
The Isle of Man is not in the UK - MiriamWeiner
http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20191008-the-british-isle-that-doesnt-belong
======
peteretep
Isle of Man has zero percent corporate tax on (most) money earned outside the
Isle of Man, which includes money earned in the UK. If you're a non-resident
citizen of the UK, you can deposit your dividends from your Isle of Man
company in your UK bank account, tax free.

For the time being, IOM companies have GB VAT numbers, and a banking system
that integrates seamlessly with the UK one, as well as a postal system (quick,
which country is 15 Hope Street, Douglas, IM1 1AQ, British Islands?). This
makes the sales process to UK and EU companies painless.

So if you're a British citizen who's managed to convince HMRC you're not
resident in the UK, this is a great way to pay very little tax. BUT WAIT,
there's more!

If you _are_ resident in the UK, and a British citizen, but you can convince
HMRC that you are in fact not _domiciled_ in the UK, you can pay HMRC £30,000
a year flat-tax, and only pay tax on the money you bring into the UK -- so if
you keep it in IOM, or send it to Guernsey, it's tax-free, as long as you
manage to avoid CFC regulations, which are left as an exercise for the reader.

None of this should be considered as tax advice, although if you genuinely
don't live in the UK, and aren't anywhere else long enough to be resident
(that DigiNomadLyfe), then the top three points should be of significant
interest.

If you think the owner of the Daily Mail and similar glitterati[0] should be
paying more tax than a Senior Developer in London, paragraph 4 needs some
scrutiny.

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_with_non-
domici...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_with_non-
domiciled_status_in_the_UK)

~~~
pavlov
After living in the UK for a year and encountering this tax system firsthand,
I'm convinced that one of the main reasons for Brexit is that rich people in
England are worried that EU tax harmonization could one day take away their
sweet loopholes and convenient neighborhood tax havens.

I've personally benefitted from the system as a "resident non-domiciled"
foreign citizen. But on the whole it's not fair to British taxpayers, and it's
not fair to the rest of Europe to be a punching bag for this secret agenda
whose enacters care more about continued personal enrichment than national or
European economies.

~~~
simonh
I hear this theory a lot, but the fact is most of the support for Brexit came
from low income households, and people in low skilled or manual work.
Generally the higher the household income, the lower the support for Brexit,
even at the higher income levels.

[https://www.jrf.org.uk/report/brexit-vote-explained-
poverty-...](https://www.jrf.org.uk/report/brexit-vote-explained-poverty-low-
skills-and-lack-opportunities)

~~~
pavlov
Most of the support for Brexit came from tabloid newspapers owned by the
ultra-rich.

Polls in the 2010-15 timeframe consistently showed that Britain's European
relationship didn't even make the top 5 of issues amongst voters. Consistently
fewer than 6% listed Europe as their most important issue:
[https://ftalphaville.ft.com/2018/12/11/1544504400000/The-
onl...](https://ftalphaville.ft.com/2018/12/11/1544504400000/The-only-Brexit-
chart-you-need-to-see/)

Today more than 50% see Europe as the most important political issue. Yet
nothing of substance changed in Britain's relationship with the EU in the past
decade. Support for Brexit was manufactured and is draining the oxygen from
solving UK's actual problems.

~~~
toasterlovin
> Most of the support for Brexit came from tabloid newspapers owned by the
> ultra-rich.

Aren't most newspapers owned by the ultra-rich? Couldn't you just make the
exact same arguments you leveled against your political opponents (that they
were hoodwinked by "the media") against your own position? At the end of the
day, people showed up and voted for something. Twice (basically). That means
something.

~~~
pavlov
_" At the end of the day, people showed up and voted for something. Twice
(basically). That means something."_

"Voted for something and it means something" is the portrait of Brexit.

A question was posed to the public but it was never explained properly, and so
nobody knows what it means. Did people want a border in Ireland? A third-party
status for UK products imported to EU? A separation from European scientific
collaboration?

These are just a few of the hundreds of open questions. The UK government
hasn't figured it out in three years. Yet the vote definitely means
"something", so "something" should happen.

