance schemes, being named as using one yet getting essentially a free pass while Jimmy was labelled tax dodging scum.
Happened to me recently, received about 8k on back tax and the company that sorted it for me got 3.5k. I now owe HMRC 17k for the tax plus interest. Normal bloke, working a normal job and the company aren't really liable. My only course of action would be to take them to court, which I simply can't afford.
@@dannytheh3ro I did that also. Didn't get anywhere near that much tho. I had to pay about 1000 back because they altered my tax code and left me having to fill in self assessment forms. Not knowing what they claimed for left me right in the shit. Not 17k tho. Good luck
@@ingloriousdonk It totally suck pal. Worst thing about it is I knew it was wrong but went along with it, so it really is my own fault. Got it in hand though.
He is genuinely remorseful, and I do believe he is a decent guy. The episode where he sat back and took the savage jokes on that famous episode told me he genuinely made an error in judgement, and that he is man enough to admit it. I liked him before the scandal, I like him more after 🤷♂️
I always thought he had a heart when I saw him getting emotional on celebrity catchphrase for winning money for charity. So many celebrities act like they are having a day out but Jimmy had fun and took it seriously.
He’s not really though is he? Downplays it as all in his accountants hands, compares it to things like ISA accounts, all the while flipping it so that he’s the victim… then kind of holds his hands up to a tiny bit of it.
@jsb89 well nobody gives a shit. You are here crying about Jimmy Carr when there are multiple multi million pound companies who are 20× worse than this and many billionaires who do a lot worse
@@MrF.B.I Just because billionaires do a lot worse, doesn't mean @jsb89 is wrong. If that had been me, as soon as the word "aggressive" came out of the accountant's mouth in relation to tax, I'd have been out. Jimmy is an interesting and very intelligent man - and I think his excuses on this point don't really wash. Although I am sympathetic about the hypocrisy of the backlash.
@pf7746 he's well within his right to not pay his tax as should the rest of us. They do nothing useful with the money we work hard for just waste it on wars and pointless crap
I started getting anxiety attacks before I got divorced, on top of depression, knowing that helps, talking about it with the right people helps, my cure was getting divorced, not felt like that since
End of the day, he employed someone to take control of his obscene finances and they screwed him over.. He took it on the chin and took the criticism well. Solid bloke
@@Billywoo12 I'm a tax accountant, and i think you'll find avoidance is legal, evasion is illegal. Some argue avoidance is immoral, but the law as we all know doesn't give a toss about morals.
I suspect this is exactly how tax loopholes are intended to work. They're so inscrutably complicated that the government can just pick and choose who gets away with it (their mates and donors) and who gets audited or shamed (their opponents).
Even if that's true, people don't go through complicated tax loopholes by accident. So those who do get leaked to the media can't really blame anybody else.
What was more interesting was when Cameron's father had a trust that was avoiding tax, Carr on 8 out of 10 Cats didn't lay into him. I thought that was classy!
Gary was on the front page of every newspaper, and as he's not as cool as Jimmy is to his audience, Gary got a lot more abuse on social media etc. Messi has had loads of tax issues. Realistically these guys earn an absolute fortune and get advised legal ways to earn more. They aren't accountants, they've made mistakes in the public eye and should be able to move on from it without everyone bringing it up every second
@@Nat2025now I don’t think so. He didn’t get as much stick as Carr. And Barlow didn’t have the Prime Minister castigating him either did he? Why was that? Because Barlow stood on an Election platform with Cameron persuading people to vote Tory, knowing if the Tories won his taxes would go down, yet that still wasn’t enough. That “mistake” meant everyone else, especially the poorest people had to pay more tax than they needed to. If you’re happy with that that’s up to you.
His mistake was apologising. He did nothing illegal. He should have sued HMRC for the leak and also sued the politicians who discussed his personal finances and he should have dragged all of their finances into the discussion.
I heard about the scandal but didn't know anything about it. He did nothing illegal? This is so bizarre. Sounds like politicians didn't realize how much entertainment really makes.
Having suffered with anxiety and panic attacks for many years, his description of it is spot on. Had a real bad one in the Trafford Centre about 3 years ago with my missus, luckily she's a nurse. I just stopped in my tracks, she said afterwards she thought I'd broke one of her fingers I was holding on that tight, she said she the look in my eyes was of sheer terror. I just desperately wanted my feet to start working so I could GTFO. Probably done in 20-30 seconds but felt like 25 mins to me. Silently screaming at your own brain to please just start working so you can breathe is no fucking joke, I'm a 44 year old builder.
Especially since Cameron's own family has money offshore. The only reason Cameron attacked Jimmy and not Take That was because Jimmy made his about the government and Barlow is a Tory
@@TequilaToothpick Sure but that doesn't alter the fact that Jimmy Carr should pay his tax. Of course Cameron is a hypocrite - this isn't news to anyone. But tax avoidance is massively right wing and when you make your living lampooning politicians I think Carr is a legitimate target for scrutiny.
@@TequilaToothpick Exactly. I suspect that's how the loopholes are designed. They're inscrutably complicated so the government can just pick-and-choose who pays tax.
I believe in particular that anxiety is getting the better of us through entirely different means these days. Anxiety probably helped us build walls and great shelter to fend of lions and foes. But these days I've had times were an email notification basically feels like a stab through the heart. Not the best analogy in terms of severeness, but with the modern tech it's almost as if you are in the trenches and constantly being shelled. Regardless of time of day. It of course depends on what sort of job you have, and also how you setup those notifications.
Good point. I got a new phone recently and decided to change the notification sounds to things that make me smile, which definitely helped to reduce that jolt of adrenalin I used to get on hearing their predecessors. I'd just turn them off, but there are times when you can't just ignore them, sadly!
I turn notifications off for precisely this reason. I'll get to stuff when I can - I don't need stuff coming to me while I'm doing something else. Worst idea ever.
He tells a story about how James Cordon called from the US during the worst of this just to ask if he’s OK. And then called the next day, and the next. This says so much about both men.
I didn't know anything about this, but Jimmy, you are absolutely one of my favorite entertainers, and it's good to see a video where your nature is coming through. I wish you the best, and I do not consider myself a 'fair-weather fan', as you say 'this too shall pass'
I am a Jimmy Carr fan, to a certain degree. I like seeing him on QI, and a few other shows here and there, but I'm not a fan of his Stand Up shows. Just not my style. I do like seeing him doing interviews like this. He relatable and vulnerable, and expresses himself with sincerity. What got me in this interview (tugged at my heartstrings) was his use of the phrase 'This too shall pass'. In some of my dark times earlier in life my Mom would use that very phrase in a tone of voice that was instantly calming and reassuring. When she said it the weight of the world was lifted somewhat and the proverbial 'light at the end of the tunnel' began to shine. The way Jimmy said it here, in that similar tone, reminded me of that light once again. Mom passed away March 8th, 2023. I thought I would always miss that comforting tone. Thanks Jimmy for bringing it back to me for a bit.
Let’s be honest, if I came to any person saying shit about him paying less tax and said to them “do you want to pay less tax and keep more of what you earned”, no one in their right mind would say “actually no I think ill continue taking home less money for myself thanks”.
That, and wasn't he making like 20 million a year or something? So even paying 1% tax means he was forfeiting 200k to the taxman, which is more than 99% of the citizens did probably.
1:38 “kicking in a lot” iirc this scheme allowed them to pay as little as 1% tax on income. there’s no way you could see this as fair. i appreciate the public shaming can be over the top but it’s disingenuous to compare it to an ISA
I think Jimmy is actually a very good person, with a kind heart. Also, it amazes me the difference in "moral shaming" and lack thereof, regarding the difference in UK vs USA. We elected a moron who bragged about avoiding taxes to be our president.
A lot has happened to jimmy in the space of a few years, his good friend Sean Lock died of cancer in the prime of his life, he had a son and has tried to keep very private with that, and he’s had the tax issue. I’m not sure how close he is with Rhod Gilbert but that’s another cancer patient friend. I know we all think ah he’s a famous wealthy person, he’s ok, but he’s human.
