Tendring Topics.....on Line
The
Mote in your neighbour’s eye…….
A month or so ago, when the back-boiler in my
kitchen that serves my hot water supply and central heating systems had its
annual service, I had quite a shock. I
was told by the heating engineer that it had sprung a leak and needed to be
replaced urgently. My dismay was
compounded by the fact that its manufacturer no longer makes back-boilers. I
would need to have a new modern boiler installed in quite a different position!
This, I thought,
is going to be an expensive job – and so it proved to be. It took two heating engineers two full days
to remove the old boiler and complete the installation of the new one (and they
really did give me two days service – taking only half an hour or so for lunch,
and drinking while working the mid-morning and mid-afternoon coffee that I made
them) In addition, another operative was
called in to arrange the new boiler’s ventilation by means of a pipe and fitting
taken through the roof, and there were several hours work by an electrician who
provided and tested the boiler’s electronic controls. Then of course there was the cost of the
boiler itself!
Yes, it was
expensive. Fortunately though I have an
emergency fund saved for just such a crisis (though I wouldn’t want too many of
them!) and I wrote out my cheque in payment without resentment at the cost of
the work. I had no doubt that I had
received value for money. Furthermore,
the efficiency of the new boiler would complement my solar water heating system
to reduce my energy bills still further.
What I did resent though was the £500 VAT
charge that the Heating Engineering firm had to add to my bill and hand over to
the government. I never complain about
my regular income tax payments because I appreciate the public services
(depleted though they are nowadays!) that I receive for them, and because I
realize that I am fortunate in having an income large enough to be liable for
income tax. I do object though to having to pay a considerable sum to the government
for the privilege of carrying out the essential maintenance of my own home!
I remember
Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher explaining unctuously that the great thing
about VAT (unlike income tax!) was that you could choose not to pay it. That may
well be the case for those considering the purchase of diamond ear-rings or
designer ball-gowns, or having a new garage built to accommodate the second
car. There’s precious little choice
though about mending a leaky roof, keeping a car that you need for work, on the
road or – in my case – replacing a leaking boiler!
My resentment
at VAT payments was reignited last week when Treasury Minister David Gauke complained
about the way in which, so he claimed, tax liability was being regularly
avoided by the payment of small bills in
cash. He claimed that jobbing builders, gardeners, domestic cleaners, window
cleaners and the like would offer substantial discounts for cash in hand to avoid paying tax. The
resulting loss to the Treasury was comparable with the loss resulting from the
tax avoidance by the wealthy that had recently been publicised.
Much of the
news media seems to have assumed that David Gauke was referring to avoidance of
VAT. I find that difficult to
believe. Surely he must be aware that only
quite large firms are required to be registered for VAT (the proprietor of the
garage where I used to have my car serviced took some pride in the fact that he
managed to keep his turnover below the level of liability) and I can’t believe
that many, if any, jobbing gardeners, odd-job-men, window clearers and general
cleaners need to be VAT registered.
What probably does happen is that these small
self-employed entrepreneurs pocket unrecorded the fruits of their labours and
neglect to declare them to the Inland Revenue. Probably quite a few of them
would remain below the level of liability for income tax anyway! I’d be very
surprised if many formally offer a discount for cash. They simply agree to do a job at a lower rate
than they would were they expecting part of their earnings to be skimmed off by
the government. They work on the
principle that a bird in the hand is
worth two in the bush and some of them may not even have a bank
account.
It isn’t all
that long ago that all transactions of ‘working class’ people were carried out
in cash or with postal orders. As a
lower ranking local government officer I was paid in cash (and paid all
my bills in cash) until I came to Clacton in
1956 and opened an account with the Co-op Bank.
It is probable
that the government does lose a small amount of revenue through the unrecorded
cash receipts of some of these self-employed workers. I am quite sure though that it bears no
comparison whatsoever with the tax avoidance of the super-wealthy and of Britain ’s and
the world’s giant corporations, though Mr Gauke and his well-heeled friends and
colleagues may prefer to think otherwise.
