What's the plan?

I sometimes wonder if the first thing the members of the coalition do when they get up in the morning is head for the bathroom cabinet to reach for their stupid pills!

The idea that relaxing the planning laws (for a limited period only) to allow people to build bigger extensions will encourage people to get the builders in - is complete madness.

The reason people aren’t having extensions built at the moment are two fold. Firstly because they are unsure of what the future might hold, and second the cost!

If the government wants to get the builders back at it, the thing to do is to make extensions and alterations subject to zero % VAT the same as new builds (for a limited period).

Making an extension bigger only makes it more costly. The result of this hair brain scheme, will be to cause more anxiety for people worried that their neighbours will encase the back garden in roughly thrown up breeze block shacks, in order to beat a deadline. The pikeys, cowboys, and Poles will have a field day.

Take the VAT off Mr Clegg, and give everyone a fare crack at the whip.

That will get the builders of this country back to work.

06 September 2012 16.38

Easy when you think about it!

Nick Clegg, what a fool!

His notion of taxing people’s savings to help the bail out, beggars belief!

Like the Lib Dem’s “mansion tax”, it is an ill conceived sound bite aimed at garnering support with left leaning voters.

If the Lib Dems had half a brain cell between them, the answer would be obvious.

I’ll put it out there to help them along.

• Part one:
  Profits from income on property bought with a buy to let mortgage, should be taxed at a rate of 120%.

Those of you with considerably more grey matter than the collective which is Lib Dem HQ, will be concerned that this will mean that all rental property will gravitate to the very wealthy.

• Part two:
  Inheritance of housing stock will be restricted to one per descendant! (Limited to surviving son, daughter, grandchild, niece or nephew). All other housing will pass to the state to be administered by local housing associations!

Simples!

29 August 2012 12:06

The Lion's Share

David Cameron tells us that the K2 Fund used by Jimmy Carr and others to avoid tax is morally dubious! But in his explanation of the scheme, he may have let slip the real horror of our plight and the true failing of the way government approaches the use of our money.

Davey told us how wrong it was that hard working people should have saved up “their post-tax pounds” to go and see Jimmy rip the piss, only for Jimmy then to use a loophole so as not to have to pay any more tax on those same pounds.

But Davey has got it wrong! The people going to see Jimmy Carr are not using post-tax “pounds” to go and see him, because “post-tax” their pounds are only worth 80p.

I am going to assume in this little ditty that no one uses their tax free pounds, (those seven thousand six hundred and forty five pounds that were deemed necessary for the basics in life, so were not subject to income tax last year, or indeed the eight and half thousand or so we are allowed this year), to go and watch comedians, be they stand-up or political.

So our entertainment seekers headed off to the O2 with a handful of their post-tax 80p’s, and handed them over to the man at the door.

A good many of those 80p’s were, in turn, handed over to the funny guy, Jimmy. It was after all his show!
Because Jimmy is such a popular fellow and had been working hard all year, the nice people at Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs think that Jimmy should have been paying 50% on these particular elements of his earnings, and so Jimmy should give them half of all the 80p’s, leaving him with a pocket full of 40p’s.
A bit fed up with the media intrusion into his private affairs, which now prevent him from being able to make any more “poor misjudgements” in his dealings with the tax man, Jimmy heads to the pub and hands over ninety of his 40p’s for ten pints of strong larger.

The duty and VAT imposed by HMRC (again) on said pints is close to 25%, and so Paddy the landlord only gets to keep 30p of each of the 40p’s that Jimmy puts across the bar.

Paddy uses the 30p’s to pay Sally the barmaid, who is working in the pub in the evenings as a second job to make ends meet, and as such is taxed at the full rate because her tax free allowance is apportioned to her day job working at the council offices. So Sally only gets to take home 24p of each of the 30p’s that Paddy is supposedly putting in her pay packet.

On her way home Sally stops at the petrol station to fill up the car, for her commute to work everyday, and hands over her entire week’s wages from the pub, to fill up the tank. The duty and VAT on the petrol represents a little over 70% of its total cost, and as such only about 7p of each of the 24p’s stays in the hands of Mario the petrol station owner.

So there we have it! Five transactions are all it takes for HMRC to convert a pre-tax pound into as little as seven pence of ongoing economic potential. Where will the growth come from that?

We are past the point of moral bankruptcy! We have a bankruptcy of ideas!

It’s time for a new way!

Suggestions on a post card please to:

59 Berkeley Road.
NEWBURY.
Berkshire.
RG14 5JG
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

I regret that ideas (especially the good ones) cannot be returned, but if your idea makes it into the party’s manifesto you will receive all the credit it deserves!

Is It Only Alex Salmond Being Done Up Like A Kipper?

Davey Cameron, leader of The Conservative and Unionist Party of Great Britain is pressing for an early Referendum on the Independence of Scotland. His reasoning being, that the question of Independence, “hanging over” Scotland, is causing economic uncertainty, and turning away would-be investors.

Alex Salmond would like the referendum to be held in 2014, towards the end of this current term of the Scottish Parliament, at a time when he has had an opportunity to work more of his magic, and presumably when these uncertain economic times are behind us.

Many political commentators are saying this is a game of chess, and that Davey is merely trying to scare the Scottish people into believing that it would be a mistake to be set adrift in the world, especially in these times of financial turmoil.

Some are suggesting that this is a double bluff on the part of Mr Cameron, and that in truth he wishes to go against the Constitution of his own Party, and would be happy to see an Independent Scotland, because it would kill two birds with one stone. Firstly it would achieve at a stroke his idea of a reduction of the number of MP’s in The House of Commons, and secondly it will dead head the Labour Party.

Meanwhile the discussion behind the scenes is all about the legality of the Referendum: the Coalition Government claims that the Referendum will only be legal and binding if it is enacted by the Government in Westminster under the scrutiny of the Electoral Commission!

Alex Salmond is saying he has a mandate to set the terms, and the nature of the way the question is asked when it comes, because he made it clear in the run-up to the Scottish Parliamentary elections that the Referendum will be towards the end of the parliamentary term, and he won the election.

Davey Cameron claimed yesterday at the first Prime Ministers questions of 2012, that he was full square behind the continued success of the Union of Crowns. Ed Milliband had little choice but to agree, and after a few more days of press speculation over who has been seen to be the better leader, this whole issue will be consigned to the back burner, other than for a few legal eagles  dotting the eyes and crossing the tees, for a clarification of “the Constitution”.

But hold on!

If David Cameron walks away from this as the victor, he will have succeeded in setting a very dangerous precedent regarding another referendum that many in this country are calling for.

If an individual “member state” (in this case Scotland) is shown not to have the legal authority to call a referendum on its continued participation in a “political union” (in this case the United Kingdom). Then Davey will have put to bed forever the possibility of the British People being given the opportunity to unilaterally decide on our continued involvement in the EU.

While the English Skin Heads are shouting “Go Home You Jocks”, the British Bull Dog is being taken to the vets in the back of a Volvo estate to be put down forever!

Rise Up! Rise Up!