Tax and NHI: Self Interest
Publicans don’t like excise duty Petrol Retailers don’t like fuel duty Airlines don’t like passenger duty Business “leaders” don’t like NHI so why are we surprised when the latter write a letter to say...
View ArticleSocial Engineering
This used to be something that the Socialists were accused of doing; now it seems to be a Conservative practice. £3 per week for the married – raises a number of questions: What other social goods...
View ArticleUniversal Benefits from Universal Tax
I can’t help but share some of the concerns expressed about the move away from universal benefits. However, I am also particularly concerned about the impact of this change when combined with the move...
View ArticleFair is foul, and foul is fair
Just what is fair? Last Friday on Any Questions (BBC Radio 4, Friday 22 October 2010), Fraser Nelson (editor of The Spectator, a conservative political weekly), tried to advance the view that “fairness...
View ArticleTaxation and the behaviour of the rich vs. the rest of us
On today’s (BBC2 13 March 2012) Daily Politics, Lord Lawson (the former Conservative monetarist chancellor, Nigel Lawson) was advocating cutting the top rate of tax because of the “behavioural...
View ArticleBy George, something not right here!
So, the millionaire Chancellor of the Exchequer is not paying top rate tax (BBC News 22 March 2012). How come? A very, very good accountant – exemplifying “getocracy” – them what has, gets – if you...
View ArticleThe problem with the rich
I have been thinking about “the rich” quite a bit recently, what with the crash and the budget. I feel I need to try to get beyond the “bash the bankers” and “soak the rich” rhetoric and work out...
View ArticleImpoverish the poor or soak the rich?
Suppose you want to raise £1M per week? How might you do it? I suspect the two sides of the coalition will have different views. You could cut welfare by £5 per week for 200,000 of the poor. That...
View ArticleNeilisms and out of context factoids
Andrew Neil was lambasting the Liberal Democrats today (BBC2 Daily Politics 24 September 2012) with the unreferenced factoid: the “top 10% pay 55% of all income tax paid”. Out of context it is...
View ArticleTaxing Property
George Monbiot writing yesterday about the distorted property market concluded: Why should capital gains tax not apply to first homes, when they are the country’s primary source of unearned income? Why...
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