There’s an interesting and enigmatic note on page 223 of the budget report. It says with regard to excise duties:
Small consignment reliefA.124 A measure will be introduced with effect from Royal Assent to repeal the UK relief from duty for small, non-commercial consignments of excise goods.
The obvious question has to be asked, if this can [...]
My immediate instinct on hearing the budget was that it was a clever tax raising exercise.
A review of the Budget publications proves I am right. See pages 208 to 210 here. The policy decisions are almost neutral in revenue terms. Tackling tax avoidance raises £1 billion a year, air passenger duty rates a little more [...]
It’s curious to note that the Budget press releases contain not a single reference to these issues.
One advantage of being of a certain age (and I happened to hit 49 today) is that you can recall a fair number of budgets. Sad it might be, but I’ve been doing them since Dennis Healey was in office in the 70s, and can recall Antony Barber before that (even Roy Jenkins at a [...]
Listening to Prime Minister’s Question Time prior to Gordon Brown’s Budget speech I heard Ming Campbell, leader of the Liberal Democrats aim a first rate question at Tony Blair. He asked (and I paraphrase):
How can the prime Minister be happy with the taxation record of his Party over the last ten years when the poorest [...]
Reuters has reported on the resolution of the tussle about bribery and corruption at the top of the World Bank.
Put simply (and in this case that’s fair) Paul Wolfowitz (the leading Neo-Con who now heads the World Bank) wanted to stop lending to countries which have a corruption problem. Europe made the point that things [...]
The BBC reported an important development in the CD market yesterday. As they noted:
Online music store CD-Wow has been found in contempt of court for selling illegally imported cheap CDs in the UK.
The High Court in London ruled that the site’s owners, Music Trading Online, were “in substantial breach” of a 2004 agreement to stop [...]
The Transport and General Workers Union issued this press release yesterday:
TGWU: Chancellor should target the true tax evaders to tackle inequalityTuesday, 20 Mar 2007 14:37The Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown should make tackling inequality in British society the centre piece of what is widely expected to be his last Budget ahead of a Labour [...]
Our recent research shows that the Isle of Man is heavily subsidised by the UK. My best estimate is by £270 million a year, of which at least £233 million is under an arrangement unique to it. That’s over 40% of its State income.
The implications of this are obvious. Because the Isle of Man has [...]
The Guardian has reported that:
Ed Balls, economic secretary to the Treasury, ruled out any major tax changes to the treatment of private equity during a debate in the Commons last night.
Which makes a mockery of the review of these issues to be delivered prior to the Pre-Budget Report later this year.
He went on to say [...]