That thing about just having the meds and not needing to use them is spot on. I am exactly the same. If I have a panic attack just knowing I have the tranquilizer in my pocket gets the attack to subside.
First time you have a panic attack you think it's a heart attack, unless maybe you've had a heart attack already and have something to measure it against.
Ironically, I wasn’t very keen on Jimmy before the tax thing. I found him mean. But after the tax scandal I really liked him and was then able to ‘get’ him. Now he’s a favourite 😂 Also, Ayuasca for the win. Since completing my retreat, I’ve stopped crying, got the job of my dreams and the girl of my dreams. It unlocks your inner strength.
I love the guy. Truly I do. He's brought me countless hours of joy and, like he said, he's not the worst thing he's done.... That said - not at all buying that he didn't understand that it was the wrong thing to do. He is well versed enough on tax and economics to know what tax avoidance by the very rich, does to a country. (even then, Jimmy was clearly singled out because he was an easy target who wasn't really in "the club")
I have mental health issues. I had a severe panic attack in the concourse of Mexico City Airport. I keeled over, unable to breathe or speak. I dontnlike the persona of Jimmy Carr, but as a human being, I was impressed. He did well to describe something that is almost undesirable.
I’ve read so many memoirs and autobiographies and Jimmys is one of the best. It was 10/10, a surprisingly deep yet hilarious, open, engaging and enjoyable read. I’d highly recommend the audiobook
His autobiography was awful. He didn't in any way open up about his life and his behind a stupid concept of a self help book. One of the worst autobiographies I've ever read
Most people don't understand tax (even those involved in working on it), and celebrities have to trust their employees who make errors and the celebrity is made the scapegoat.
I am a retired entertainer after a 45-year career; I put all my trust in my accountant, as I KNOW NOTHING OF SUCH THINGS. ALSO, I AM DYSLEXIC AND DESCALULA; MY SKILL WAS MY PROFESSION, AND I LET THOSE SKILLED IN THERES DO THEIR JOB. Fortunately, I NEVER HAD ANY ISSUES, NAIVE, MAYBE, BUT WE ALL HAVE OUR talents. Sorry about THE CAPITALS STUCK ON the CAPS LOCK, LOL..@@pippipster6767
He didn't actually knowingly do anything wrong. He trusted someone to advise him and made a choice most of us probably would too. Differences were that he's famous, it was a lot money and it was public.
This is my opinion on it too - if I was rich enough to have an accountant and they offered me a legal loophole, then I would jump for it, as I imagine 95% of people would. That, and people like David Cameron throwing their hypocrisy around can f*** right off with inheriting his own dad's Panama offshore trust.
Thank you Jimmy Carr for being open and honest, I’ve been living in a black and dark place for the last 5-6 months. I was stopped by the police from committing suicide as things got that bad! Along with discovering childhood trauma, my 3 year relationship ended and being as that’s been my only ever relationship and I’m 38, I’ve found things extremely hard and even to this day I struggle I understand these feelings are not forever, but the constant struggle and darkness is overwhelming most of the time Life no longer feels like an experience but rather than a free fall into a black hole! I understand I’m not the only one that feels like this, but individually, it’s so hard! Panic attacks and depression and anxiety all rolled into one is just a ball that keeps on snow balling For anyone else going through this, you’re not alone in this
@vonb2792 The millionaire in question paid $13AUD in personal income tax one year. He paid his accounting firm close to $1 million, a pretty good trade off.
Panic attacks are horrible. I have had them all my life. The secret is to accept that they will pass. At work I used to go to the loo and sit in a cubicle until it passed. It's very important not to try to hide them. They are very common but there is a stigma attached strangely. There's a high probability your boss gets them. So share your condition. It takes away an element of the fear of embarrassment should one occur.
The interesting part around HMRC leaming anything is where he should've gone on the offensive. By all means audit him, prosecute if he's done anything illegal. But leaking anything about someone's personal tax affairs is a huge problem that really should've seen people lose their jobs
The problem is that create a system where Millionares like him who already have enough money too live a life of luxury pay as little as possible and usually less then is legal and people who are living play check to pay check who really can’t afford to lose any money have to pay there full amount. So in the end, people who can afford to pay their full taxes don’t and people who can’t afford to pay their taxes do.
Legality doesn’t equal morality. The law isn’t perfect, and there is and always will be room within any legal system to make decisions that are very clearly ethically better/worse. He was offered something that he either knew wasn’t right, or didn’t take responsibility to make certain wasn’t wrong, and chose to go ahead with it. Edit: Taxes pay for the NHS, schools, and a multitude of other public services that make our society what it is and, I believe, ultimately generally reduce the level of suffering in the world more than paying less tax. I think the reason hypocrisy is considered so significant is that morality is subjective so you can't ever truly prove immorality. But you can often show someone’s been inconsistent with their own purported standards, and then decide if you think their hypocrisy is immoral: “Earlier in 2012, during the second series of Channel 4's satirical news programme 10 O'Clock Live, Carr had lampooned people who avoid paying their taxes. A sketch from the show, in which he poked fun at the 1% tax rate of Barclays Bank and described tax lawyers as being "aggressive" and "amoral", was regarded as having "come back to haunt him".”
@@jackalope901but the burden is on you to prove immorality- there are schemes that are purposefully put in place to allow you to evade some tax. Does that mean if you take advantage of those things you are being immoral? What about intertemporal substitution?
Is it not immoral of our gov mis use of the tax it get? Nobody and I mean nobody truthfully would not do the same as nobody want what you worked for go to someone that miss uses it. Don’t say well you can change it vote for different party as they are all same the mps etc are immoral to if you use imoral like they way you are saying?
I have been diagnosed with PTSD following 41 years of a congenital heart condition, and in particular my 6th major operation that was akin to a transplant, and took place in September 2021 - no psychologist quite knew where to categorise me. If you have a trauma incident, you can avoid re traumatising and triggering to some extent re going on stage, going in a car if a car accident. But yes, depression, anxiety & panic attacks cripple you - my wife had to scrape me off the chair; it’s outer body; it’s motor function gone… I’m on citalopram
So frustrating when the just as guilty (David Cameron's family and self) attack others so publicly whilst hiding their own acts. So impressed how Jimmy has taken things as they are and done his best to balance and accept bad choices. Non minimising.
People who use avoidance schemes, whether it is you or someone who handles your affairs, enter them knowing that there is a bad element to them. The schemes also usually involve money movement that appears like laundering, which is generally associated with crime. So saying it is punishment for doing something legal is disingenuous. In my experience, most pro-avoidance commenters couldn't tell you about any one avoidance scheme and don't themselves have the money to do it.
@@Tranxhead I’m an accountant, so I could tell you many. But I’ve said absolutely nothing disingenuous whatsoever. Regardless of your opinion, nothing he has done was illegal, yet he got slaughtered for it. That’s just facts, not disingenuous.
Tax avoidance is legal, tax evasion is illegal. Everyone with a decent amount of earnings participates in tax avoidance. Shame on anyone pointing the finger while you have TV stars living on the Isle of Man, movie stars living in Barbados etc. They're all paying minimum tax. Anyone staying in the UK is paying vastly more tax than your typical star.
Lets face it, Jimmy's small fish & nothing he did was illegal compared to what else is going on. If it was spoken about in parliment, you've got to ask what they were distracting the general public from.
Just to correct the record from the outset, an ISA is NOT a tax avoidance scheme. This is fundamentally incorrect. An ISA is a form of tax planning and the two are very different. Planning involves using reliefs in the way they were intended and avoidance is exactly the opposite.
