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Abuse of the language

Saturday, July 19, 2008
In the sense of beating it with a piece of 4" by 2" for ten minutes, pouring petrol over it, setting it ablaze and then dancing around the flames and finishing off by urinating on the embers:

"The report from the National Audit Office (NAO) said....[HM Revenue and Customs] needs to more actively demonstrate the benefits to its staff and manage the expectations of customers". Source

Would not 'victims' be more le mot juste?

Elsewhere the report notes low morale at HMRC. While I would consider many (any?) options before taking a job with The Beast, someone has to do it, so one must feel some pity for the individuals who must spent their entire working lives either lying about their livelihoods to people they meet socially or else risking the effect of a crucifix on a vampire.

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posted by Croydonian

Soft soaping envy into a cardinal virtue

Wednesday, July 02, 2008
Showing all the comic timing of the Bay of Pigs Invasion, the TUC has decided that a day on which it has been revealed that the number of 40% rate tax payers has doubled in 10 years is just the day to squawk about 'tax justice'.

In the same way that these days envy is called 'a burning desire for social justice', fiscal class war is called 'tax justice'. Despite claiming to offer the full figures from a survey on attitudes to tax, the TUC does not, so I will have to tease out what I can from its press release. And there are some truly fabulous leaps in logic:

"The polling...shows that only seven per cent of people think that 'Britain's tax system gets the balance right between the amount of tax paid by the rich, the poor and those in the middle'. Even among those with household incomes of more than £100,000 only 13 per cent think the balance is right". And in TUC-think, that means that 87% think they are paying too much. Yeah, right.

And there's more:

"Three quarters of those polled (75 per cent) agree that 'it is too easy for very rich people to get out of paying a fair level of tax' (including 43 per cent who strongly agree)."

This conflates knowledge that tax can be avoided with a moral stance on it.

"The public also thinks it is too easy for big companies to get out of paying tax and thinks that the Government is wrong to reduce tax on large companies".

The public suffers from a less than full understanding of commerce, and does not seem to have twigged that taxing companies is not some manner of fiscal free lunch and would lead to increased prices, lower wages and all sorts of other things they would not like at all.

And what does the TUC want to happen?

This: "Creating a fairer tax system does not mean a higher tax bill for ordinary workers. Instead, clamping down on tax avoidance and closing the loopholes enjoyed by the super-rich will put extra revenue into ordinary peoples' pockets or pay for our hard-pressed public services".

There is only response to the suggestion that the TUC would support tax cuts for Joe & Josie Average - come off it. One might add that Barber seems to think that the hedge fund managers, footballers and others that he wants to fleece will just stay in the UK. Maybe someone needs to send him the Ladybird Book of Laffer Curves or somesuch.

Anyway, the TUC has rounded up the usual suspects to 'debate' this subject, ranging from Polly 'my house is so big that if broken into flats I could solve the London housing crisis' Toynbee to the tin-rattling wings of the Left - Oxfam, War on Want etc etc - and sundry wonk groups - Compass, ippr etc. If all the people in attendance could be persuaded to leave the UK, permanently, this place would be improved immeasurably.

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posted by Croydonian

Great explanations of our time

Thursday, June 26, 2008
Her Maj's press secretary speaks:

State Visit to Slovenia and Slovakia

The Queen and The Duke of Edinburgh will pay State Visits to: Slovenia, at the invitation of President Dr Danilo Tuerk; and Slovakia, at the invitation of President Ivan Gasparovic, during this Autumn.

Without the detail, a cynic might think that she had been invited somewhere beginning Slov... but could not remember which.

Meanwhile, I am in pain having discovered that whereas the tax rake as a percentage of GDP has risen 2.4 percentage points (35.0-37.4) under the Brown Terror (1996-date) , those lucky Slovaks have seen it fall ten points, from 39.4 to 29.3.

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posted by Croydonian

A small memory jog for Polly Toynbee

Tuesday, March 27, 2007
Today Public Enemy #1 is having a good old rant about the Manchester Casino (she's agin it):

"The word is that the old Son of the Manse in No 11 always shuddered at this gambling bill (Yeah. Right. He, of course can do no wrong in her book. She described as being like 'a kindly uncle' once. C). His other unexpected tax bombshell in the budget slapped 50% on casino takings and 15% on online gambling: it left the whole policy battered.

But heftier tax is no answer. It may slightly diminish profits and bring a shedload more cash into the Treasury. Isn't that a good thing? No, Australia stands as a warning. Their great expansion of gambling, mainly through "pokies" - high-prize slots - now means more than 10% of government revenues come from gambling. The state has become addicted to the nation's gambling habits. No future government could decide gambling was damaging its people and seek to reduce it. How could they afford to lose those revenues? Better by far to try to hold down gambling as best a government can - and it can.


And now for the fun bit, from 2001: "History will record very little of interest about the John Major era. What stands out? His near- criminal rail privatisation perhaps. Yet he did bequeath one great monument to the nation. No, not one but an ever-growing cornucopia of monuments large and small - the bounty of the national lottery....: back in 1998 when gambling fell under the remit of the Home Office, Jack Straw asked Sir Alan Budd to examine our antiquated gambling laws and suggest reform. There were old-fashioned nannyish restrictions to be removed from casinos (no drinking, must be a club member), some new ones needed (protecting children from one-armed bandits) and urgent review of e-betting, which Gordon Brown quickly remedied".

Perhaps she agrees with Emerson that "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines".

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posted by Croydonian

The lucky country is only 300 odd miles from London, not 9000.

Monday, February 26, 2007
Our fortunate neighbours to the West would appear to have the right idea, in that both the Irish Labour party and the Progos are intent on tax cuts, should they be in power come the next election. A bit of digging shows current income tax rates as being 20 and 42%, and the Progos seek to cut those to 18 and 38%, while Labour only has its eyes on the first of those reductions. Showing the ignorance of laffer curves for which the extreme left the world over is renowned, the Greens think trimming the upper rate is 'inequitable'

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posted by Croydonian