Dynamite Comes in Small Parcels
What I like about football is that it is a game where all sorts and sizes can be poor, good, brilliant or truly great. I have just watched Arsenal be trounced by Lionel Messi. Lionel is two centimetres shorter than me at 1.69 metres!
Even as a one-time Spurs supporter in my youth, I had hoped that Arsenal had won this one. But they couldn’t!
Let’s Abolish All Taxes Except One
This article in The Times by Kit Malthouse will get massive hoots of derision. But I think the principle behind it is right.
These are two early paragraphs.
So if all taxes, including VAT, form part of the price of the stuff we buy, why do we bother to charge and collect them separately? What would happen if we were to lump everything together, phase out all taxes and just charge higher VAT? Well, several things.
First, everyone would receive their income gross. No more PAYE or self-assessment and, of course, no further need for the Inland Revenue. All that money and all those people currently wasted on arguing about the dozens of different taxes would be redeployed. Billions of pounds and thousands of people, tax collectors (£5 billion) and accountants (at least another £5 billion) liberated for investment and production. Tax would be collected painlessly in small increments if and when you buy stuff.
Years ago, my accountant at the time was a Labour supporter. But he applauded Mrs. Thatcher in the way she stopped tax loopholes on the one hand and reduced rates on the other. The result was more tax collected and lots of out-of-work accountants, who then went on to develop more productive skills in areas like budgeting and planning, which created jobs.
The trouble too with our current taxation system, is that it creates anomalies. The honest get penalised by those who cheat, so good companies and individuals cease trading. They also give up because of the fact they spend too much time on working out tax.
I have a personal interest in tax anomalies. They ruined my father’s business. In the 1950s the purchase tax on print and stationery was about 40%, whereas that on plain paper was zero. Brochures and other things you didn’t write on were also zero-rated. So as this was at a time when the new offset litho technology was being introduced, companies who needed printing done setup departments to do their own. A lot of printers went bust, but if VAT had been in operation then, it would have been a level playing field and the best would have survived.
This would apply with the proposals in the article.
So I’d give a couple of cheers for Kit Malthouse.
In addition, I would of course raise the taxes on energy, so that we reduced our carbon footprint.
After a dinner of some very nice pasta, I’ve had more thoughts about this.
Supposing that it was linked to a system similar to I proposed in Cutting Unemployment. All you’d need to do was deduct the VAT on your services and that was it. It gets simpler and simpler.
But there is the problem about how you would account for those who didn’t charge VAT on their services. I’m sure that one of the accountants made redundant by abolishing all of those taxes would know the solution.
The Best Roof in the World
Every time I pass by the British Museum I always pop in. It’s because the place that used to be so fussy and almost dust-ridden has thrown off all that gloom and not vibrates with people.
But the best feature of the museum is the roof.
How many visitors does it attract?
German Practicality
Two women have been arrested at Liverpool Airport trying to smuggle the body a dead 91-year-old German home.
Here’s the first couple of paragraphs from the BBC report.
Police have arrested two women after they tried to take the body of a dead relative onto a plane at Liverpool John Lennon Airport.
Staff at the airport became suspicious when the women tried to check the man in for a flight to Berlin on Saturday.
The 91-year-old man from Germany is thought to have died the previous day, and had been put into a wheelchair.
But they should have realised that because we’re not in the Shengen area, that passports would have to be checked.
It reminds of the story of the family in the early 1960s or so, who went on holiday to the South or France with an elderly grandmother. Sadly, she died in somewhere exotic like Cannes and they wondered what to do. They didn’t have any insurance to bring the body home, so they wrapped granny up in a blanket and tied her to the roof-rack.
When they got to Dover, they did what every dutiful Briton would do and reported it all to Immigration. The Officer just looked calmly and said that the roof-rack was empty.
Mandelson Told Off for Eating Crisps on the Radio
Colin Murray and Peter Allen were hosting a political discussion about the election on BBC Radio 5 this lunchtime.
Colin Murray had to tell Lord Mandelson off for eating crisps, as they were creating noise on the radio.
Around Spitalfields
Spitalfields is an area I don’t know well. In the year she died my wife and I had a good sunny Sunday walking the area and finally ending up walking down Brick Lane. We were surprised how vibrant it was. I walked it yesterday and as it was early, it was quiet.
In some ways Spitalfields is part of my history. I didn’t know too much about it, but my mother’s family were French Huguenots, who came over some time in the 17th or 18th centuries. When, I’m not sure, as all of the family’s papers which documented the history were destroyed in the Blitz.
It’s funny but I learned more about the history of Huguenots on a trip to South Africa, than I have ever done in the UK. Perhaps, we don’t have too many specialist museums.
After all where are the museums to printing in the UK?
There is one in Norwich, The John Jarrold, but it is only open on Wednesdays.
The Anonymous Widower 