In the UK what are citizens legally obliged to do (in order to not be fined)
Edited to add an important one that I forgot, because I don't have a TV myself. You need to: That's really about it, unless you're employing people or running a business turning over more than £81,000 per year (or doing one of a number of relatively unlikely things that require specific paperwork, such as owning a horse or farm animal (but not a dog or cat or similar)). It's not a bureaucratic country. None of those things except the driving licence/car tax/MOT test/car insurance will be a police matter if omitted, but you could be fined for them (although it's vanishingly unlikely that you'd be fined for not registering to vote and for jury service). You don't need to understand the law before being on a jury, because it's the judge's job to ensure that the jury understand the law as it relates to the case in front of them. A few pieces of paperwork jargon for you:
"They could have printed 5.0T or 10.0T or 1000 quadrillion. It doesnt make any difference for the steps a Central Bank takes. They choose a figure based on balancing inflation vs interest rates.  The legal powers Central Banks or IMF have do vary (i.e. to perform quantitative easing, purchasing company bonds, purchasing retail bank bonds) but they all follow that principle. Their tools are very limited and theyre legally obligated to seek certain targets like ""inflation between 0 to 2%""" Work under UK umbrella company.  By this you are thinking of creating a new legal entity in UK, then its not a very great idea. There will be lot of paperwork, additional taxes in UK and not much benefit.  Ask UK company to remit money to Indian savings bank account   Ask UK company to remit money to Indian business bank account Both are same from tax point of view. Opening a business bank account needs some more paper work and can be avoided.  Note as an independent contractor you are still liable to pay taxes in India. Please pay periodically and in advance and do not wait till year end. You can claim some benefits as work related expenses [for example a laptop / mobile purchase, certain other expenses] and reduce from the total income the UK company is paying Your sister-in-law should know that anybody, US citizen or not, can open a US bank account. She should do that and then pay her 20k fee to the company. I'm a Canadian citizen and I have a US bank account and I don't even live nor work in the United States. I only use it when I travel for leisure and order online. This looks like a scam, but if you know well your sister-in-law, it may not be. "What would be the consequences if they do realize their error some day   in the far future? You've informed them of the error and they've informed you that nevertheless the points are yours and you should use them. So you have a couple of issues: have you made what your jurisdiction considers a reasonable effort to correct the mistake, and did the customer service rep actually have the authority to make such a large goodwill gesture as letting you keep all the points? The first is your legal responsibility (otherwise you're stealing), and you need to know specifically for your jurisdiction whether a phone call is sufficient. I can't tell you that. Maybe you should send them a letter, maybe you should wait until you've had written confirmation from them, maybe you're OK as you are. You might be able to get free advice from some body that helps with consumer issues (here in the UK you could ask Citizen's Advice). The second is beyond your ability to know for sure but it's not dishonest to work on the basis that what the company's proper representative tells you, is true. With the usual caveats that I'm not qualified to give legal advice: once told you've been clearly told that it's an intentional gift, I don't see any way you could be held to have done anything fraudulent if you then go about enjoying it. The worst case ""far future"" problem, I would expect, is that someone decides the gift was never legitimately made in the first place. In other words the company made two separate errors, first crediting the card and then telling you the erroneous points stand. In that case you might have to pay them back whatever you've spent on the card (beyond the points you're entitled to). To avoid this you'd need to establish what constitutes a binding gift in your jurisdiction, so that you can say ""no, the point balance was not erroneous and here's the legal reason why"", and pay them nothing. You might also need to consider any tax implications in receiving such a large gift, and of course before paying tax on it (if that's necessary) you'd probably want to bug them for confirmation in writing that it really is yours. If that written confirmation isn't forthcoming then so be it, they've rescinded the gift and I doubt you're inclined to take them to court demanding that they stand by the words of their rep. Use them and play stupid. It's not my duty to check their math, right?  