~~~
toasterlovin
You're changing the topic. The post I responded to was attempting to make the
case that consent was manufactured and, thus (presumably), invalid. Do you
accept my argument that this is not a reasonable approach to arguing about the
validity of the Brexit vote?

~~~
pavlov
What exactly are you arguing? That we shouldn’t examine the evidence of how
Brexit became public issue #1 when it barely registered in polls a few years
earlier?

The validity of the vote is simple: it means exactly what Parliament decides
it means at any time. Referendums don’t become law automatically, and Britain
doesn’t have a constitution that could force it (unlike some countries like
Switzerland).

~~~
toasterlovin
I am arguing that pointing to the fact that the owners of right wing
publications are very wealthy is not evidence that somehow consent was
manufactured for Brexit, _since the owners of left wing publications are also
very wealthy_. Owners of large businesses are _usually_ very wealthy. Doubly
so with publishing businesses, which are often unprofitable, and, thus,
_require_ a wealthy benefactor to keep operating.

And pointing to fact that Brexit was a non-issue a few years before hand is
also irrelevant. There are a myriad of political issues being hashed out now
that weren't on anybody's radar a few years ago. This is a normal part of how
media and popular culture work.

------
se6
UK and tax havens have a long history. It is pretty sad and tells a lot about
the quality of information in UK that most British people do not know about
ATAD: Anti Tax Avoidance Directive, a EU attempt to crack down on tax havens,
which will come in effect on 1st of Jan 2020.

Thanks to Brexit, UK will secure its tax havens, to the benefit of very few
and to the detriment of many...

See [https://www.taxjustice.net/2019/01/23/brexit-and-the-
future-...](https://www.taxjustice.net/2019/01/23/brexit-and-the-future-of-
tax-havens/) for some more info.

[Edit: corrected the date]

~~~
growlist
Whenever the voters vote the wrong way the EU subverts it with the result in
effect being overturned in one way or another, so the UK will probably end up
staying in and this ATAD will be implemented.

~~~
tristanperry
For those downvoting, there is truth in this e.g.:

* Ireland voting (twice) on the Nice Treaty - 2001 then 2002

* Denmark voting (twice) Maastricht Treaty - first 1992 then 1993

* Ireland (again) this time on the Lisbon Treaty - 2008 then 2009

There was also a case where the Labour government (in the UK) promised a
referendum on a couple of EU treaty changes, before changing their mind after
other countries' referendums voted them down, and just ratified it in
parliament instead:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_European_Consti...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_European_Constitution_referendum)

~~~
NeedMoreTea
Had Cameron taken this approach, things _could_ have worked out OK for the UK.
Every one of those involved renegotiation and change of treaties before a re-
vote.

The timeline could have been:

Cameron attempts to renegotiate with EU, achieves little.

Calls a referendum, leave achieves a very narrow margin.

Cameron _doesn 't_ resign, but attempts to renegotiate with the EU, achieves
some small but significant improvements.

Second referendum, this time for remain.

UK and Cameron would still have some reputation.

~~~
tristanperry
Good point - I agree, and I'm really disappointed it didn't play out like
that.

Instead the UK has had political stalemate for 3.5 years and even now it
doesn't look like we're closer to 'a deal'.

~~~
NeedMoreTea
No, we're stuck with a "government" that's lost every vote they called, and a
no-deal crash out looks the only option. Realistically that was always the
_only_ option without moving some of those infamous "red lines", or accepting
Theresa May's deal. I don't see room for _anything_ else.

So the no-deal that was explicitly ruled out during the referendum campaign.
The Swiss invalidate referendums when the electorate haven't been given
correct information.

What a mess.

~~~
cgiles
I have found the best source of information about Brexit, although it
certainly has its own bias, to be eureferendum.com . They have long advocated
for Efta/EEA membership as the first move for the UK before gradually
disentangling from EU directives.