I agree with "everyone should pay their fair share"...... HOWEVER, who decides what the "fair share" is suppose to be...... especially when you live in a country, where politicians are not handling your taxes responsibly AT ALL
Jimmy Carr is a very bright individual, when your tax advisor/accountant talks about a scheme being 'aggressive', then the warning bells should immediately sound off, and I do not believe that he was unaware of how close to the line his tax affairs were, this decision in itself would fuel his anxiety, We have to take responsibility for our ethical and moral foundations, if we do, then managing issues such as depression and anxiety are less likely to be prominent aspects of your life.
There's nothing moral about tax. Likewise there's nothing immoral about avoiding tax. Tax money is not inherently good money. Yes it's used to pay doctors but it's also used to run schemes and bomb civilians.
yeah cry me a river he knew full well what he was doing and to compare a multi millionaire dodging tax to first time buyers saving up a few thousand pounds in an ISA is twisted
He did nothing illegal. Any person out there who complains about taxes would've done the exact same thing. Never pay more than you absolutely have to because why would you? The government gets what it can take from you and if they can't take _that_ specific money from you they have no right to it. It's that simple. Avoiding tax is common sense.
I know right can bet nearly all in parliament are doing the same thing even dodgy dave caremon family was doing it and profiting off it while he was banning on about morals and how wrong it is.
It seema that it was one of those weird 'grey' areas of tax. If he had setup the offshore company first, then it applied for totally new gigs via that company and had the offshore company receive the contract payments in a 'tax haven' and only remit him a small amount of taxable income in the UK it would have been fine. But the fact that he had ongoing/existing work arrangements in the UK and tried to get them to 'transition' from UK-based contracts to 'new' contracts going via the offshore company simply to minimize tax was what made it 'dodgy'. I can understand the tax office wanting to have to arrangements cancelled as a scheme entered into purely to reduce tax artificially, but I think the public outrage/interest was mostly driven by envy of high income earners, the tax office 'leak' was done to 'make an example' (which wasn't really ethical from the tax office POV), the government/politicians piled on for political points scoring and virtue signalling, and the media was happy to grab the story and run with it as a hot gossip item to drive increased subscriptions/sales and hence raise revenue. Plenty of moral ambiguity to go around all parties involved in the whole 'circus' I think. ps. I don't know all the details, but I suspect the tax arrangements were, in fact, legal. And that the 'leak' was basically just a tactic to force him to 'voluntarily' unwind the arrangement and pay more tax, otherwise the adverse publicity would have made his income completely go away. Basically a mafia-style 'give us more money or something bad might happen to your store' type of extortion. Basically the tax office couldn't legally make him pay more tax, so they (some public servant) 'leaked' the story to force him to arrange his affairs in a less tax effective manner. Court cases have well established that legal principle that no-one has to arrange their affairs in a way to pay more tax than they legally have to, so this was a pretty low act by whatever public servant 'leaked' the information to the media.
I don’t blame him, but tax avoidance is not the same as an ISA! An ISA is a U.K. savings account where you not taxed on any profits your savings make. Its designed to encourage people to save.
Ok so he didn't break the law, that's been established. So how is what he did immoral? The law says this is how we determine how much tax you pay. He paid it. There is no moral obligation to not arrange your affairs to pay the last tax.
You realise the government (whoever is in power) use tax income to pay for public projects/schemes/entities. Rich people avoiding tax is basically reducing the effectiveness of these public schemes because they can't be funded properly. I don't know how much tax he avoided, but to strip it back to the bare bones and be crude about it, if it was say £100k, that 'could' have paid for a few nurses, or a few police officers. Multiply that by countless other tax avoiders and the issue becomes significantly bigger. The average people like you and me lose out and the government gets the blame for the failing system we currently find ourselves in.
@@Leedsutd1985 Yes it could have paid for nurses, or it could have paid for spying on their own citizens, prosecuting people for speech, or any number of corrupt and illiberal schemes. It is simply not the case that tax avoidance is the reason the government can't afford to give you the free stuff you want. It can't afford to do that because it's doing bad things. I guarantee Jimmy didn't avoid £9.24bn in tax which is the cost of the Iraq war not including troops salaries.
I'd bet every dollar I own that there are many others who are using the same tax loopholes. Why are they not being shamed by the primeinister? I'm not saying it was unfair to do and Jimmy got what he deserves. But if your going to go after one person, go after them all.
“Anxiety is the flip Side of creativity” “all we have is talking therapy” I used to believe similar things. And although therapy helps for the moment, anxiety and depression builds back up so you have to keep talking. I was in therapy for 20 years, alcoholic for 15 years, drug addict… then i discovered microdosing magic mushrooms. After 4 x microdoses over just 2 weeks, I was literally cured. I haven’t had any anxiety or any depression since. If you suffer too, just know you can do the same
I'm still conflicted about this... I like Jimmy Carr, big fan, I've seen him live a few times and got his dvds. What he did was taking money out of education, healthcare and everything else. He didn't need to and he was being incredibly selfish, I wouldn't know how I could look someone in the eye who had a friend or family member due because the NHS couldn't get the funding... On the other hand, if someone told me I could pay less than 1% tax I would take the opportunity. I disagree with him that he was still "paying a lot" or that what he did was comparable to having an ISA, but I can't judge him more hardly than I would judge myself in that situation when I would have taken the same route.
It was legal. It wasn't moral. Him having a moral bone in his body was what made it such an event for him. If he was as criminal as the politicians making capital of the situation, he wouldn't have given a flying fig.
'This too shall pass' human experiences we have to go thru. Once the entire episode is over did you not wanna call it quits and settle down and enjoy the balance of your life.
It was not an aggressive tax avoidance scheme. He was pumping over £3 million a year into the K2 scheme and paying less than 2% tax. Everyone knows you don't pay less than 2% tax on £3 million. Once he normalised his tax affairs his company tax bill rose by over £500,000 with an additional personal liability on any earnings he took out. He was paying the same amount of tax on his £3 million as an employee on £140,000. That is not a mistake.
@@jordizeeyou realise that not everyone understands these things right? Don’t place your own knowledge or expertise on something on everyone else If you employ an expert and they give you advice, you take it! I had an accountant once that got me into so much crap cause I didn’t understand and just went along with what his advice was! Same with another friend of mine!
@@Vegan_Photographs yes but I'm guessing with you that you didnt have millions in the bank and Jimmy is a self declared financial whizz. All his life he took from the public funds via schooling and NHS. Then when it came to putting back he went naaa!
@@jordizee he's not really playing the victim though. The only reason he came back from that was how he handled it: he acknowledged and owned his mistake, he listened to his friends and saw their disappointment, he let himself be the butt of the joke and payed back the owed money. He's not even blaming his financial guy. He's just explaining how it happened.
Earlier today I saw Jimmy Carr on a new podcast. It seems since this Diary of the CEO interview he's redefined his way of understanding his moods. In this interview what he defined as "depression" he now seems to recognize as the less clinical "sadness". I think he's now more right, that "sadness" is something you personally can influence while "depression" can be beyond one's control. Most of us experience sadness and can move past it. Depression can be more debilitating than that.
No one ever mentions the accountant! The accountant was the one who sought out the loophole and encouraged Jim to use it. And yet he or she is never talked about. Let’s be honest, if our accountant said “you can legally pay less tax” we would all do it.
lol he couldn’t and wouldn’t, when you file a tax return through any legitimate accountant you sign a piece of paper saying they provide a service but ultimately your responsible for your money. They’re financial advisers. Hence why Hmrc came after him not his accountant. He did get a harder time about this than he needed to!!
Honestly I don't understand it at all. I'm a chartered accountant and retired early because I was very good at exploiting tax loop holes and creating structures using the channel islands. I mean rhe channel Islands are crown dependencies meaning they're the Royal tax havens and if they don't have any moral qualms why should the average Joe that's saving only a penny or two and that too few. Think about it, the royals and elites have used the channel islands for decades to avoid billions of taxes. Jersey alone has £3 trillion of assets - what's the tax stolen on it?
