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UK Government To Use PayPal For Identity Assurance
judgecorp writes "A UK government contract has confirmed earlier reports that British citizens will have the option to use PayPal to accredit themselves for public services such as the new Universal Credit benefit system. Using PayPal might be a public relations goof, as PayPal's parent eBay is notoriously clever at avoiding UK taxes, recently paying only £1.2 million on profit of £789 million (around 0.15 percent)."
It's not their fault, it's the Parliament making crappy laws, albeit most of them are lawyers, they either suck or are bought.
Paypal is a bank and like all banks they avoid paying taxes like the pest.
"Barclays Bank told by Treasury to pay £500m avoided tax"
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-17181213
http://liberalconspiracy.org/2010/10/18/banks-to-avoid-19bn-tax-bill-despite-bailout/
http://goodbanking.org.uk/archives/684
Far more interesting than their effective tax rate would be how much of that money was stolen from their users?
These folks love to freeze accounts and sieze money for any reason they can find. Paypal should be regulated as a bank.
Some unspecified slice of a £25 million pie.
I think the UK government is too eager by a large factor to be "digital by default" (also a buzzword of theirs) and in fact is willing to, well, lose control over most of their vital governmental services over it. And of course that involves shelling out yet more dosh to random corporations that look hip and big enough. So expect cost overruns shortly. The corporations on the government's shortlist generally aren't bereft of payment, no.
And when paypal puts your account on hold or someone deletes it then what?
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
More avenues for easy identity theft!
So the Gov't of the USA will now get to know every time I identify myself to my own government ? What the hell as Francis Maude been smoking -- a politician that must have actually inhaled.
Ebay is not free.
They get paid for every completed sale.
They also get paid for advertising on the eBay site, for the actions of their subsidiary Paypal, and other money-raising activities in the UK.
Are you trolling? You're trolling right? Because, pretty much everything you say is the exact opposite of what this article is about. The previous system was the costly one, this is about reducing cost. The companies are hardly random (read the list!) The requirements and processes seem to be well thought out, at least from what I've gathered from the RSDOPS
. (Really about 35 pages worth of pretty clear explanation and 10 you can skip.)
I mean, if you want to criticize Paypal, there are plenty of good reasons to do it. If you want to criticize the UK government, there are lots of valid reasons for that too. Just pick one of the dozens of good choices instead of ignoring TFA completely.
B) Eliminate all the stupid users. This is frowned upon by society.
Hmm... strange. If you Google a bit for a list of banks in Luxembourg, PayPal does not appear on any of those lists. Can't find a BIC for PayPal either. Which is not surprising, really.
If a (Dutch) bank where I have an account folds, my government guarantees the money in my account. At least up to a big minimum, in the order of 100k Euro or so (perhaps more, I dunno). Example: when Icelandic banks folded, the Dutch government covered losses for Dutch account holders. Perhaps except a few that had very large sums of money parked in those banks, but I'm not even sure about that. And that wasn't even Dutch banks folding.
I don't know what the rules in Luxembourg are, but you expect similar guarantees to hold for your PayPal account? Think again. And in fact, there's a number of stories around of examples where PayPal f**ked a customer, and they had essentially no recourse. Also I can directly transfer money from my bank account to any other bank within the EU (and outside EU too, with a little more patience), for any amount I like. Not so with PayPal.
So I guess the above statement doesn't mean what you think it means, and in any case doesn't mean the same as "bank". PayPal provides a service, that service deals with money, and to many it's a useful service. But that's all, it's not what we normally refer to as a "bank".
Paypal have me blacklisted and refuse to take payments from me.
Tried buying something last week, seller's website said "VISA/Mastercard" so I used my credit card. Refused. Used my other credit card. Refused. Checked with both card companies: Neither had been asked to authorise payment.
Got a friend to buy on my behalf. He paid with credit card; got a bill from PayPal.
It all goes back to the first time I tried using my card to buy something online from a seller that used Paypal for their card payments. I entered my details, was told payment had been taken, then got an email asking me to provide details for my Paypal account.
I said no. Then I found out that Paypal had already debited my card, but were holding onto the cash instead of sending it through to the seller.
So I wrote to them telling them to send the money through. They refused. So I wrote to them telling them to give my money back. They refused. So I contacted VISA, the OFT and my card supplier stating fraudulent activity.
I got my money back. Paypal blacklisted me. Not a major problem really, except for idiots that use them as their sole card payment solution.
I need to hit them with a SAR, find out what their system says about me. But using them to ID myself to the Government? Not a fucking hope. Which is frankly a good thing.
Why would anyone trust a company that pretends to be a bank, but is not regulated like a bank, and so can disappear your money in an instant and leave you whistling in the wind for YOUR money? Did the government somehow find if difficult to find a company more trusted?
Take Nobody's Word For It.
