So Leonora Helmsley is reputed to have said. I suspect she did. She served time in jail for believing it to be true.
She died yesterday. I won’t lament her passing. As her obituary in the Telegraph (likely to be the most favourable in the UK) makes clear, she was incredibly mean. Clearly greed was what [...]
The US is targeting the biggest tax havens in the world. The FT reports that:
A pledge by Democrats in Congress to crack down on tax avoidance and to pay for spending measures as they are approved has put the practices of a range of international companies under the spotlight.
“These multinationals avoid US taxation on their [...]
A petition has been created on the 10 Downing Street web site to stop tax abusers using the rules allowing the striking off of companies that I explained here a few days ago.
Please do sign up. This is a threat to all honest users of UK limited companies, and society at large.
Someone, and I’m not sure who, recorded the 200,000 hit on this blog this morning.
Thanks!
John Redwood wrote a fevered article in the Telegraph today complaining no one has taken his message on the economy seriously, for which he blames the BBC. It was ever thus in the case of a person who has no argument to present.
But there in the middle of the story was a paragraph that stood [...]
John Redwood’s tome for the Conservatives continues to offer insane policy suggestions. Take this one:
[I]t would be useful to have an independent study of the costs and benefits of the anti-laundering regulations hurriedly imposed on banks in most countries after September 11, 2001. Initial impressions from industry specialists are that these have done much more [...]
My media day continued. I did Radio Wales tonight with Matthew Elliott from what is called the Taxpayer’s Alliance.
He spoke complete nonsense. Like the speaker earlier in the day he thought inheritance tax was paid on small businesses. Where do these people come from?
Then we had the argument:
People don’t like this tax
Which is quite absurd. [...]
I’ve just done Radio 5 Live. We were meant to be discussing inheritance tax.
Scheduled start time was 9.00. On air time was actually 11.45.
Then I was pitted against Sylvia Tidy Harris, a woman best noted for saying no-one should employ women below aged 45 as they might have children.
She presented two scenarios where she said [...]
I guess I should blog about the Tory’s tax plans.
But I can’t raise enough enthusiasm to comment on such obviously mad strategies as those they are proposing without any comment offered by them as to who will bear the cost in society of the boost this whole strategy is designed to give to the best [...]
A week ago it was possible to report that UK pension funds were in surplus.
A week’s a long time in the financial markets. They’re not in surplus any more.
This shows several things. First how irrational markets are. Second how daft we are to base our economy on such a fickle foundation. Third that we’re mad [...]