It’s all well and good using the accountant excuse and even if it was a legal scheme you knew what you were doing would ultimately result in less money for public spending
Do you have an ISA? I don’t defend what he did (b neither does he) but if someone who should know tells you something’s legal , I think I have a couple of grams of understanding
I love how everyone assumes the amount he avoided being taxed would have gone towards the NHS or schools instead of into the pockets of MPs via expenses or into expanding the surveillance state.
I think that 8 out of 10 cats episode saved him. Everyone had a go, he was figuratively put in the stocks and they all threw their verbal rotten tomatoes and had a good laugh. Everyone got it out of their system and he took it like a champ and came off looking likeable
Micky Flanigan was the only one who appeared to be enjoying it in a nasty way in that episode
It was brutal and he took it like a champ at least publicly. No bs excuses just admitted it and took a very public and very appropriate flogging. I still love watching them, it was straight up savage. Jimmy is a fantastic comic and I'm glad he didn't run and hide so we can still enjoy him.
@@smoking_monk3257 Comedian S still tease him and he has been very forthright about it in interviews and in his books so I think his public reaction and private reaction are the same. It’s not a front.
Shame the same forgiveness wasn't applied to Angus Deaton after his stuff. He did the HIGNFY episode and got roasted but the beeb dropped him anyway.
@@WrekuiemForAMeme The BBC have been puritans for a very long time, which is why they relaxed into woke so easily.
That comparison of depression being like having no appetite for life, even though you're favourite "food" is right in front of you, but no matter what you can't eat it, is very spot on. Thank you for that Mr. Carr.
Clinical depression is a lot worse than that.
@@StimParavaneHere… have an award for for the competition you thought you were in 🥇
@@Allegro_Giusto wow. What a legend you are...in your own mind.
Hahahahahhaha
I've had almost 'no interest in eating' for 3 1/2 decades. 😒
My biggest gripe with the whole tax story was Jimmy getting a grilling from David Cameron, whilst he defended Gary Barlow for similar tax dodging escapades.
and then the Panama papers revealed that Cameron was avoiding tax in the UK by having millions stashed in an off-shore bank account. I also recall that the queen had £10 million stashed there too
@@chrisparti Not to mention wasn’t it sort of David Cameron’s job to close these loopholes. Maybe, just maybe, he wasn’t interested in doing any such thing to protect his own business interests and those of the cronies in parliament. And maybe, just maybe, it was a cynical attempt to scape goat someone instead of actually fixing a system that many capital owners abuse?
Aren't 10 million supposed to be absolute peanuts to a queen haha @@chrisparti
@luisthoppil6163 100% The whole Jimmy Carr scandal was a symptom of a wider cultural issue of the wealth divide - not the issue in and of itself
@@gefaehrlich Of course £10 million is nothing to the monarchy, this was just one offshore bank that was hacked, there are tens of thousands of other off shore banks offering tax evasion, so who knows how many millions they have stashed in accounts around the world... Don't you think it stinks when the monarch of the country is fiddling paying tax?
The 8 out of 10 cats episode after the tax scandal was possibly the best thing Jimmy could have done. He didn’t hide, he stepped up, took all the hits, ate a load of humble pie and came out of it with great credit. I think Sean Lock and Micky Flanagan were fantastic in that episode. It was obvious away from the camera they are all great friends and they wanted to support him by mercilessly taking the piss out of him. if anything they helped Jimmy with his public likability profile.
he fronted up before then to the most relevant people here - the fans who pay their money to see him; he was on stage 2 days later & talked directly to them without bullshitting them, unlike the pig fucker Cameron, whose moral outrage vanished in 2016, when it emerged his own father did exactly the same thing!
Spot on. It’s a great depth of his character to be able to handle the short term barrage knowing that his mates are behind him.
I reckon a more guilty person would have totally disappeared but Jimmy always admitted that he made some bad decisions and those were just trusting someone who had financial qualifications and presented as legit.
Took it on the chin and managed to come out the other side with a lot more respect than others who get caught in the wrong.
It was exemplary damage control. He didn’t do what everyone else does - try to hide, to soften the blow, to go ‘me, yes, but what about other guys?’. He went out there, knew he messed up, got rightly roasted for it and made it cleansing enough that everyone, him included, could just move on.
@@mattgreene01didn’t mess up as far as I’m concerned. Tax is all a load of nonsense.
Eq
I genuinely wish Jimmy had been able to go on the offensive on this one-- It's not that he broke the law, it's that he (legally) avoided paying some tax by taking advantage of a tax loophole. In the US, that's expected. My response to David Cameron would have started with, "Well, if you don't like people taking advantage of the loophole-- CHANGE THE LAW. That's YOUR JOB, literally!!". And then you find out that Cameron didn't pay inheritance tax on his father's estate-- because it was offshore.
What. An. Effing. Hypocrite.
Yeah, I would have liked Jimmy to say "Yeah I did it and would do it again, anyone who isn't doing it is an idiot". He certainly doesn't regret doing it because he now thinks it's wrong, he regrets doing it because of the backlash. The general public are, to be brutally honest, stupid and they can easily be manipulated into hating someone if it's framed the right way (Rich guy not paying taxes like the rest of us) so he just played it smart to save his career. People should be asking why they continue paying more and more in taxes and getting less in return, they should be angry at the state for shafting them, not at their fellow private citizens who are avoiding some of the shafting.
The issue was jimmy at the time was on a show criticising people doing these tax loopholes and taking a moral position.
@@137Furoni thought it was all jokes, like all of his shows
Read law on the matter -it specifically says nobody has a legal or moral obligation to.pay more in tax than the law requires -Ayrshire Motor Traction v Inland Revenue 1929 which us the specific legal ruling.
He did break the law
Sean Lock was absolutely magical in that episode. It’s a real skill to dig at someone but not come across as cruel or wanting to hurt them. Something British humour lends itself to a lot. You could tell Sean was close to Jimmy but also wanted to make sure he realised what he’d done was wrong, and make fun of it to help him get through it. He was a master and sadly missed.
The real scandal is that this tax loophole still exists and is being used by many in the entertainment and football world.
The real scandal is this is government backed and legal. Pure fuckery of the our shit government’s
And politicians- david cameron amongst them, ironically
...or by their accountants.
i think the real scandal is that you have no influece on how your taxes get spend.
if its available i dont see why people care about him evading taxes
David Cameron castigated Jimmy in parliament whilst still supporting and bestowing honours on Gary Barlow who is a serial tax evader.
And lets not forget David Cameron was a taxdodger himself.
Fully agree - tax dodges are set up by the politicians over time and heavily used by the political bunch, but they are quick to condemn people taking advantage that they don't see as in their club. Just grubby.
@@bararobberbaron859as was his father who offshored much of his wealth. So total hypocrisy
@@sblack48 And 2TK who had a special law for him to avoid tax on his pension.
He is ssssooo spot on about the first time you experience a panic attack, you do think it will be forever. It won't be, if you talk to someone and get help.
I remember mine. It was the sensation of finding it really hard to just breathe.
Like there was a gigantic weight on my chest that I couldn't shove off no matter how much I tried.
His description of anxiety hits the nail on the head.
It resonated so much with my experience 😢
This man absolutely saved me from my depression. He was all I'd watch because he is so fucking real. Such a fucking inspiration ❤
As controversial as Jimmy Carr has been, these words really resonate with me as someone who has depressive episodes and panic attacks from time to time. The way he's worded it is exactly how you feel and how it can feel to cope with these things. Appreciate the words of wisdom.
I can't speak for those with depression, but I can definitely say that panic attacks are a spectrum and can manifest in different ways at different times for different people. Mine can range from yours and Jimmy's, relatively mild, to the medical-textbook description of a heart attack. I don't mean to overrule your feelings, just adding an addendum to "it's exactly how you feel".
Same here, I’ve been fully agoraphobic for 7 years now, can’t leave my house - but when he said he was “keeping his meds on him like a talisman”, it reminded me of before it started and it was panic attacks all the time in public. If I had my meds on me, chances are I’ll not need them. But if I didn’t have the meds on me, I’d need them.
