It Isn’t Just the PIP Implants To Blame
The third leader in The Times yesterday was a reasoned one on the scandal of the PIP implants.
It started by saying that those hospitals and clinics that fitted them should rectify the problem. It also said that the NHS and eight cosmetic surgery groups would replace the implants without charge.
The leader then said this.
But even in this mire, one private clinic stands out for the audacity with which it is abdicating its responsibility to its patients. The Harley Medical Group, which was responsible for fitting PIP implants to almost 14,000 of the 40,000 British women who received them, is refusing to replace the now banned implants without further charge. Doing so, it says, would put it out of business.
But what is Harley doing? Absolutely nothing except protesting it wasn’t their fault, but one of the regulatory authorities. I should say, that I’ve heard of the Harley Medical Group, as has everybody who uses escalators on the London Underground. I should say, that their adverts haven’t been there for some months.
It would be interesting to see a report on finances of the Harley Medical Group, by a reputable forensic accountant.
As an aside here, according to a doctor on BBC Breakfast, a proper breast implant costs £16,000. So if Harley fitted implants to 14,000 women, that works out at £448 million pounds to sort out the problem. The Times has a lesser figure of £40 million, bt also states that Harley only made a small profit last year.
So why should the NHS and ultimately the taxpayer pay for the patient’s vanity? And stupidity for going to Harley?
HMRC Scams
I am very lucky in that I can afford an accountant to do my tax returns, so I know that if I get an e-mail from HMRC, it’s a scam.
I’ve had three in the last few days.
This page on the HMRC web site gives details on how to recognise them.
i forward all mine to phishing@hmrc.gsi.gov.uk. This is indicated on this page.
One of the interesting things about these e-mails, is that they were all to an old e-mail address that I don’t use now. I do monitor it, in case one of my old friends hasn’t got my new one.
For financial transactions, I always use a particular e-mail that is not used elsewhere. That means that if I get an e-mail to that address, I check it thoroughly and if say it’s selling me a holiday, I then know that my bank or other financial institution might have been compromised.
Blair’s Tax Bill
It would appear that he’s paying his share according to this article in the Daily Mail.
But then he’s only living by the Socialist mantra.
Do as I say, not as I do!
I also wonder what Brown’s tax bill is like?
After all Britain’s most accident prone double-act since Laurel and Hardy got us into this economic mess and made sure that they created enough friends to see themselves right.
Perhaps we need a law that all members and former members of Parliament must publish accounts that the man on the Dalston Omnibus could understand.
Zopa and a Transaction Tax
One of the great things about Zopa is that the only tax you pay is income tax on any money you earn.
I hope that the EU’s proposed new transaction tax, doesn’t sneak in there somewhere. After all, politicians would love to find a way to tax us more, so how about 0.01% of every transaction going through the banking system? It would be a total loser, as even at a very low amount, the man on the Dalston Omnibus would object strongly to paying a tax on every time he received or paid-out money.
I suspect it won’t happen, but the Euro was badly set up and although it is a very good idea, you can’t really expect all countries to adopt a legal approach, when they see a clever loophole.
But Zopa does mean that you avoid stamp duty on an investment, which like the Stock Market, has a degree of risk.
Do 50% Tax Rates Work?
I don’t think so, except for financial advisors and accountants.
When the rate gets too high, people see an increasing amount of their money going in taxes and do something about it.
I remember, an accountant once told me of a client, who asked him to cut the amount he paid in tax. The client by the way had a small but successful manufacturing company. He told the client to leave some of the money he didn’t need in the business and invest it to make the business grow. The tax bill went down, but the wealth of the client’s company grew. I just looked it up on the Internet and its even bigger. Sadly the accountant carried on smoking like a chimney and died of lung cancer.
So I’m in favour of reducing the tax rate and removing the loopholes. This incidentally, is what Mrs. Thatcher did and the tax take rose. It also made a lot of accountants and financial advisors unemployed.
You could argue that we need a very simple tax system, that everybody on the Dalston Omnibus could understand.
But no government would ever do this, as they’d have to deal with large numbers of irate civil servants.
Child Care, Gardening, Carers and Unemployment
About twenty years ago I met a policy strategist at the Department of Employment. He wasn’t your typical civil servant, as he had been recruited at about forty into government service, after a successful career in academia and industry.
In those days we were just as worried about many things that we still are today.
One proposal he had was that if you employ someone on a fully legal basis, where all tax and National Insurance is paid, then you can set all or a proportion of those costs against your tax.
He gave some examples, where it might apply.
- Many people employ a nanny or mother’s help, to help in the home with their children. At present, he said, it’s often cash in hand and a room or perhaps the help is employed in the family’s small business as a secretary, so that the costs are tax deductible.
- You also have the case of people, who employ a gardener to do the heavy work as they get old. Usually, it’s cash-in-hand, for a few hours, but perhaps, they’d really like to employ someone full time and even share the person with the neighbours or other people locally.
So we have system, where these sort of people are employed in one or two ways.
- Cash-in-hand, which often gives the worker all sorts of problems and will mean they have a reduced pension when they retire.