That's potentially fraud or theft if you lie. You did notice, and even worse they have proof you noticed since you made the call. So never say you didn't notice. If you hadn't called them (yet), then you've been given something in error, and your jurisdiction will have an opinion on what your responsibilities are. So if you hadn't already called them, I would strongly suggest that you should call them or write to them about it to give them the opportunity to correct the error, or at least seek assurance that in your jurisdiction all errors in the customer's favour are final. Otherwise you're in the position of them accidentally handing you their wallet without realising, and you deciding to keep it without telling them. My guess is, that's unlikely to be a legally binding gift, and might legally be theft or fraud on your part." You're speaking as a private individual. If you owe money to a friend or family member, IOW if it's a *personal* loan from someone you *personally* know, then yes, there is an absolute moral obligation to pay it back if at all possible. But the big banks are not 'people you know'. They treat you like a set of numbers- no more and no less. You are an opportunity for them to make money. They will take from you all they can legally get (or less than legally if they can get away with it). They have no reciprocating feeling of 'personal resposibility'. Banks are not humans even if humans work for them. They follow the coldly rational, impersonally merciless path of greatest profit in the most immediate term, without the slightest concern for *your* humanity or needs. - What are you talking about? The rules are regulations are setup as needed. If you give a concrete e.g. maybe if you give a concrete example of where the govt is in the way I can understand. (rules and regulations are not examples of govt. in the way in itself. It would be if say you need to do something but you need to petition the govt. first for something and there's tons of bureaucracy or or something. Else, govt just set the rules such as Stop at Red Light etc.  Govt is not in the way here.   - The rest of your comments are on same line, so this one bullet is enough. Again, you're just accusing generally with no specifics. And I'm not naive. This is real and my opinion. Govt. sets new rules as needed as a response to something, not because people in the govt. who change every few years feel so. You're talking about changing people in govt. all adhering to the same laws because it makes sense to keep it and if not, it gets repealed. Govt. is not one same set of people always present from your birth to death. Govt. keeps changing. Govt. does care about fairness and HFT's existing is proof that govt. lets free market and private business start things as it pleases till such time as it stops being fair for all.   - Govt. is not really an inhibitor to free market. Govt. actually has no impedance to free market because it allows a fair and balanced free market unlike what you're referring to which is a free market with no rules like the Wild Wild West. We had that free market before and over time people went from unregulated markets to more regulated markets because it is for our own good. Govt. is just people who agreed with it, joined the govt and made it so and others agreed. If we don't agree in future, it can be changed.   - There is a term as regulated free market. Unregulated free market will lead to snakeoil salesmen and generally a backwards movement to the wild west again.  I don't think you really want to talk. You just want to spew your ignorant libertarian viewpoints because you've heard them somewhere without thinking much about it. You just blindly believe the govt. is always wrong with no logic or justification, just like religious people.   Just think on a few points and you will see that you are wrong sometimes. Is the govt. perfect? Heck no. Is it always right? Nope. But it is some times and it does do the right things many times. It does the wrong things at times as well.   But I don't believe like you do at all because I think for myself and reason. If you reason on a few points, you'll see the other viewpoint. And stop reading Stossel or Ron Paul because they're not right about govt. being always wrong either.   I won't bother replying to you anymore because you're just a troll or arrogant smug guy who thinks he knows it all because your friends all think like you and blindly agree with you. So you've never been taken to reason or logic like others have to you on this board. Look at the other replies to your posts - almost all contradict you. Just think why ? Are they all wrong or perhaps you are. 1. Implement a 25% outbound IP royalty tax.  2. Put a 10% duty and health/safety inspection fee on all inbound food stuffs to be returned businesses HQed in the UK.  3. Charge a 0.25% tax premium per percentage point above Libor on intercompany loans. Ugh. Really? I thought this subreddit was smarter than this.   1) You pay taxes on net income, not sales. Expenses are tax deductible.   2) This took place in the UK, which operates on a different set of tax rules than many of us are familiar with.  3) The company still pays other taxes even if they don't pay income tax. In the US, examples would be payroll taxes including the employer portion of things like SS and Medicare, but I'm sure the UK has similar programs funded in a similar manner. To the extent that they own their buildings, they also pay property taxes. They globally source their supplies, which means they also pay import taxes. There are a ton of other taxes that a company pays.  4) Tax laws are complex because business is complex.   Inflammatory headlines like this serve no purpose whatsoever.