The 😊
It's weird how Jimmy Carr got into all this hot water about this...
But yet our PM and his wife still trading with Russia - which is against the law - or David Cameron's off-shore tax haven, or Nadine Dorries 2nd home expense claim, or Jacob Rees-Mogg not paying any income-tax for 3 years or... (ad nauseum) is just brushed off
Exactly. Let's not even get into the PPE scandals during COVID where they gave all their friends billions.
My tinfoil theory is they started digging this hole of corruption, lies and misconduct and thought that if they dug deep enough the next government would never be able to find the bottom of it.
Or Gary Barlow using the same tax avoidance schemes, being named as using one yet getting essentially a free pass while Jimmy was labelled tax dodging scum.
One rule for one...
I dont blame him. Blame the people who made the loopholes. If someone told you you could pay less tax would you still pay it all.
Happened to me recently, received about 8k on back tax and the company that sorted it for me got 3.5k.
I now owe HMRC 17k for the tax plus interest. Normal bloke, working a normal job and the company aren't really liable. My only course of action would be to take them to court, which I simply can't afford.
@@dannytheh3ro I did that also. Didn't get anywhere near that much tho. I had to pay about 1000 back because they altered my tax code and left me having to fill in self assessment forms. Not knowing what they claimed for left me right in the shit. Not 17k tho. Good luck
@@ingloriousdonk It totally suck pal.
Worst thing about it is I knew it was wrong but went along with it, so it really is my own fault.
Got it in hand though.
Loophole is just another word for tax law 😂
@@ingloriousdonkNo one made Jimmy Carr do it.
He is genuinely remorseful, and I do believe he is a decent guy. The episode where he sat back and took the savage jokes on that famous episode told me he genuinely made an error in judgement, and that he is man enough to admit it.
I liked him before the scandal, I like him more after 🤷♂️
I always thought he had a heart when I saw him getting emotional on celebrity catchphrase for winning money for charity. So many celebrities act like they are having a day out but Jimmy had fun and took it seriously.
He’s not really though is he? Downplays it as all in his accountants hands, compares it to things like ISA accounts, all the while flipping it so that he’s the victim… then kind of holds his hands up to a tiny bit of it.
@jsb89 well nobody gives a shit. You are here crying about Jimmy Carr when there are multiple multi million pound companies who are 20× worse than this and many billionaires who do a lot worse
@@MrF.B.I Just because billionaires do a lot worse, doesn't mean @jsb89 is wrong. If that had been me, as soon as the word "aggressive" came out of the accountant's mouth in relation to tax, I'd have been out. Jimmy is an interesting and very intelligent man - and I think his excuses on this point don't really wash. Although I am sympathetic about the hypocrisy of the backlash.
@pf7746 he's well within his right to not pay his tax as should the rest of us. They do nothing useful with the money we work hard for just waste it on wars and pointless crap
Wow. What an honest open version of Jimmy. Thank you. ❤ it’s so cathartic to see the man behind the humour. Love you Jim.
I think this is one of the best interviews. Thanks for the honesty. Thanks for sharing.
I started getting anxiety attacks before I got divorced, on top of depression, knowing that helps, talking about it with the right people helps, my cure was getting divorced, not felt like that since
I hope you are doing well physically, financially, and mentally. It can be a hard slog, but you just have to hang in there. ❤
Hats off to Jimmy, love you man keep it up. Dont let no one drag you down.
End of the day, he employed someone to take control of his obscene finances and they screwed him over.. He took it on the chin and took the criticism well. Solid bloke
I’m sure your finances are ‘obscene’ to someone in the third world. Don’t be jealous.
@@RevealedFilmsin his own words, they were basically obscene. Has nothing to do with anyone being jealous
They likely didn't screw him over tho, tax avoidance isn't illegal.
@@spudster8887tax avoidance/evasion is illegal. Being tax efficient isn’t. 😅
@@Billywoo12 I'm a tax accountant, and i think you'll find avoidance is legal, evasion is illegal. Some argue avoidance is immoral, but the law as we all know doesn't give a toss about morals.
I suspect this is exactly how tax loopholes are intended to work. They're so inscrutably complicated that the government can just pick and choose who gets away with it (their mates and donors) and who gets audited or shamed (their opponents).
Even if that's true, people don't go through complicated tax loopholes by accident. So those who do get leaked to the media can't really blame anybody else.
bingo
Exacatamundo
What was reprehensible was Cameron going on about it but when it came to his mate Gary Barlow doing the same thing, the silence was deafening.
What was more interesting was when Cameron's father had a trust that was avoiding tax, Carr on 8 out of 10 Cats didn't lay into him. I thought that was classy!
and then there is Michelle Mone and her 60 million pounds💩💩
@@AdamJones381Jimmy also didn't fuck a pig (to quote his shows) lol
Gary was on the front page of every newspaper, and as he's not as cool as Jimmy is to his audience, Gary got a lot more abuse on social media etc.
Messi has had loads of tax issues. Realistically these guys earn an absolute fortune and get advised legal ways to earn more. They aren't accountants, they've made mistakes in the public eye and should be able to move on from it without everyone bringing it up every second
@@Nat2025now I don’t think so. He didn’t get as much stick as Carr. And Barlow didn’t have the Prime Minister castigating him either did he? Why was that? Because Barlow stood on an Election platform with Cameron persuading people to vote Tory, knowing if the Tories won his taxes would go down, yet that still wasn’t enough. That “mistake” meant everyone else, especially the poorest people had to pay more tax than they needed to. If you’re happy with that that’s up to you.
His mistake was apologising. He did nothing illegal.
He should have sued HMRC for the leak and also sued the politicians who discussed his personal finances and he should have dragged all of their finances into the discussion.
No that would have made too many enemies. He would have lost his hosting gigs. What he did minimized the damage.
I heard about the scandal but didn't know anything about it. He did nothing illegal? This is so bizarre. Sounds like politicians didn't realize how much entertainment really makes.
Having suffered with anxiety and panic attacks for many years, his description of it is spot on. Had a real bad one in the Trafford Centre about 3 years ago with my missus, luckily she's a nurse. I just stopped in my tracks, she said afterwards she thought I'd broke one of her fingers I was holding on that tight, she said she the look in my eyes was of sheer terror. I just desperately wanted my feet to start working so I could GTFO. Probably done in 20-30 seconds but felt like 25 mins to me.
Silently screaming at your own brain to please just start working so you can breathe is no fucking joke, I'm a 44 year old builder.
David Cameron should make a public apology to Jimmy Carr for the disgusting way he treated him
thats the part that i found funny ... the Tory party telling someone what they did was morally wrong ... oh the irony
Especially since Cameron's own family has money offshore. The only reason Cameron attacked Jimmy and not Take That was because Jimmy made his about the government and Barlow is a Tory
@@TequilaToothpick Sure but that doesn't alter the fact that Jimmy Carr should pay his tax. Of course Cameron is a hypocrite - this isn't news to anyone. But tax avoidance is massively right wing and when you make your living lampooning politicians I think Carr is a legitimate target for scrutiny.
@@TequilaToothpick Exactly. I suspect that's how the loopholes are designed. They're inscrutably complicated so the government can just pick-and-choose who pays tax.
Yeah i remember labour and tony blair saying he'd get rid of the loopholes...vote labour...stay poor.
I believe in particular that anxiety is getting the better of us through entirely different means these days. Anxiety probably helped us build walls and great shelter to fend of lions and foes.
But these days I've had times were an email notification basically feels like a stab through the heart.
Not the best analogy in terms of severeness, but with the modern tech it's almost as if you are in the trenches and constantly being shelled. Regardless of time of day.
It of course depends on what sort of job you have, and also how you setup those notifications.
Good point. I got a new phone recently and decided to change the notification sounds to things that make me smile, which definitely helped to reduce that jolt of adrenalin I used to get on hearing their predecessors. I'd just turn them off, but there are times when you can't just ignore them, sadly!