IMV (I'm not British) the only _sane_ option was some form of soft Brexit.
Which was the only way to avoid most of the economic damage and also prevent
hordes of Leavers with pitchforks. But the damage was done at Lancaster House
which made immigration a red line. Theresa May concluded that Leavers wouldn't
consider anything without immigration control to be a real Brexit, thus
implicitly agreeing with the idea that the referendum passed because of
immigration.

And now you have a neverending shitshow as a result. So I mostly agree, but
there was a window of opportunity for TM to sell a soft Brexit. She opted not
to.

~~~
NeedMoreTea
See this is where it gets truly silly. You may not be wrong about some form of
soft-Brexit, or EEA status, but whichever level of closeness you consider that
is not "hard Brexit" would have required dropping one of the UK's "red line"
issues. Anything else that was not Theresa May's deal needed the EU offering
cake and cookies for free. It wasn't so much she couldn't sell it as the
hardliners of the Tory party wouldn't take it. For 3 years the UK's
negotiating position has been "la, la, la, not listening", whilst asking for
the impossible (or cake).

Michel Barnier, the EU's chief negotiator summarised it _all_ beautifully in a
single slide he put out in about 2016 or 17. Each level of softer Brexit
available is ruled out by a UK red line.

Should you want a breakdown, CGP Grey did a short video about "that slide".
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agZ0xISi40E](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agZ0xISi40E)

~~~
cgiles
Yes, I've seen that slide. In fact, it was exactly what I had in mind when I
said to pytester below that "Barnier has been crystal clear about what is
required of the UK and what the options are". Certainly you are right about
what has been the Tory negotiating strategy.

I meant, however, that she could have attempted to sell it to the hardliners
in her party or, more likely, cross-party as described below. None of the red
lines were inevitable, because no one knows why Leave won. Some say
immigration, some say sovereignty, ECJ, payments that could "fund our NHS",
and myriad other things. Some in Labour are even said to have supported it to
get around state aid rules.

So there was a fundamental lack of clarity what the referendum had actually
meant shortly after it passed. That was TM's window of opportunity to show
some leadership and choose an interpretation of the referendum that could
command majority support.

If she had presented a soft Brexit agreement to the house, yes, she would have
thrown the DUP and ERG under the bus, but she also would have put Labour, LD,
etc into an extremely difficult position. At the time, they all said "we
should respect the referendum". If they had rejected a soft WA the blame would
be all on them instead of, as it is now, on the Tories. She would have faced
accusations of being a closet Remainer, but she got that anyway.

I am convinced everyone hates the DUP and very few like the ERG. Instead of
tossing them, the Tories toss Ken Clarke and Nick Soames? Sounds like a bad
plan.

~~~
NeedMoreTea
You're right. You're entirely right with every word. But politics.

Cameron originally offered and called the referendum expecting a win for
remain, _to put the Tory lunatic fringe back in the box for a generation._
They campaigned terribly, remain lost. So much for putting the hardliners back
in line, they were brought front and centre, fed and given a spotlight.
Michael Heseltine wrote a good piece about this a year or three back, I forget
where. Guardian or FT probably.

The DUP are seriously unpleasant, so it's only necessity that brought them in
to prop up a majority-free Tory government. Even then it was a surprise.

Selling a soft-exit deal to those hardliners probably needed _not_ losing the
campaign. TM being charisma free and terrible at presentation didn't help. The
Tories haven't been good with leaders lately. Yet I don't think anyone could
have sold the soft-Brexit deal to the ERG. It would interfere with shorting UK
plc with their overseas funds. :)

Labour? Bizarre. They have been unable to take a stand, or we wouldn't be in
this mess. Most of the party are remain. They could have voted through any
deal at any time. Yet their official stance is "it depends, maybe". They were
told to vote against TM's deal. So throwing the ERG under the bus still
wouldn't have got enough votes to win.

At heart Corbyn wants Brexit, but some sort of undefined and unexplained
lBrexit - leftwing-Brexit - that recreates his view of former 1960s politics.
Or something. He avoids explaining. Schrodinger's lBrexit: It's unknowable. :)

Bizarre because on the rest of their policies they damn near got elected, and
found much sympathy with voters. A remain Labour could have been running the
country by now.

As for losing Churchill's grandson, Ken Clarke, Michael Heseltine (now
publicly a LibDem voter), and the rest: The acceptable face of the Tory party
is gone. For doing what Johnson and the ERG did under May dozens of times.
They have kept and become the hardline fringe. Perhaps not yet, but I think
they will come to bitterly regret that.

Idiocy everywhere.