I don't think so. If all those white boys choose to be peter puffers, while all the rest of the world is screwing the women, then the white boys deserve to die off. Get it on, Adam and Steve, don't worry about all those brown folk. Give it another couple generations, and you'll be forgotten.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
bull and fucking shit bud. it is a speciality of those on high incomes to flat out do their utmost to avoid ANY taxation not matter the tax rate,hence the offshore schemes. what planet have you been living on as it seems you have only recently moved here?
Just saying man, countries with reasonable tax rates (3%-5%) don't have these problems. It's simple business logic, and you can watch it play out time and time again. If it costs more to configure a tax avoidance scheme (pricey to begin with, especially the one Google uses) that it does to just pay the things, then paying taxes becomes worth while. Incidentally, what's wrong with avoiding taxes if you're not breaking the law to do so?
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So you think that a tax rate of less than 5% is reasonable. Reasonable for what? Dunno which country you are in, but a country has to provide services somehow. The lower the tax rate, the lower the quality of the services.
Personally I would rather pay more and have a fairer and more equitable society.
What is wrong with avoiding paying taxes? What is wrong with paying your fair share under any circumstances? It is ethically wrong. The problem is that the law is an ass, and is so complicated that people with time and money can always find ways of avoiding paying their dues.
Indeed. This definitely has absolutely nothing to do with top politicians' share portfolios. Also, giving control of vital government services and lots of public money to random for-profit interests is definitely not congruent at all with the ideologies of the two ruling parties. Not at all.
So you think that a tax rate of less than 5% is reasonable. Reasonable for what? Dunno which country you are in, but a country has to provide services somehow. The lower the tax rate, the lower the quality of the services.
That's absolutely not true. There are countries with low and even non-existent tax corporate rates that have civil societies, where the citizens do just fine. Hong Kong and Singapore come to mind. Ireland has a very low corporate tax rate relative to England or France and they do just fine. The only thing higher taxes pay for is more pointless excess in government. More waste, more unneeded unaccountable agencies, and cool gadgets that an ever more draconian system is using to take away more of your liberties.
Personally I would rather pay more and have a fairer and more equitable society.
Did you just use the term fair and equitable, when you're talking about taking equity away from people that have earned it? How is that fair? What did a government do to deserve Google's money? Exist? I'm sorry friend, that's not enough.
What is wrong with avoiding paying taxes? What is wrong with paying your fair share under any circumstances?
That's the issue, isn't it. They are paying their fair share. They're paying what is legally required of them, given their organizational setup. And yet, this still isn't enough.
It is ethically wrong.
In no country is a corporation ethically bound to do anything but build a return on investment to stock holders. By insisting Google should pay more in taxes than they are, you are depriving those stock holders of money they're entitled to. Many, in fact the vast majority of those stock holders are every day, normal people with jobs, even retirements. Regular people depend on this money. Why would you rob them like this? I don't know man, that sounds a lot more unethical to me.
The problem is that the law is an ass,
All the more reason they shouldn't be entitled to more than they are legally due.
and is so complicated that people with time and money can always find ways of avoiding paying their dues.
Everybody needs to make a living. Governments harm people's ability to do so. And they're never satisfied. They're always asking for more, even when they don't deserve or require it. Google isn't evading taxes. Neither is Amazon or Ebay. And technically, governments can't require they pay more without completely revamping the tax system. So now they're taxing your personal information, and you (the entity that actually owns it) get nothing. How on earth is that fair and equitable to anyone but the government?
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The previous system was the costly one, this is about reducing cost.
Because we all know how good the UK government is at reducing costs, especially when they decide to outsource to the private sector (which is more or less what this is). Just look at the rail network...
No colour or religion ever stopped the bullet from a gun
I have few dealings with Paypal, but whenver I think of them, this comes to mind: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jan/04/paypal-buyer-destroys-violin
Speaking as a Brit, I would gladly stand up against this, like many others no doubt, but since when did Government put something forward for our opinion and actually consider it? They just throw money at advisers to decide for them
Paypal in the US uses a credit reporting company to verify identities. They don't actually do it themselves. How are they supposed to do it themselves in England?
For better or worse, I could see this being liked by the general public. At present, government sites all require you to have a "Government Gateway" username and password. The password strength requirements are understandably quite strict, but what is really annoying is the usernames are automatically generated and completely unmemorable (mine is something like F093KHV894JMNB - I made that up, but you get the idea). If it was a site I access every day then I might remember, but once a year for to do my tax return, no chance. They even almost admit they are unmemorable, because they used to issue credit-card-sized pieces of paper with the usernames printed on them (which I would usually lose...)
The procedure for requesting new login details also involves phoning a call centre and waiting for details to come in snail mail.
For all the privacy concerns, I can actually remember my Paypal login, so chances are I would use this feature rather than go through all this once a year. In fact it would probably be easier to request a paper tax return.