I turn notifications off for precisely this reason. I'll get to stuff when I can - I don't need stuff coming to me while I'm doing something else. Worst idea ever.
Crazy that David Cameron made a big deal to call him out when he was profiting from his father doing the same.
He tells a story about how James Cordon called from the US during the worst of this just to ask if he’s OK. And then called the next day, and the next. This says so much about both men.
This is one of the only positive stories I've heard of James Cordon, don't like him overall, but this is a classy thing to do 👍
It's astounding for government to be "righteous" regarding private citizens...when they do WAY WORSE SHIT!...
his description of depression is the most accurate articulation of how I feel when I get into a depressive cycle. Wow.
"The difference between tax avoidance and tax evasion is... 18 months in prison."
- J. Carr
Thank you , your interview has helped me understand my illness . Your a wonderful man and more so very funny.
God bless you I wish you all the best 🙏
I didn't know anything about this, but Jimmy, you are absolutely one of my favorite entertainers, and it's good to see a video where your nature is coming through. I wish you the best, and I do not consider myself a 'fair-weather fan', as you say 'this too shall pass'
I am a Jimmy Carr fan, to a certain degree. I like seeing him on QI, and a few other shows here and there, but I'm not a fan of his Stand Up shows. Just not my style. I do like seeing him doing interviews like this. He relatable and vulnerable, and expresses himself with sincerity. What got me in this interview (tugged at my heartstrings) was his use of the phrase 'This too shall pass'. In some of my dark times earlier in life my Mom would use that very phrase in a tone of voice that was instantly calming and reassuring. When she said it the weight of the world was lifted somewhat and the proverbial 'light at the end of the tunnel' began to shine. The way Jimmy said it here, in that similar tone, reminded me of that light once again. Mom passed away March 8th, 2023. I thought I would always miss that comforting tone. Thanks Jimmy for bringing it back to me for a bit.
Ha I’m the exact reverse. I like his stand up.
He never excused it and never mad himself look like a victim, that's exactly what saved his career and to this day he jokes about it at his expense.
Wow!!! I can relate to almost everything Jimmy says about anxiety and depression. Plus, I believe his every word.
Let’s be honest, if I came to any person saying shit about him paying less tax and said to them “do you want to pay less tax and keep more of what you earned”, no one in their right mind would say “actually no I think ill continue taking home less money for myself thanks”.
Yeah really, and he asked them if it was legal and they said it was, he had no reason not to believe them
That, and wasn't he making like 20 million a year or something? So even paying 1% tax means he was forfeiting 200k to the taxman, which is more than 99% of the citizens did probably.
@@bararobberbaron859 irrelevant, he (and all rich people) should have to pay the same percentage regular punters have to pay
@@permiek they "have" to pay a higher % usually, it's just much easier to avoid those taxes if you have lots of money and assets
Thank you for bringing men's truths into the light love your shows and love Jimmy of course
1:38 “kicking in a lot” iirc this scheme allowed them to pay as little as 1% tax on income. there’s no way you could see this as fair. i appreciate the public shaming can be over the top but it’s disingenuous to compare it to an ISA
I think Jimmy is actually a very good person, with a kind heart.
Also, it amazes me the difference in "moral shaming" and lack thereof, regarding the difference in UK vs USA. We elected a moron who bragged about avoiding taxes to be our president.
In the US, minimizing your tax obligations is expected behaviour and the social norm.
@@paulie-g exactly.
The uk media would have a field day with Australian corporations and politicians if they think jimmy carrs tax loopholes are morally reprehensible.
A lot has happened to jimmy in the space of a few years, his good friend Sean Lock died of cancer in the prime of his life, he had a son and has tried to keep very private with that, and he’s had the tax issue. I’m not sure how close he is with Rhod Gilbert but that’s another cancer patient friend. I know we all think ah he’s a famous wealthy person, he’s ok, but he’s human.
Lots of celebrities have had tax problems. No shame there.
It is when they're hypocritical always preaching socialist views to other people
That thing about just having the meds and not needing to use them is spot on. I am exactly the same. If I have a panic attack just knowing I have the tranquilizer in my pocket gets the attack to subside.
First time you have a panic attack you think it's a heart attack, unless maybe you've had a heart attack already and have something to measure it against.
Ironically, I wasn’t very keen on Jimmy before the tax thing. I found him mean. But after the tax scandal I really liked him and was then able to ‘get’ him. Now he’s a favourite 😂
Also, Ayuasca for the win. Since completing my retreat, I’ve stopped crying, got the job of my dreams and the girl of my dreams. It unlocks your inner strength.
I love the guy. Truly I do.
He's brought me countless hours of joy and, like he said, he's not the worst thing he's done.... That said - not at all buying that he didn't understand that it was the wrong thing to do.
He is well versed enough on tax and economics to know what tax avoidance by the very rich, does to a country.
(even then, Jimmy was clearly singled out because he was an easy target who wasn't really in "the club")
ok, now tell us you wouldn't cut your tax bill if you were given the option to do it legally - I'll believe you honestly....
I have mental health issues. I had a severe panic attack in the concourse of Mexico City Airport. I keeled over, unable to breathe or speak.
I dontnlike the persona of Jimmy Carr, but as a human being, I was impressed. He did well to describe something that is almost undesirable.
I’ve read so many memoirs and autobiographies and Jimmys is one of the best. It was 10/10, a surprisingly deep yet hilarious, open, engaging and enjoyable read. I’d highly recommend the audiobook
His autobiography was awful. He didn't in any way open up about his life and his behind a stupid concept of a self help book. One of the worst autobiographies I've ever read
One piece of advice I was given a few years ago “dress for the job you want, not the one you have” and that has stuck with me because it’s very true
Most people don't understand tax (even those involved in working on it), and celebrities have to trust their employees who make errors and the celebrity is made the scapegoat.
Naive.
I am a retired entertainer after a 45-year career; I put all my trust in my accountant, as I KNOW NOTHING OF SUCH THINGS. ALSO, I AM DYSLEXIC AND DESCALULA; MY SKILL WAS MY PROFESSION, AND I LET THOSE SKILLED IN THERES DO THEIR JOB. Fortunately, I NEVER HAD ANY ISSUES, NAIVE, MAYBE, BUT WE ALL HAVE OUR talents. Sorry about THE CAPITALS STUCK ON the CAPS LOCK, LOL..@@pippipster6767
Nice to see some intelligent relevant discussion on YT still, very good watch.
He didn't actually knowingly do anything wrong. He trusted someone to advise him and made a choice most of us probably would too. Differences were that he's famous, it was a lot money and it was public.
This is my opinion on it too - if I was rich enough to have an accountant and they offered me a legal loophole, then I would jump for it, as I imagine 95% of people would. That, and people like David Cameron throwing their hypocrisy around can f*** right off with inheriting his own dad's Panama offshore trust.
I am so glad he didnt quit after all that, I love Jimmy Carr, and he never struck me is as a bad person.
Thank you Jimmy Carr for being open and honest, I’ve been living in a black and dark place for the last 5-6 months. I was stopped by the police from committing suicide as things got that bad! Along with discovering childhood trauma, my 3 year relationship ended and being as that’s been my only ever relationship and I’m 38, I’ve found things extremely hard and even to this day I struggle
I understand these feelings are not forever, but the constant struggle and darkness is overwhelming most of the time
Life no longer feels like an experience but rather than a free fall into a black hole!
I understand I’m not the only one that feels like this, but individually, it’s so hard!
Panic attacks and depression and anxiety all rolled into one is just a ball that keeps on snow balling
For anyone else going through this, you’re not alone in this
I remember a multimillionaire in Australia saying, "If you are not trying to minimise the amount of tax you are paying, you need your head examined."
@vonb2792 The millionaire in question paid $13AUD in personal income tax one year. He paid his accounting firm close to $1 million, a pretty good trade off.
Panic attacks are horrible.
I have had them all my life.
The secret is to accept that they will pass.