~~~
cgiles
> Cameron originally offered and called the referendum expecting a win for
> remain, to put the Tory lunatic fringe back in the box for a generation.
> They campaigned terribly, remain lost...

All true, but even then there was the opportunity for spin, especially because
Cameron resigned. TM could have said, "I respect the need to leave the EU, but
we can't just ignore the needs of Scotland and NI (not to mention business, in
the days before fuck business). So we'll do a compromise soft Brexit
reflecting the 52/48 vote. It was made clear that Leave didn't mean leaving
the SM. Also, David Cameron is an idiot." She didn't.

> Labour? Bizarre. They have been unable to take a stand, or we wouldn't be in
> this mess. Most of the party are remain. They could have voted through any
> deal at any time. Yet their official stance is "it depends, maybe".

Tell that to pytester below. I have no idea how anyone could be watching
Labour and think that they have ever taken a clear stand this entire time, but
apparently, some people do buy into this "kinda-sorta SM and CU but not the
actual thing" and "second referendum? uh, no, maybe, yes but we'll be neutral"
stuff of Corbyn's.

Labour may well have some good policies, and my wife and her far left American
friends think Corbyn walks on water, but they have been punished severely in
the polls for this lack of clarity. How could anyone think Corbyn is a good
leader when his party is doing so horribly in the polls despite ongoing Tory
fuckups is also beyond me.

If the thought process in the UK is anything like the US, presumably staunch
Labour supporters simply chalk it up to the 40+% of Tory voters being
ignorant, bigoted rednecks. Just as an honest person has to ask some hard
questions of Hillary Clinton for losing to Donald Trump, anyone who can lose
to BORIS JOHNSON needs to find another job.

~~~
NeedMoreTea
Well again I am not going to disagree much.

I don't think TM could have pulled that off. At all. I _suspect_ that Rees-
Mogg, the ERG and other fools gallery (BoJo etc) felt their prey had been
weakened after referendum, so could push right for hard exit. I'm not nearly
stratospherically wealthy enough to understand why that is quite so appealing
for the vastly moneyed. It seems like it would come with downside for them
too, or maybe they'll all be asset stripping the bankruptcy sale from Cannes.

So where do the votes come from to make up the gap? Labour is dogmatically
voting against, SNP are firmly remain, LibDems have no one left, so without
Labour or ERG support it's not happening.

Labour have taken a remarkable manifesto that even I could mostly support, a
decent election resurgence, an electorate firmly in favour of many of the
ideas, and turned it into a huge trail in the polls to the worst government
and PM's since Lord North (That minor difficulty in 1776). That's quite an
achievement!

Among the Labour supporters I know, the opinion of Corbyn varies wildly. He
achieved a remarkable election campaign, and achieved worse than nothing in
opposition. He seems terrible in the Commons. Some think his electioneering
will swing it come election, as many think he should be replaced before we get
5 years of BoJo (heaven help us).

A cold restart of the system seems to be in order. Bring it back with
proportional representation. :)

~~~
cgiles
I love how many people in the UK talk about fundamental changes of the voting
system like PR. In the US such a thing would require a constitutional
amendment and would therefore be utterly impossible, particularly since the
Republicans and Democrats would stand to lose from it. But you don't have a
written constitution, so...

