The world's most-read Scottish politics website

Wings Over Scotland


Bridge for sale, apply within

Posted on March 21, 2012 by

If you're finding all the polarised ideological debate about the Budget tax changes a bit hard to follow, Wings over Scotland is here to help. Simply put, what the Chancellor is apparently expecting us all to believe is essentially this:

"Dear Rich McWealthy,

We note that last year you had £40,000 of higher-rate taxable income. Well done you! We asked you to pay tax on that amount at 50% – sending you an invoice for £20,000 – but you employed a clever accountant (who you paid £1000) in order to reduce your tax bill to just £6,000.

This year, however, we see that you again have £40,000 of higher-rate taxable income. As we do not wish to see you flee the country and thereby damage the prospects of economic growth and wealth creation, we have decided to reduce the upper tax rate to 45%, so you'll only have to pay us £18,000 rather than the £20,000 we (with hindsight quite unreasonably) demanded last year.

We are sure that in the light of this new lower rate, you will be happy to send the Treasury a cheque for £18,000 rather than the £6,000 you paid last year, and that since the new rate is so much more agreeable you won't feel the need to procure the services of the clever accountant again (even though he'd still be saving you a whopping £11,000).

Thanks very much in advance for the extra money! We'll be spending it on keeping your local library open, so that all the OAPs and disabled people who can't afford their fuel bills any more will have somewhere to sleep next winter.

Love,
HMRC"

If you're swallowing that one, please get in touch immediately. We have an investment opportunity you're going to be keen to get involved with.

Subscribe
Notify of
guest

10 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Doug Daniel

Where do I sign? Sounds like a great deal.
 
Oh, by the way, do you have any public services I could buy while I'm at it?

gnohbdi (for it is he)

Okay, what I take from this is that the 50p/45p band does raise money, so it's not aimed at Rich McWealthy unless he was bizarrely not avoiding income tax until 50p came along (what did he light his cigars with back then, if it wasnt 100 quid notes?)
Instead, it's aimed at Dick McCareless who was paying the full 40p whack on his PAYE earnings.
Some Dick McCarelesses saw the 50p rate and decided to do something about it. Result: supposedly at least – loss of tax income.
Other Dick McCarelesses did not do anything (the 50p tax raised some money), indicating that in fact The Rich are not a homogeneous mass of top-hat wearing fatcats with identical sensitivity to tax levels.
Given that we've proved the existence of this continuum of non-identical Rich people, it's not completely mental to think that different tax rates might present different trade offs in terms of tax raised wrt tax dodged. There'll be some inertia of course – since they've gone out of their way to dodge the 50p rate, a lot of the effort is behind them.
 
Coming back to Mr McWealthy – since he was unaffected by the 50p rate, why the f*** are we talking about him in the context of the 50p rate? Some other remedy is needed to gain access to more of his cash.
 
Cheers.
 
 

Peter A Bell

Dear Rev Stu
I phoned my accountant to ask if he and his colleagues were concerned about the potential loss of income as people like myself opted to forego their services in favour of taking up George Osborne's very tempting offer. Unfortunately, he was unable to talk to me due to a fit of uncontrollable laughter.
Rich McWealthy

Paul

£12,000 not £11,000 saving?

Paul

Ooh, damn, did I miss that or did you edit that?  (I vote the former since I'm tired.)

douglas clark

As a relative pauper amongst you august people, could I pay an accountant a thousand pounds and save oodles of money too? It seems that my employers took their responsibilities to the Inland Revenue, as was, more seriously than they took their duty to care for me! Why are EBTs and tax dodges only available to footballers and the rich? We need to democratise this whole tax scam process for the sake of parity. There must be millions of folk out there that would like to share in their convoluted arguements and get loads of extra wonga.


