What Is Wrong With Naming Tax Cheats Like Jimmy Carr?

 General, Media, Politics  4 Responses »
Jun 202012
 

Today the Prime Minister made the “mistake” of naming one particularly famous tax cheat – Jimmy Carr. Of course it is not just him who is a slimy tax cheat – there are also people like Gary Barlow, Howard Donald and Mark Owen. And probably very many others. The rich have always had ways of avoiding paying their fair share of tax, and it is time we started pointing fingers at them and sneering.

There are those who claim it is unfair that these people are being singled out for naming. Actually it is very fair indeed; what might be unfair is that there is not a long list of everyone who is using some dodgy scheme to reduce their tax bill published on the front page of every newspaper.

Apparently Jimmy Carr’s lawyers have released a statement to say that he has done nothing wrong on avoiding tax. That is completely wrong – he has done something wrong. It may be legal but that does not make it moral.

What he has done is only marginally better than hanging around outside a hospital on pay day and mug the next nurse coming out.

Stupid Ad Mistake …

 Humour, Media  No Responses »
Jun 042012
 

You know those annoying ads you can see surrounding this posting ? The ones that don’t go anywhere near paying for the costs of running this site ?

I get to see them myself, and was somewhat surprised to find one today that had just a teensy little problem with it :-

Nine Mistakes You Should Avoid in 2011

Which was advertising a financial services company. Got to admit that whilst anyone can make a mistake, I would be very unlikely to let someone near my money who is likely to make this sort of mistake!

Panic! Europe Prepares Contingency Plans For Greece Leaving The Euro

 General, Media, Politics  No Responses »
May 232012
 

There are reports that share prices in world markets fell dramatically on the announcement that Europe has asked countries to prepare contingency plans in the event of Greece dropping the Euro. Which probably shows that there are some pretty dumb share dealers around.

That is not to say there are not valid concerns about the possibility of Greece reverting to the old drachma but that is hardly news – I knew about the chances of that happening this morning well before the announcement. Perhaps some intellectually-challenged people believe that preparing contingency plans increases the risk of something happening.

Of course preparing contingency plans does not increase the risk of anything (except possibly a shortage of paper). An event will occur with or without a contingency plan which is after all a way of preparing for an event if it occurs.

In fact it is probable that such contingency plans already exist for Greece leaving … or indeed any other country. In fact they bloody well should do – those whose job it is to draw up contingency plans would be grossly irresponsible if they have not drawn up plans by now. To draw a parallel with the computing world, the person who waits until their disk drives all start making strange and worrying sounds before starting to perform backups is doing so far too late.

 

Panic Petrol Buying Causes Injuries ?

 General, Media, Politics  No Responses »
Mar 312012
 

No of course it doesn’t.

Despite the claims of the media who like to imply that the government is to blame for the injury of someone who tried decanting petrol in her kitchen. However stupid the government advice was, they did not suggest people keep petrol in their kitchen in inappropriate containers. They explicitly mentioned “jerry cans” – being the generic name for appropriate petrol containers.

To steal a title from Pink Floyd, what is to blame here is a “momentary lapse of reason” by the woman herself. It is the kind of thing that can happen to anyone – not so much general stupidity, but a temporary ability to disregard the stupidity of some action. We all have been known to do it – you, me, and that daft bloke down the street.

Try to claim otherwise and I’ll laugh at you.

And sometimes that stupidity can have drastic consequences.

It is possible that the government’s rather stupid advise to top up cars and jerry cans has led to an increase in stupid and nasty accidents, but that is no reason to blame the government for accidents. If the government has to avoid issuing advice on matters involving dangerous substances because of the potential for accidents, we need an alternative “government” who will issue such advise.

Of course what the government is responsible for is issuing advise that encouraged panic buying. They obviously paid so little attention to the potential for panic buying that you have to suspect whether it was deliberate – did they want fuel shortages in the middle of the working week rather than during the Easter weekend ? Did they want people blaming the Unite union for causing woes?

Probably not. Even though the “scheme” backfired, the conspiracy theory would credit the government with too much in the way of brains to be possibly true. When issuing advice in such matters the government needs to :-

  1. Get the timing right so that if there is panic buying, it occurs at the least damaging time. Easter (despite the pain of not being able to go away) is better than in the middle of the week.
  2. Phrase advice so that panic buying is less likely.
  3. Point out that diesel or petrol are dangerous substances where a “momentary lapse of reason” can have drastic consequences.

Why All The Fuss About The “Granny Tax” ?

 Media, Politics  No Responses »
Mar 222012
 

You know anyone would think the media isn’t capable of adding up to more than 10 without taking their socks off given all the fuss about the so-called “granny tax”. By which they mean the gradual elimination of the increased tax allowance that older people get once the increased personal allowance reaches that level.

Either the complaint is that pensioners are paying the same level of tax as working people, or that the tax allowance for pensioners is not going to go up by the level of inflation for a couple of years. Neither are exactly catastrophic for pensioners – the poorest pensioners are not going to reach that level of income anyway, and those that will be effected will hardly notice the difference.

After all there is no guarantee that the tax personal allowance will increase by the level of inflation every year … neither the normal personal allowance nor the “bonus” allowances that older people get on top of their personal allowance. And why should older people get a special taxation allowance merely for being older ?

Eliminating that special case will make the taxation system just a little bit simpler – something to be encouraged.

I’m more likely than most to throw rocks at the Tories and their policies, but I don’t see this as being worth picking up a rock for. There’s quite a few other things about the recent budget to get excited about.

Like reducing the income tax rate for the wealthy from 50% to 45%; whilst the Tories are quite possibly right about it not being a great revenue raiser, it sends out the message that the Tories are on the side of the wealthy. Whilst they have also done a bit of tinkering with tax avoidance, and added a top rate of stamp duty (on residential property purchases), reducing the income tax rate for the top earners feels wrong.

So why is the media making more fuss about the non-issue that is the “granny tax” ? Someone more suspicious than me might suspect that the media is deliberately drawing attention away from the income tax issue – just how much do these journalists earn anyway ?

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