But still, even if you got PR, then you'd have a substantial percentage of
Brexit Party people in Parliament, making the UK even more of a laughingstock.
Doing the same sorts of shit they do in the EU Parliament. And Greens and so
forth. Sure that's what you want? I can see pros and cons to it, it is just
interesting there is such desire for reform.

------
AndyMcConachie
"And speaking of finance, the island has no capital gains tax, stamp duty or
inheritance tax, making it an enticing prospect for many."

This one sentence sums up why the Isle of Man exists the way it does. What a
puff piece.

Britain/UK/whatever are full of these little places to hide your money. That's
all this is. Yet another crowny thing that allows the rich to avoid paying
their due in an undemocratic society.

~~~
smcl
Yep there's plenty of fun little offshore places if you're so inclined.
However we also have an onshore tax haven of sorts - the City of London:
[https://www.newstatesman.com/economy/2011/02/london-
corporat...](https://www.newstatesman.com/economy/2011/02/london-corporation-
city)

~~~
twic
This article is a really fun read, but it is fundamentally mendacious: the
City is not, in fact, a tax haven. You can't dodge tax, as a person or a
company, by moving to the City, or being involved with the City in some
special way.

There are certainly people in the City who will help you move your money into
tax havens. But then there are people in Loughborough who will do that, and we
don't describe Loughborough as a tax haven.

------
ajdlinux
> It’s also not part of the European Union, but is within the EU Customs zone.

As opposed to the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar, which is within the
European Union, but outside the EU Customs area (until Brexit, at which point
it leaves the EU too).

The political status of British territories and dependencies is... _complex_.

~~~
pjc50
... and the sovereign military bases in Cyprus, which also get mentioned in
the treaty discussions and full titles.

I wondered how Gibraltar was outside the customs union; at time of UK joining,
not only was Spain not in the EU, it was still a fascist dictatorship.
[https://www.quora.com/Why-did-Gibraltar-opt-out-of-the-EU-
Cu...](https://www.quora.com/Why-did-Gibraltar-opt-out-of-the-EU-Customs-
Union-when-the-UK-acceded-in-1973)

~~~
Fnoord
I don't have an answer to your question but calling that EU is, historically
inaccurate at best.

"During the 1950s the regime also changed from being openly totalitarian and
using severe repression to an authoritarian system with limited pluralism.
Spain joined the United Nations in 1955 and during the Cold War Franco was one
of Europe's foremost anti-communist figures: his regime was assisted by the
Western powers, and it was asked to join NATO. Franco died in 1975 at the age
of 82." [1]

At that point (1975) there was no such thing as the EU (it was called EEC [2]
(EEG in my language), and very different from what the EU is today). There
where still customs between all members of EEC, except Belgium and The
Netherlands. I know this because in the 80s we traveled regularly from The
Netherlands to Brussels where my aunt lived as a diplomat for the EEC, while
we also bought fuel in Germany which was cheaper than The Netherlands (and
there was customs there).

The Wikipedia page of EEC [2] is a recommended read if you want to know more
about the predecessor of the EU. Apparently, Spain joined in 1986. We went to
vacation to Spain multiple times in my youth, including after 1986. We had
customs checks. We also had these in France. And we had to take French Francs
with us, as well as Spanish Pesetas. I even remember paying with Italian Liras
at one point in 90s (1996?) and I felt very rich!

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francoist_Spain](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francoist_Spain)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Economic_Community](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Economic_Community)

~~~
ajdlinux
But relevantly, the EEC laid the foundations for the customs union well before
it transitioned to becoming the EU, which is what GP is interested in. The EU
customs union is separate from the borderless arrangements of the Schengen
Area - the UK is part of the customs union but still has border checks - and
of course back in the EEC days it wasn't as complete as the EU customs union
is now.

Of course Gibraltar joined the EEC back when the UK did...

------
fortran77
And of course there's "Big Clive" who is probably familiar to many of the
people here. He lives on the Isle of Man and frequently talks about it.

(He does a "hands channel" on YouTube taking apart electrical devices and
other gadgets:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMv2KyuZEp4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMv2KyuZEp4)
)

~~~
teh_klev
Big Clive and his house full of disassembled and broken things :)

Tremendous channel though and thoroughly educational.

