Monday Morning Reality Check

The great majority of people will never again go back to paying for music. It has become an anathema to the young, and kids who are tweens today will find it arcane that people used to have to pay for each song and album. In fact, ‘album, what was that daddy?’ is what they’ll say.

People WILL pay for a good media delivery service. Being a musician may no longer be the career option it once was, but maybe then we’ll get better/less art.

The Superdry Blue Check Shirt

Something i have noticed recently is the number of guys who own a SuperDry Blue Lumberjack Check Shirt. It’s the ’Little back dress’ for men.

I was at a dedication service for my cousin’s new baby on Sunday, and two people were wearing it, then at the lunch afterwards one other person was wearing, and today in work someone is wearing it. I have one, and the last time i wore it someone said to me ‘my husband has that shirt’.

The weird thing is that in the SuperDry shop there is a choice of 5 or 6 shirts in the same style, all slightly different colours and shades but everyone (including me) seems to go for the navy blueish one. A trivial phenomena.

Taxation and fairness

No taxation without representation. That was the cry of the pre-revolutionary Americans and the British refusal to give full and fair democratic representation in return for their payment of tax was the spark of the revolution. Tax is a hot potato! (yep, with that phrase you’ve realized that I know absolutely nothing about economics!)

Progressive taxes are something I’ve known about and never really questioned until someone recently tried to explain the rationale behind it to me. I like to pepper things with questions to see how they can stand up and to my honest surprise i was a little less  convinced than i thought i would.

Ok, in general terms a new teacher earning £25k will pay about 20% tax – £5,000, a head teacher with many years work and experience who earns £80k will pay £16,000. The head teacher will of course miss this money less, because he’s pretty well off. Sounds fair doesn’t it?

Well, kinda. The head teacher doesn’t get any more say in how the country is run for his extra money, and he’s worked hard and been ambitious enough to get himself up to that level of pay, its his money why should he have to give £11k more to the government if he’s only going to receive the same level of services (heath/education) as the new teacher? Would it not be fairer to set a fixed sum? or maybe just use spending related VAT as a replacement for income tax? (whadda i know!)

But of course the figures above aren’t actually correct. We actually tax the head teacher at a higher rate, the head teacher will actually pay about £26k in income tax! Not only do we expect people who have earned more money to pay more, we actually expect them to pay a higher percentage of their income. He’ll get no more representation in parliament, he’ll get no better health service or roads or education.

Fair enough? maybe, maybe not.  In a true democracy we can never have rich people having more of a voice in parliament, but in a true meritocracy can it ever be fair to have financial penalties for success?

Social, Moral, Relational & Libertarian failure

If there was ever an image that offended the French ideals of Liberté, Égalité & Fraternité it’s this.

I’ll maybe leave it at that, as opposed to descending down the whirlpool of trying to define the nature of true freedom.

The completely innocent Kitty Ussher

Treasury minister Kitty Ussher has quit the government after further questions were raised about her expenses. Almost a daily ritual now isn’t it, barely makes the news.

Ms Ussher took the step amid reports she “flipped” the designation of her Burnley home shortly before selling it in 2007, avoiding capital gains tax. She of course said that she’d don’t nothing wrong, pft, she would say that wouldn’t she.

But hang on, she didn’t do anything wrong, in fact she did the right thing as far as I can see. So now we have Ministers resigning because The Telegraph wants to keep its readership bump going. Ministers are now so submissive to it that they just resign at the first sign of their name being mentioned, they have been tried in the court of media and public opinion and found wanting.

Her crime was this – taking the advice of her accountant on how to avoid tax. But hang on! That’s exactly what an accountant is for! I’ve had the fortune/misfortune to use an accountant over the past couple of years, his job is to help me pay all the taxes and need to pay and to structure things so I can avoid paying unnecessary tax. The idea that I, as a novice would listen to his advice and then start making moral judgements on it is nuts. Its even MORE nuts for a government treasury minister to do this, imagine her being interviewed on The Today Show…

‘So Ms Ussher your job is to take the advice of financial experts when it comes to affairs of state, but in this case you took th eadvice of an expert and then you decided it was  morally wrong to ‘flip’ your house to avoid tax, are you saying that he law is wrong on this? are you saying that the government of which you are a member has immoral tax law?”

Goodness she should have to resign. Any government minister who has made any personal judgement on how much tax they should pay should resign!  It sets a crazy precedent, we should all pay exactly the amount of tax we are required to within the law, no more and no less, if we wish to give anymore we should give to charity.

Lets not expect more from our MPs than we do from ourselves.