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: 6,707 Posts, 1,212,930 Comments

  • Recent Posts

  • Archives

  • Categories

  • Tags

  • Recent Comments

    • Debatable Lands on The thickness of blood: “Let’s look at this from another angle with less cock waving/hiding. A minority of men behave in aggressive and sexually…Feb 16, 06:01
    • yoon scum on The thickness of blood: “no answer to either question very telling but probably wise under the hate speech laws bought in by the SNP…Feb 16, 05:13
    • yoon scum on The thickness of blood: “I thought one of the big hopes for indy was to massively ramp up immigration to a free ScotlandFeb 16, 05:09
    • WhatRot on The thickness of blood: “Nobody is ‘legitimately going through reassignment surgery’. Nobody.Feb 16, 04:30
    • WhatRot on The thickness of blood: “No you don’t. There’s no such thing. It’s literal nonsense.Feb 16, 04:25
    • twathater on The thickness of blood: “The ONLY good thing to come out of Edinburgh is the road to GlasgowFeb 16, 04:05
    • twathater on The thickness of blood: “There’s nothing wrong with Paisley , and once we get rid of the pish snp crawlers and elect a I4I…Feb 16, 04:03
    • twathater on The thickness of blood: “TBQH I don’t know why anyone is giving that PRICK yoon scum any explanation, he/she/it is only here to annoy…Feb 16, 03:52
    • twathater on The thickness of blood: “Julie Hull has clearly illuminated and broken down the hurried and unconscionable desperation of these female Aunt Lydias in their…Feb 16, 03:43
    • Ian Brotherhood on The thickness of blood: “As a general rule I suppose you could be right but it’s not between Glasgow and Edinburgh.Feb 15, 22:34
    • Mark Beggan on The thickness of blood: “I don’t think Paisley is a good idea.Feb 15, 22:29
    • gregor on For Mridul And Sandy: “New York Post (14/02/25): DOGE says it recovered $1.9 billion in taxpayer funds ‘misplaced’ by Biden admin: “The massive trove…Feb 15, 22:22
    • gregor on For Mridul And Sandy: “Rapid Response 47 @RapidResponse47: “Presidents Obama and Biden clearly love the work @DOGE is doing” Elon Musk @elonmusk: “Literally exactly…Feb 15, 22:16
    • gregor on For Mridul And Sandy: “Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump: “He who saves his Country does not violate any Law.”: https://x.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1890831570535055759 UK Foreign Office: British nationals…Feb 15, 22:07
    • Ian Brotherhood on The thickness of blood: “‘Friends of Wings’ is planning a wee social night for early April. It’ll be on or around the 11th (!)…Feb 15, 21:53
    • gregor on The thickness of blood: “re. “‘she wouldn’t meet my eyes’.” Women did not choose their natural female species status (it’s biological human reality) and…Feb 15, 21:42
    • Mark Beggan on The thickness of blood: “The holy Roman church had more sinister, barbaric methods for non believers. Methods that if given a choice I would…Feb 15, 21:37
    • Alf Baird on The thickness of blood: ““colonialism takes many forms” Indeed it does, and what we know from postcolonial theory as ‘colonial procedures’. However the main…Feb 15, 21:24
    • gregor on For Mridul And Sandy: “BBC: Why has a former Tory MP decided to serve in U****ne’s military? https://tinyurl.com/mrx8mrryFeb 15, 20:58
    • crazycat on The thickness of blood: “truly someone born in the wrong body There’s no such thing. The expression presupposes a difference between our “selves” and…Feb 15, 20:47
    • Mark Beggan on The thickness of blood: “It be good to know if NHS Fife had someone in a skirt lined up for the “Champion Whistle blower”…Feb 15, 20:14
    • Lorna Campbell on The thickness of blood: “Cracking piece, Rev. Anyone who has a ‘trans’ identified relatives and who is in public office of any kind -…Feb 15, 20:12
    • John H. on The thickness of blood: “The threat of death by the sword was how he forced people to accept his new religion I understand.Feb 15, 20:08
    • Royston Rickard on The thickness of blood: “To your third sentence – in short, yes. Even 20 years ago, this wasn’t an issue anywhere. Why? Because until…Feb 15, 20:07
    • Mark Beggan on The thickness of blood: “Yes. We are now seeing the results of open doors. How many terrorists, rapists, murderers, paediphiles etc etc are in…Feb 15, 20:00
    • Royston Rickard on The thickness of blood: “A ‘biological’ male: what other kind IS there?Feb 15, 19:57
    • gregor on For Mridul And Sandy: “Shadow of Ezra @ShadowofEzra: “Senator Lindsey Graham declares that Zelensky is the ally he has waited for his entire life.…Feb 15, 19:55
    • Lorna Campbell on The thickness of blood: “Indeed, Mark. I have met some who are exactly like that. As in all races and ethnicities, there are good…Feb 15, 19:53
    • Lorna Campbell on The thickness of blood: “Yes, I think that they would have been very personal. Wouldn’t be at all surprised and come back in July…Feb 15, 19:47
    • Lorna Campbell on The thickness of blood: “Absolutely agree. Most people don’t seem to grasp the sheer viciousness and spiteful reactions of the ‘trans’ identified men and…Feb 15, 19:43
  • A tall tale



↑ Top
164
0
Would love your thoughts, please comment.x
()
x