- The fake job, where they are employed and set against tax in a business controlled by the employer.
Both methods mean that less tax is collected and fewer jobs are created. It also means that an au-pair from some strange place is much cheaper than a real job employing a local person.
The civil servant believed that if you could set employment costs for an employee, against personal tax, it would have substantial benefits. Obviously, the job would have to be real and tax, National Insurance and minimum wage regulations were all observed.
If we take the mother’s help/gardener/carer case, it probably would create a lot of jobs, especially if sharing was allowed. The tax system might become a little bit more complicated, but an awful lot of people earning a good salary, might decide to employ someone full-time rather than rely on trying to fit caring for an ageing parent around a full-time job.
A lot of these jobs might be for people, who are in groups, that find getting worthwhile jobs difficult. We have a lot of young people who don’t have jobs. Surely, there are people who might like to employ them personally. As an example, since I have moved here, I might have benefitted by having someone help me with sorting out this house. There would have to be a foolproof payment system to ensure tax was paid, but surely this could be put on-line.
In some ways, one of the biggest advantages would be in the creation of new businesses. Often people try to start their new business by doing both jobs at the same time. The outcome is often poor and the business fails, and often the personal relationships with it.
You could of course, setup a proper company, with employees from day one, but how many start-ups can sustain all of that expense.
Suppose you have a reasonably well-paid job and have this idea for a better widget or a new way of doing something. Often you need to research the business well before starting. So say perhaps for a year, you employed a bright graduate and asked them to check your feelings, do some design or programming or whatever. After that year, it might mean that the business was non-viable, and you would have to let the employee go. But at least they’d had a hopefully interesting job for a year and you’d got the tax relief. Or at least part of it.
Imagine too, you are a self-employed decorator, accountant, software programmer or whatever. If the system was made simple, you would think about getting help in busy periods or when you need it much earlier and more often.
You can go through lots of scenarios and do the sums.
The measures may well be fairly neutral to the tax system, but of course unemployment benefit would drop. I suspect, it would also help a lot of people to have better lives and pensions.
The real loser would be the black economy.
One of the reasons the system was never even considered was that the Treasury’s model of the economy doesn’t include the black one. Incidentally, at the time at least one of the major banks model did. They got the economy right and the Treasury didn’t.
With all the arguments about the temporary fifty per cent tax rate, child care costs, caring provision for the elderly and unemployment, it appears to me that the current personal financial system has failed.
Perhaps we should think the unthinkable.
Do We Need To Close More Hospitals?
I’ve believed that we have too many hospitals for a long time. Often politics mean that the needs of getting votes come before the needs of good healthcare. No-one would ever get elected, if they were in favour of closing their local hospital.
When I lived near Newmarket, we had two hospitals at the same distance away, Addenbrooke’s and Bury St. Edmunds. The first is a world-class facility and the second is a typical general hospital on a cramped site with bad transport links.
No-one ever chose to go to Bury St. Edmunds and I always remember once turning up at A & E there in the middle of the night to find no-one waiting, but it still took me three hours to be seen. The whole hospital should have been down-graded years ago. This is unlikely to happen, as the powers that be in Bury still resent the fact that Ipswich became the county town, when West and East Suffolk were merged. So we all pay extra through our taxes for local vanity.
So should we close more hospitals? Lord Cross who used to run the NHS, apparently thinks so according to this report on the BBC.
The Match Tax
I’d never heard of this, but whilst walking back to Bow Road station to come home, I saw this plaque.
Plaque Commemorating Opposition to the Match Tax
I’d never heard of the Match Tax. But of course, the old Bryant and May factory is just round the corner. It’s now up-market housing called Bow Quarter.
I can’t find much about the Match Tax on the Internet, except for this proof copy of the stamp that would have been used. It was never implimeted because of a public outcry.
Arizona To Bring in a Fat Tax
This story caught my eye on the BBC’s web site.
I don’t care a fig, if Ariziona does bring in a Fat Tax, as I’m not fat and I don’t live anywhere near the State.
But I do think there are two main types of fat people; those who have a medical problem and those who are, as Hancock once remarked to Hattie Jaques, gannets. Gannets of course are on a seafood diet; they see food and eat it.
I would not be in favour of a direct fat tax or fine as Arizona propose for those who don’t stick to a dietary regime laid down by their doctor.
What is needed is indirect taxes, like :-
- Weight limits in airline seats. If you’re too heavy you have to buy two seats.
- Extra VAT on junk food.
- Extra taxes on alcohol.
In other words taxes that are avoidable by just saying no!
Phil Mac Giolla Bhain
With all of the death threats and bombs in Glasgow over the last few days and the statement from Paul McBride, I decided to search the Internet to learn more. After all, anybody who is less than a hundred bricks short of a full load, would want the problems to be sorted and be stopped for ever.
I found this excellent web site from Phil Mac Giolla Bhain. Read this post about a tax demand from HMRC and note some of the associated comments.
Tomorrow is another battle in the Glasgow Premier League. It will be broadcast live on BBC Radio 5 Live. Rumour has it that Jeremy Bowen has been asked to commentate.
The Anonymous Widower 