At work I used to go to the loo and sit in a cubicle until it passed.
It's very important not to try to hide them.
They are very common but there is a stigma attached strangely.
There's a high probability your boss gets them.
So share your condition.
It takes away an element of the fear of embarrassment should one occur.
The interesting part around HMRC leaming anything is where he should've gone on the offensive.
By all means audit him, prosecute if he's done anything illegal. But leaking anything about someone's personal tax affairs is a huge problem that really should've seen people lose their jobs
I’d have done the same thing in his shoes. Pay as little tax as legally possible? What’s wrong with that?
The problem is that create a system where Millionares like him who already have enough money too live a life of luxury pay as little as possible and usually less then is legal and people who are living play check to pay check who really can’t afford to lose any money have to pay there full amount. So in the end, people who can afford to pay their full taxes don’t and people who can’t afford to pay their taxes do.
Legality doesn’t equal morality. The law isn’t perfect, and there is and always will be room within any legal system to make decisions that are very clearly ethically better/worse.
He was offered something that he either knew wasn’t right, or didn’t take responsibility to make certain wasn’t wrong, and chose to go ahead with it.
Edit:
Taxes pay for the NHS, schools, and a multitude of other public services that make our society what it is and, I believe, ultimately generally reduce the level of suffering in the world more than paying less tax.
I think the reason hypocrisy is considered so significant is that morality is subjective so you can't ever truly prove immorality. But you can often show someone’s been inconsistent with their own purported standards, and then decide if you think their hypocrisy is immoral:
“Earlier in 2012, during the second series of Channel 4's satirical news programme 10 O'Clock Live, Carr had lampooned people who avoid paying their taxes. A sketch from the show, in which he poked fun at the 1% tax rate of Barclays Bank and described tax lawyers as being "aggressive" and "amoral", was regarded as having "come back to haunt him".”
Fuck that. Pay what the law requires nothing more. Or just go hand it to migrants, because that’s where it goes.
@@jackalope901but the burden is on you to prove immorality- there are schemes that are purposefully put in place to allow you to evade some tax. Does that mean if you take advantage of those things you are being immoral? What about intertemporal substitution?
Is it not immoral of our gov mis use of the tax it get? Nobody and I mean nobody truthfully would not do the same as nobody want what you worked for go to someone that miss uses it. Don’t say well you can change it vote for different party as they are all same the mps etc are immoral to if you use imoral like they way you are saying?
I have been diagnosed with PTSD following 41 years of a congenital heart condition, and in particular my 6th major operation that was akin to a transplant, and took place in September 2021 - no psychologist quite knew where to categorise me. If you have a trauma incident, you can avoid re traumatising and triggering to some extent re going on stage, going in a car if a car accident. But yes, depression, anxiety & panic attacks cripple you - my wife had to scrape me off the chair; it’s outer body; it’s motor function gone… I’m on citalopram
Jimmys just a legend. Thats all i have to say
So frustrating when the just as guilty (David Cameron's family and self) attack others so publicly whilst hiding their own acts.
So impressed how Jimmy has taken things as they are and done his best to balance and accept bad choices. Non minimising.
Getting publicly shamed for doing something legal is truly awful.
Yeah but it shouldnt be legal and it is wrong
@@maximumlvl5001yes but what you think shouldn’t be legal doesn’t make it illegal and doesn’t change the fact.
People who use avoidance schemes, whether it is you or someone who handles your affairs, enter them knowing that there is a bad element to them. The schemes also usually involve money movement that appears like laundering, which is generally associated with crime. So saying it is punishment for doing something legal is disingenuous. In my experience, most pro-avoidance commenters couldn't tell you about any one avoidance scheme and don't themselves have the money to do it.
@@Tranxhead I’m an accountant, so I could tell you many. But I’ve said absolutely nothing disingenuous whatsoever. Regardless of your opinion, nothing he has done was illegal, yet he got slaughtered for it. That’s just facts, not disingenuous.
Precisely why these practices should be outlawed and dodgy accountants properly regulated
Tax avoidance is legal, tax evasion is illegal. Everyone with a decent amount of earnings participates in tax avoidance. Shame on anyone pointing the finger while you have TV stars living on the Isle of Man, movie stars living in Barbados etc. They're all paying minimum tax. Anyone staying in the UK is paying vastly more tax than your typical star.
Lets face it, Jimmy's small fish & nothing he did was illegal compared to what else is going on. If it was spoken about in parliment, you've got to ask what they were distracting the general public from.
Thanks jimmy for all the laughs you have given me ❤️
4:21 that caught me off guard ffs XD
If he was legally paying the minimum amount of tax....then whats the problem?
You just can't hate him for it. Let's face it if any of us "normal" people could pay less tax we would and we wouldn't think twice about it
He owned it, should genuine remorse and the British public didn't crucify him, well done us.
Just to correct the record from the outset, an ISA is NOT a tax avoidance scheme. This is fundamentally incorrect. An ISA is a form of tax planning and the two are very different. Planning involves using reliefs in the way they were intended and avoidance is exactly the opposite.
I thought it was for making money
Tories criticizing someone on morality is the height of irony, bunch of money grabbing crooks.
I agree with "everyone should pay their fair share"...... HOWEVER, who decides what the "fair share" is suppose to be...... especially when you live in a country, where politicians are not handling your taxes responsibly AT ALL
I still think that Ken Dodd had the best reply in court - - "The bill was from the Inland Revenue and I live by the sea!"
Aren’t your personal taxes confidential? Aren’t they breaking the law by blabbing about it in public (assuming you haven’t been charged with a crime)?
Depends on where you live.
It depends onwhere you went to school.
@@jeffreychongsathien so if it was Eton you’re good?
The fact is that he did nothing wrong legally or morally. Those who shamed him are themselves the ones that are morally wrong.
Jimmy Carr is a very bright individual, when your tax advisor/accountant talks about a scheme being 'aggressive', then the warning bells should immediately sound off, and I do not believe that he was unaware of how close to the line his tax affairs were, this decision in itself would fuel his anxiety,
We have to take responsibility for our ethical and moral foundations, if we do, then managing issues such as depression and anxiety are less likely to be prominent aspects of your life.
There's nothing moral about tax. Likewise there's nothing immoral about avoiding tax. Tax money is not inherently good money. Yes it's used to pay doctors but it's also used to run schemes and bomb civilians.
yeah cry me a river
he knew full well what he was doing
and to compare a multi millionaire dodging tax to first time buyers saving up a few thousand pounds in an ISA is twisted
@@artychartybyjackmerlinbruc7134 what's wrong with dodging tax?
@@bobjames1521 Tax Avoidance, or Tax Evasion, which meaning are you challenging?
@@artychartybyjackmerlinbruc7134 Agreed, he knew, Carr is no idiot.
He did nothing illegal. Any person out there who complains about taxes would've done the exact same thing. Never pay more than you absolutely have to because why would you? The government gets what it can take from you and if they can't take _that_ specific money from you they have no right to it. It's that simple. Avoiding tax is common sense.
I know right can bet nearly all in parliament are doing the same thing even dodgy dave caremon family was doing it and profiting off it while he was banning on about morals and how wrong it is.
It seema that it was one of those weird 'grey' areas of tax. If he had setup the offshore company first, then it applied for totally new gigs via that company and had the offshore company receive the contract payments in a 'tax haven' and only remit him a small amount of taxable income in the UK it would have been fine. But the fact that he had ongoing/existing work arrangements in the UK and tried to get them to 'transition' from UK-based contracts to 'new' contracts going via the offshore company simply to minimize tax was what made it 'dodgy'. I can understand the tax office wanting to have to arrangements cancelled as a scheme entered into purely to reduce tax artificially, but I think the public outrage/interest was mostly driven by envy of high income earners, the tax office 'leak' was done to 'make an example' (which wasn't really ethical from the tax office POV), the government/politicians piled on for political points scoring and virtue signalling, and the media was happy to grab the story and run with it as a hot gossip item to drive increased subscriptions/sales and hence raise revenue. Plenty of moral ambiguity to go around all parties involved in the whole 'circus' I think.
ps. I don't know all the details, but I suspect the tax arrangements were, in fact, legal. And that the 'leak' was basically just a tactic to force him to 'voluntarily' unwind the arrangement and pay more tax, otherwise the adverse publicity would have made his income completely go away. Basically a mafia-style 'give us more money or something bad might happen to your store' type of extortion. Basically the tax office couldn't legally make him pay more tax, so they (some public servant) 'leaked' the story to force him to arrange his affairs in a less tax effective manner. Court cases have well established that legal principle that no-one has to arrange their affairs in a way to pay more tax than they legally have to, so this was a pretty low act by whatever public servant 'leaked' the information to the media.