I suggest that
they take the advice in Chapter 7 of St. Matthew’s Gospel, which can be loosely
paraphrased as, ‘Don’t worry too much about the speck of dust in your neighbour’s eye
until you have got rid of that enormous log obscuring your own vision!’
A Prophetic
Email
The news that
Britain had slipped even further into recession than had been forecast (due, according to our Chancellor, to the
weather, and to our all having taken our eyes off the ball, our shoulders away from
the wheel and our noses from the grindstone for a whole working day to celebrate the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee!), and David
Cameron’s subsequent public affirmation that the government would not change
its economic policy, reminded me of a prophetic email that I had received from
a regular blog reader a month or so earlier.
I really feel that George Osborne’s and
David Cameron’s financial strategy is now in ribbons, don’t you? The country’s
debt burden is growing as tax receipts go down and benefit payments rise. The Governor of the Bank of England
The Bank of
Cameron was right in one respect – about the
problem of a ‘benefit culture’. .It takes some of the sting out of poverty and
unemployment. If the victims of the
government’s policies were actually starving and their families were actually
out on the streets, I have little doubt that we would see demos and riots that
would make those in Egypt and Greece seem like Sunday-school picnics! As it is I suspect that most of those
affected didn’t even bother to vote in the last election, and probably won’t bother to vote in the next one either!
‘Which
came first - The chicken or the egg?’
This ancient
conundrum comes to my mind when I think of the government’s ineffectual efforts
to solve our national economic problems.
To deal with youth unemployment they make every effort to make
unemployed young people employable by learning new skills; and to find employment
by learning how best to apply for a job and to behave at a job interview. These skills are not much use while there is
little demand for either new or old skills, and a score of applicants for every
job that is available.
One reason for the shortage
of jobs is that the banks, despite all the financial support they have been
given are reluctant to lend money to entrepreneurs who would like to set up a
new business or expand an existing one. The banks’ reluctance to lend is
because they are by no means certain that the new or expanded businesses would
attract enough customers to service and ultimately repay the loans.
The remedy is
to make sure that the potential customers, the general public, have enough
money for them to buy the services or manufactured products that those new or
expanded enterprises would offer. But
the government’s austerity programme, coupled with a taxation system (VAT and
customs duty increases and reduction of the highest rate of income tax) that
penalises ‘ordinary’ people at the expense of the super-wealthy, has precisely
the opposite effect.
Another blog
reader (I really do read and appreciate readers' comments!) reminds me of my pie-in-the-sky dream of a UK
government funded largely by a compulsory annual ‘citizenship
membership subscription’ consisting of 20
percent of the gross annual income of every adult citizen from the very poorest
to the most wealthy. This could, at a
stroke, be a means of redistributing our national income without impoverishing anybody, and would put money into the
pockets of those who would spend it to revive our moribund economy.
One day that pie-in-the-sky may be seen as the only
diet capable of restoring our nation to health. The chances of my seeing that day dawn are pretty slim - but there's no harm in hoping!
Lord of the ‘Olympic’ Rings!
That, I think,
certainly describes Danny Boyle, creator and director of the wonderful
Opening Ceremony of the 2012 Olympics.
It was watched and appreciated world-wide. Here is an email that I received early on the morning of Saturday 28th July from a friend in Zittau, in what is to us the most remote part of Germany .
Dear Ernest,
Did you watch TV yesterday evening? Julia and I watched
the opening performance of the Olympic Games in London
Yours Volker and Julia
My friend is a Cultural Senator of the Federal State of Saxony
So too, was
the idea of visiting Buckingham
Palace
Other
highlights of the evening for me were the splendid celebration of the NHS, one
of the achievements of the immediate post-war years that hasn’t – yet – been totally
destroyed by the forces of Mammon, and that wonderful soprano solo voice
singing Blake’s Jerusalem
Bring me my bow of burning gold.
Bring me my arrows of desire.
Bring me my sword, O clouds unfold,
Bring me my chariot of fire!
I shall not cease from mental fight,
Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand,
Till I have built Jerusalem
In England
It is a
wake-up call that the disheartened, disillusioned and dispirited Britain of today badly
needs.
No comments:
Post a Comment