Not a sausage from UK Uncut on pasty tax?

Who gives a fuck about putting VAT on pasties and sausage rolls?

Oh, your average sausage-munching chavvy lard-arse who likes his cholesterol delivery mechanism of choice to be greasy rather than claggy…

So fucking what?

I’ve heard a lot of shit spoken about tax avoidance. A massive lot of shit. Mainly from the UK Uncut and Tax Retard crowd who seem to populate the internet.

But not a peep from them on pasty tax. Nothing.

Which you have to expect really. They should endorse it. It was a massive unintended loophole in VAT law. There isn’t any reason why a pasty or sausage roll served “hot” shouldn’t be VATable. It’s intended as takeaway food, tax it as such.

But it’s a tax on their demographic.

UK Uncut’s silence belies an issue at the heart of their philosophy. Somebody needs to pay for “uncutting”. But they’re quick to try to resolve that question.

The easy answer is always “somebody else”.

It’s easy to point at a faceless corporation that has at its legislative heart the duty to return a profit to its shareholders. It’s easy to point at executive employees who act on behalf of the legal entity and you can’t say exactly how they earn their salary. But Wayne Rooney they ain’t, so you don’t see that they might be worth it.

It’s harder when it’s your average working Joe who enjoys the odd warm snack from Greggs.

I suspect it’ll be mentioned only once the fuss has died down a bit. I suspect it’ll be mentioned when some suitable avoidance issue rears its head and somebody from UK Uncut says “oh right, we have to pay VAT on our pasties but they don’t on blah blah!”

When that happens, I want you to remember that UK Uncut have said fuck all about pasty tax. They haven’t congratulated the government on closing a loophole, or condemned them for taxing your average working class man, or even criticized for prioritizing this over some other tax hike.

No. It’s a joke to them. They don’t give a fuck about the small bakeries who will struggle to implement the changes and interpret the rules and, yes, pass on a VAT rise to their customer. They don’t give a shit that to some small businesses this could be a proper kick in the nuts.

(But others it won’t. It’ll represent an even playing field. One door shuts, another opens.)

They’re just waiting until the heat goes out of the issue and they can joke about it without getting burned.

Until then, from UK Uncut you won’t see a sausage.

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Nurses to lose the vote under NHS reform bill?

Apparently, according to wild and unconfirmed reports I have seen on twitter, if the NHS reform bill passes, nurses will have less rights than convicted rapists.
When you wake up on Wednesday, all the NHS will be owned in the British Virgin Islands and Jersey. St Thomas’ will have been uprooted and sold to a Russian gas conglomerate.
Richard Branson is purchasing neo-natal and maternity wards and will be “sponsoring” all newborns. They will be forced to carry Virgin branding until they are 16.
RBS will be allowed to force cancer patients to partake in half-time entertainment at six-nations rugby matches from now on.
It’s all very depressing reading.

NHS profiteers

I haven’t bothered reading the NHS reform bill. And I don’t intend to.

But, it seems to me that something should be done about private sector interests in the NHS. I don’t think it’s right that the government can grant monopolies to businesses so that they can milk the NHS cash cow.

So that’s why we probably need a bit of competition… Yes, competition. That’s the supposed means of delivering benefit that the private sector brings, so why not introduce it?

Let me give you an example.

I made an appointment with my GP. I say my GP, I mean my GP’s business. My local GP surgery is the only one for miles. And it’s owned and operated by a company. Yeah, the doctors own the company. But maybe their spouses do too…

It took me two weeks to see a doctor.

Now, I’ve been to GP Ltd several times in the past year. About six times. I have not once seen the same doctor.

So, I’m not particularly happy with my current ‘service’. I’d quite happily change provider, if I could. But, because my doctor’s company has the GP contract for the area, nobody else can compete.

If I could switch, I perhaps wouldn’t mind. I could move to a new surgery and encourage others to do so. That would reward a successful surgery and remove pressure from an ailing surgery. Or encourage the bastards to offer a better service.

So when I hear the Save The NHS mob rallying against profiteers, citing GPs as being against the bill, it winds me up.

GPs are the profiteers.

Yes, they stitch and glue me up, prescribe me with anti-depressants and occasionally stick their finger up my arse. But, I pay for my anti-depressants and the review process just gets in the way. Especially when it takes two weeks to see my ‘dealer’.

I can do the other two myself.

So, whatever the bill says, whatever it does, I really don’t give a fuck. The critics of it seem to be making an argument against the entire GP system, whilst relying on the beneficiaries of that system for their support.

Sell it off, nationalize it, do what the fuck ever. Just don’t pretend that someone isn’t milking the NHS right now for providing a fucking awful service.

They are. And you’re sucking their dicks for the privilege.

50% of old bollocks

In the build up to next week’s Budget, I’ve been hearing a lot about the 50% rate of tax and whether it has actually raised any money. I say hearing, ‘cos I’ve not really listened.

I’ll tell you now, I think it’s a pointless discussion.

It’s not that I think there shouldn’t be a discussion over the additional rate of tax (for that is it’s name, but I’ll adopt the convention). I just don’t think its effectiveness can be determined in any quantitative way.

I mean, how is anybody going to figure out with reasonable certainty what would have been taken in tax in its absence?

If you increase the rate of tax, you increase the incentive to use tax avoidance. And why not? It’s legal and you don’t need to anything unethical.

See, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with adapting your behavior to reduce your tax liabilities.

Neither does HM Treasury or HMRC, for that matter.

There are plenty of reliefs and exemptions designed to encourage certain behaviors and reduce others. All of them. Any tax relief you care to name.

But I digress. My point is, taxation changes behavior. And always in favor of reducing the tax burden.

(I’ve just spent 5 minutes scratching my head trying to think of a single person, client or otherwise, who has voluntarily wanted to pay more tax. I think that’s a fair statement.)

So the question isn’t how effective is the 50% rate at raising tax. It’s “how effective is the 50% rate at incentivising tax avoidance?”

Unless you can answer that question with the value of “new business” for 2010/11, you’re talking shit if you think you can quantify the tax raised by the additional rate.

I can’t answer it. I haven’t seen anybody who can.

But I can tell you from a personal level… The 50% rate is effective, very effective in fact, at incentivising “bespoke tax planning”…

What I got

It’s fair to say, I’ve always seen blogging as a fairly self-indulgent activity. I’ve never felt the desire to share my thoughts with others, nor really had the desire to read others’.

And I don’t think I’ve changed my mind all of a sudden. But I’ve got issues and anything is worth a shot.

I say issues… it’s nothing major. Just a bit depressed. Just a bit bored. Just a bit annoyed. So, I take fluoxetine with my whiskey, have a chat and a laugh, and then start a brawl. In that order.

You see, you’ve got to do something with that stuff. Otherwise it takes you down. So I’m going to write about it and then probably delete it all in disgust at myself.

And I’ll still take my pills, have a laugh and then smack the crap out of somebody. But I’ll probably feel better about it.

To be honest, I just need some place to vent my ire which doesn’t have a 140 character limit to it…

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