------
baddox
I’m relatively familiar with the geography, but why oh why, in an article with
this headline and subject, is there not, before anything else, a map
indicating the UK and the Isle of Man?

~~~
thisone
it's on the bbc website? the British public do generally have a good idea
where IOM is.

plus the subheader:

>Despite being ringed on all sides by the UK – Northern Ireland to west,
Scotland to the north, England to the east and Wales to the south – the Isle
of Man is not actually part of it.

does tell you quite well where IOM is.

feels like complaining that an article on the NYTimes about Connecticut vs
Pennsylvania doesn't show a map of the USA indicating where the states are.

~~~
GordonS
Brit here. I must confess, I don't know where the Isle of Man is!

------
Stay_frostJebel
> “Independence is a strong part of the character of the people of the island.
> We’re not part of the UK, or the British Isles – we’re Manx,” said Phil
> Gawne, a former politician on the island...

Hmm.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Isles](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Isles)

> The British Isles are a group of islands in the North Atlantic off the
> north-western coast of continental Europe that consist of the islands of
> Great Britain, Ireland, the Isle of Man, the Hebrides and over six thousand
> smaller isles.

Wikipedia disagrees.

Over the years, I've harbored a growing suspicion that the political Venn
diagram surrounding the UK and associated entities has reached the point of
such complexity that even the natives can't follow it.

(Not that I think that Americans know the US's territorial classification
system either, but...)

~~~
mxfh
This terminology is the official UK POV and generally accepted elsewhere. It's
not surprising that any self governed or separitist faction is challenging
this.

See the last paragraph of the introduction of said Wikipedia article.

See also:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Isles_naming_dispute#W...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Isles_naming_dispute#West_European_Isles)

------
ChrisSD
> Independence is a strong part of the character of the people of the island.
> We’re not part of the UK, or the British Isles – we’re Manx

It should be noted that this is more aspirational than reality. It's not just
the currency that's tied to the UK's pound, a lot of legislation is normalised
between the two. The tax situation aside, it's more a part of the UK than some
Manx residents like to think (and even the tax serves a purpose for the UK).
This is unsurprising as most residents come from the UK and it is almost
completely dependent on the UK. That said Tynwald (Manx government) can and
does make laws that differ. Relatively recently its abortion reforms were in
the news.

A geeky aside: Linux enthusiasts may know the Isle of Mann as the home of Mark
Shuttleworth (creator of Ubuntu).

------
SamReidHughes
You could tell, because there's no way their motorcycle race would be allowed
in the UK.

I was halfexpecting this article to tell us they still used pre-decimalized
currency.

~~~
easytiger
A similar race is held in NI

[https://www.northwest200.org/the-history-of-the-
nw200/](https://www.northwest200.org/the-history-of-the-nw200/)

~~~
rorykoehler
There are loads of these road races in UK & Ireland (also in mainland Europe).
It's a full calendar.

------
msla
The article is correct, but it's also less than relevant for most people
outside the UK, unless they live on the Isle of Man.

British politics provides _endless_ wells of "Well, actually..." any time
anyone says something about the subject. Shades of Mornington Crescent.

~~~
sorokod
I am familiar with Camden and Mornington Crescent area, but "Shades of
Mornington Crescent"?

~~~
laurieg
Mornington Crescent is a station the you only stop at going one direction on
the London underground. If you go in the other direction it disappears. Here
it's being used as a short-hand for a complex situation/set of rules. The
usage is probably drawn from the fact there was a comedy radio programme in
the UK that played a ridiculous game involving many sets of convoluted rules
upon rules and the name of the game was Mornington Crescent.

~~~
twic
> Mornington Crescent is a station the you only stop at going one direction on
> the London underground. If you go in the other direction it disappears.