  • About

    Wings Over Scotland is a (mainly) Scottish political media digest and monitor, which also offers its own commentary. (More)

    Stats: 6,666 Posts, 1,201,619 Comments

  • Recent Posts

  • Archives

  • Categories

  • Tags

  • Recent Comments

    • James on How it happened: ““The Bare-Ersed Socialists”?Nov 8, 21:35
    • Mac on How it happened: ““Which is why it is called ‘post’ colonial.” lol. You make me laugh at times Alf. When I thought about…Nov 8, 21:24
    • moixx on How it happened: “I don’t think it’s true, but apparently some people do. Is it because they actually recognise that the woke element…Nov 8, 21:17
    • Dan on How it happened: “Cheers for response George. I’ve not clicked a single like or dislike in all my years online on numerous forums.…Nov 8, 21:17
    • Rab Clark on How it happened: “Some Friday Night Fun… If anyone would like to suggest a Scots title for a translation of ‘The Ragged Trousered…Nov 8, 20:30
    • Aidan on How it happened: “That isn’t just an argument, I would say that is the core driving force behind Scottish independence. Whilst the people…Nov 8, 20:20
    • George Ferguson on How it happened: “Hi Dan, The standard of BTL comments I think has improved. Self-policing has been partially effective. I still remain uncertain…Nov 8, 20:14
    • Jay on How it happened: “On the balance of Ills, it would be less awful that you should be correct.Nov 8, 20:09
    • Jay on How it happened: “Yours seems to be the first suggestion of pressure (rather than force?) from the eastern Mediterranean area, upon Pres P,…Nov 8, 20:06
    • Jay on How it happened: “Where is the reference to your source for quotes in your previous comment? Please do not waste readers’ time. Too…Nov 8, 19:22
    • Dan on How it happened: “Nae bother, the same names have caught a few folk out over the years.Nov 8, 19:16
    • Dan on How it happened: “A few weeks on from “the site upgrade”… Serious question, how is everyone finding trying to follow comments? It’s a…Nov 8, 19:13
    • John Cleary on How it happened: “Ah. Thank you DanNov 8, 19:01
    • Tinto Chiel on How it happened: “I agree, Mia, and we have no freedom and democracy because we have no free press. The MSM are merely…Nov 8, 18:56
    • Dan on How it happened: “It’s a different Liz Lloyd.Nov 8, 18:54
    • Jay on How it happened: “hey Steve, what about some answers to my response to your previous comment? Also, considering that Skip NC has taken…Nov 8, 18:49
    • panda paws on How it happened: “Thanks Skip – It though the “or” in my sentence made it clear that was an alternative route to amending…Nov 8, 18:44
    • Dan on How it happened: “Welcome to Unionism kidz, embrace and support the fuckers that ran down and sold off so many of our industries…Nov 8, 18:41
    • Skip_NC on How it happened: “The 2017 GE in Scotland confirms the 2015 election was rigged, which confirms that the 2010 election was rigged. Obviously…Nov 8, 18:30
    • John Cleary on How it happened: “Sorry to go off topic, Rev, but the story today is that Liz Lloyd is going back to Number Ten…Nov 8, 18:29
    • Jay on How it happened: “Correction: Dunning Motion not ResolutionNov 8, 18:11
    • gregor on How it happened: “Elon Musk: “You are the media now”: https://archive.ph/vLbECNov 8, 18:09
    • Dan on How it happened: “C’mon Aidan, ffs it’s Friday evening, mix it up a little from all this dry legal shizzle. We’re currently in…Nov 8, 18:08
    • Aidan on How it happened: “Sure – happy to, I think I can say two things; Firstly, in law more recent legislation takes precedence over…Nov 8, 17:43
    • Dan on How it happened: “Holyroodstoun – Quality “Government” policy implementation. Turn the heating up to 11 0.11 The re-wilding of the taxpayer funded solar…Nov 8, 17:41
    • Jay on How it happened: “On my reading, Aidan referred to “misspelled English words” in the negative.Nov 8, 17:40
    • Jay on How it happened: “It would be helpful if Alf could find time and patience to deliver expositions in both Scots and English language.…Nov 8, 17:37
    • Graeme on How it happened: “Well this gives me food for thought when it comes to voting to avoid a Lab/SNP coalition after the next…Nov 8, 17:28
    • robertkknight on How it happened: ““Nicola Sturgeon to headline comedy festival show” She’s already done that has she not? She was SNP Leader after all.…Nov 8, 17:21
    • Jay on How it happened: “If the Parliament in Westminster has unlimited power to legislate in Scotland then there could be little else as better…Nov 8, 17:20
  • A tall tale



↑ Top
52
0
Would love your thoughts, please comment.x
()
x