All of this
Thought provoking, makes me want to donate more to those in need.
I don’t blame him, but tax avoidance is not the same as an ISA! An ISA is a U.K. savings account where you not taxed on any profits your savings make. Its designed to encourage people to save.
Thing with Jimmy Carr is... to me, he is believable. And that's where I can say "Fair enough. Let's move on.".
Ok so he didn't break the law, that's been established. So how is what he did immoral? The law says this is how we determine how much tax you pay. He paid it. There is no moral obligation to not arrange your affairs to pay the last tax.
Legality does not equal mortality
@se2203 in think you mean morality, not mortality
@@Lou.Cyphermore than likely a typo.
You realise the government (whoever is in power) use tax income to pay for public projects/schemes/entities.
Rich people avoiding tax is basically reducing the effectiveness of these public schemes because they can't be funded properly.
I don't know how much tax he avoided, but to strip it back to the bare bones and be crude about it, if it was say £100k, that 'could' have paid for a few nurses, or a few police officers. Multiply that by countless other tax avoiders and the issue becomes significantly bigger.
The average people like you and me lose out and the government gets the blame for the failing system we currently find ourselves in.
@@Leedsutd1985 Yes it could have paid for nurses, or it could have paid for spying on their own citizens, prosecuting people for speech, or any number of corrupt and illiberal schemes. It is simply not the case that tax avoidance is the reason the government can't afford to give you the free stuff you want. It can't afford to do that because it's doing bad things. I guarantee Jimmy didn't avoid £9.24bn in tax which is the cost of the Iraq war not including troops salaries.
I'd bet every dollar I own that there are many others who are using the same tax loopholes. Why are they not being shamed by the primeinister? I'm not saying it was unfair to do and Jimmy got what he deserves. But if your going to go after one person, go after them all.
I'm sure the government has done worse!!
Two wrongs wont make a right!
yup ruclips.net/video/np_ylvc8Zj8/видео.html
but three lefts do@@gbwildlifeuk8269
Everyone was horrified and outraged and then that accountant's phone started ringing off the hook
Hate him comparing these schemes to an ordinary person having an ISA.
Such a misrepresentation.
But he’s completely correct.. you’re attaching emotion to that but he’s trying to describe the way these schemes work.
“Anxiety is the flip Side of creativity” “all we have is talking therapy” I used to believe similar things. And although therapy helps for the moment, anxiety and depression builds back up so you have to keep talking. I was in therapy for 20 years, alcoholic for 15 years, drug addict… then i discovered microdosing magic mushrooms. After 4 x microdoses over just 2 weeks, I was literally cured. I haven’t had any anxiety or any depression since. If you suffer too, just know you can do the same
Besides being incredibly funny,
Jimmy Carr is olso incredibly intelligent guy.
An incredibly insightful conversation 🙏🏽
I'm still conflicted about this... I like Jimmy Carr, big fan, I've seen him live a few times and got his dvds. What he did was taking money out of education, healthcare and everything else. He didn't need to and he was being incredibly selfish, I wouldn't know how I could look someone in the eye who had a friend or family member due because the NHS couldn't get the funding... On the other hand, if someone told me I could pay less than 1% tax I would take the opportunity. I disagree with him that he was still "paying a lot" or that what he did was comparable to having an ISA, but I can't judge him more hardly than I would judge myself in that situation when I would have taken the same route.
He's a very smart person, if you're using complex financial processes to avoid tax, you have a responsibility know weather it is legal or not.
Whether*
It was legal.
Pretty much every person would do what he did and just follow the advice of their accountant.
DD OP
It was legal. It wasn't moral. Him having a moral bone in his body was what made it such an event for him. If he was as criminal as the politicians making capital of the situation, he wouldn't have given a flying fig.
'This too shall pass' human experiences we have to go thru. Once the entire episode is over did you not wanna call it quits and settle down and enjoy the balance of your life.
It was not an aggressive tax avoidance scheme. He was pumping over £3 million a year into the K2 scheme and paying less than 2% tax. Everyone knows you don't pay less than 2% tax on £3 million. Once he normalised his tax affairs his company tax bill rose by over £500,000 with an additional personal liability on any earnings he took out. He was paying the same amount of tax on his £3 million as an employee on £140,000. That is not a mistake.
Exactly...he's playing the victim, lets all feel sorry for the multi-millionaire who didn't want to contribute to society.
bit like our PM who paid 20% on £700,000 income last year@@jordizee
@@jordizeeyou realise that not everyone understands these things right? Don’t place your own knowledge or expertise on something on everyone else
If you employ an expert and they give you advice, you take it! I had an accountant once that got me into so much crap cause I didn’t understand and just went along with what his advice was! Same with another friend of mine!
@@Vegan_Photographs yes but I'm guessing with you that you didnt have millions in the bank and Jimmy is a self declared financial whizz.
All his life he took from the public funds via schooling and NHS. Then when it came to putting back he went naaa!
@@jordizee he's not really playing the victim though.
The only reason he came back from that was how he handled it: he acknowledged and owned his mistake, he listened to his friends and saw their disappointment, he let himself be the butt of the joke and payed back the owed money.
He's not even blaming his financial guy. He's just explaining how it happened.
Earlier today I saw Jimmy Carr on a new podcast. It seems since this Diary of the CEO interview he's redefined his way of understanding his moods. In this interview what he defined as "depression" he now seems to recognize as the less clinical "sadness". I think he's now more right, that "sadness" is something you personally can influence while "depression" can be beyond one's control. Most of us experience sadness and can move past it. Depression can be more debilitating than that.
I would've sued the shit out of the Accountant.
No one ever mentions the accountant! The accountant was the one who sought out the loophole and encouraged Jim to use it. And yet he or she is never talked about. Let’s be honest, if our accountant said “you can legally pay less tax” we would all do it.
lol he couldn’t and wouldn’t, when you file a tax return through any legitimate accountant you sign a piece of paper saying they provide a service but ultimately your responsible for your money. They’re financial advisers. Hence why Hmrc came after him not his accountant.
He did get a harder time about this than he needed to!!
@ArcofZen legally yes. Aggressively no, because some of it can cross the line into illegality
Gee it was well handled. I’m glad you learnt some stuff and shared it.
Tax avoidance! You did not do anything wrong.
Honestly I don't understand it at all. I'm a chartered accountant and retired early because I was very good at exploiting tax loop holes and creating structures using the channel islands. I mean rhe channel Islands are crown dependencies meaning they're the Royal tax havens and if they don't have any moral qualms why should the average Joe that's saving only a penny or two and that too few. Think about it, the royals and elites have used the channel islands for decades to avoid billions of taxes. Jersey alone has £3 trillion of assets - what's the tax stolen on it?
It’s all well and good using the accountant excuse and even if it was a legal scheme you knew what you were doing would ultimately result in less money for public spending
Do you have an ISA?
I don’t defend what he did (b neither does he) but if someone who should know tells you something’s legal , I think I have a couple of grams of understanding
I love how everyone assumes the amount he avoided being taxed would have gone towards the NHS or schools instead of into the pockets of MPs via expenses or into expanding the surveillance state.
Someone says you can pay less tax . Yes I'm in. Ask the politicians