I'm not sure if this is a valiant attempt to confuse Americans, but this isn't
true. Trains stop in both directions.

A reason it might not seem like that is that there are two branches of the
Northern line running in parallel between Euston and Camden Town, and
Mornington Crescent is only on one of them. So depending on which way you turn
when you reach the southbound platform at Camden, you may or may not pass
through Mornington Crescent on your way into town.

~~~
ummwhat
You just demonstrated why "Mornington Crescent" is good shorthand for "a
preponderance of edge cases and tribal knowledge"

------
telesilla
What the author called a 'rumpy' cat is the colloquial term used on the
island, along with 'stubbin'. Otherwise the cat is called outside of the
island, not surprisingly, a Manx cat. I've seen them scattered around the
commonwealth as beloved pets, various tail sizes but probably sadly mutilated
for cat shows for a more perfect rump.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manx_cat](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manx_cat)

~~~
thisone
if you've seen tailess cats in the UK (I know you refer to the wider
commonwealth), they would not be mutilated, at least legally, like that.

tail docking, ear docking, declawing, descenting (of ferrets), is illegal
unless for the health of the animal or for a few working breeds where the dog
is a working dog.

(England and Wales do have some different laws on this than Scotland and NI)

~~~
jaclaz
And there is an European Convention:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20506954](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20506954)

Though I believe that it wasn't actually signed/ratified by the UK:

[https://www.coe.int/en/web/conventions/full-
list/-/conventio...](https://www.coe.int/en/web/conventions/full-
list/-/conventions/treaty/125/signatures?p_auth=4CalWFV0)

------
anfractuosity
Apparently the "Isle of Man has the largest wallaby population in the northern
hemisphere":

[https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/europe/unite...](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/europe/united-
kingdom/england/isle-of-man/articles/wallabies-isle-of-man/)

------
kyanne
Jesus Christ everyone, just pay some taxes

~~~
Slimbo
The Manx do pay tax, up to 20% income tax and 17.5% VAT (sales tax). Yes, it's
low, but a little place with no need for military is cheap to run.

There's plenty of countries with lower rates than that:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tax_rates](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tax_rates)

~~~
mrec
The UK spends just over 2% of GDP on defence. It's not a big part of the
budget. Total government spending is around 40% of GDP.

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dehrmann
Makes sense. They have their own TLD: .im. There was a time in the 2000's when
.im was a halfway useful TLD for startups to use.

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fs111
This explains the complexities on the "british isles" quite well:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNu8XDBSn10](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNu8XDBSn10)

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neilwilson
"The Island's climate is temperate and lacking in extremes, due to the
influence of the surrounding Irish Sea. In winter thunderstorms, snowfall and
frost are infrequent, and even when snow does occur it rarely lies on the
ground for more than a day or two.

February is normally the coldest month, with an average daily temperature of
4.9 C (41 F), and July and August are the warmest - with an average daily
maximum temperature of around 18 C (63 F). In summer April, May and June are
the driest months whilst May, June and July are the sunniest.

Wind generally travels southwesterly, although the rugged topography means
that local effects of shelter and exposure are very variable. Sea fog affects
the south and east coast at times, especially in spring, but is less frequent
on the west coast.

Rainfall and the frequency of hill fog both increase with altitude - the
highest point of the Island (Snaefell at 2,036 ft) receives some two and a
quarter times more rainfall than Ronaldsway on the southeast coast, where the
annual average is 34 inches (863 mm)."

That's why the Isle of Man is a tax haven. It's beautiful if you like bleak
islands.

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ppod
How do you write this article and not post the Venn diagram?

[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1f/British_...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1f/British_Isles_Euler_Diagram_13.svg)

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rolltiide
I enjoy European bilateral travel and trade agreements especially amongst
microstates but this one is such an irrelevant distinction for practical
matters that I think it isn’t worth mentioning.

Thanks for the reminder, and the article and history was very interesting.

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buboard
I like how it's only mentioned in passing that it's a tax haven. Which
probably explains why it's not in the UK.

