Txt tax would wipe out half UK deficit, claims union baron Railway union boss Bob Crow reckons putting a one-penny tax on text messaging would wipe out half the UK's deficit, demonstrating a rather optimistic approach to financial planning. The comment comes in an interview with The Guardian, and is followed by the assertion that if in charge, the good Mr Crow would "squeeze the rich …
Feed the birds... Twopence a bag...
He is mistaking communications with the railways. Communications across most of the country do not follow the rule of "On First Capital Connect nobody will hear you scream".
It is the railways where you can charge the customers anything they like and then some and then pack them like a sardine in a can and then ask them if they like it.
Communications are not exactly the same... Customers will promptly alter their means of communications to avoid costs and/or congestion. If you charge them for SMS they will move to IM, if you find a way to charge them for IM they will move to mail and so on as the mobile operators discovered once they started offering meaningful data tariffs. If you stack messages in a "carriage" for 1h in a siding for later processing they will simply switch to something else.
"Tuppence old hat now is it?"
I'd have said so, yes.
"Tuppence", "thruppence" and the like I only ever recall being used by my parents' generation to refer to old pre-decimal money (which even though I was only born five years after decimalisation, was totally alien to me, some weird and confusing relic of the past with esoteric coins, endless shillings, guineas, farthings and the like).
I can't recall it ever being used to refer to modern money.
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... the moron who thinks that striking every six months is a good way to drum up support for your cause.
"Here's a good one: How about a penny extra tax on travel tickets. Oh crap, they are expensive already.
Ok. Er lottery tickets. Nope.
Er how about loafs of bread. Great! Everyone needs bread.... and food. Sod it if we taxed food the deficit could be wiped out before christmas."
And that is how Bob Crow came to be lynched by a baying mob your honour....
Was it really necessary to demonstrate that unionists (and socialists or communists) do not have the slightest grasp of how economics work?
"Do we have a problem with excess spending? Just raise taxes, that will do." The problem with these people is, they collect and spend tax revenue as if it is not their own money. Oh, bugger!
"I think our current situation is largely down to the fact that economists do not have the slightest grasp of how economics work."
Nah, it's more a case of the fact that economics, being a discipline not based on any objective measure of reality, doesn't actually work in the first place.
Right, I'm off to do all my Xmas shopping down the 'ideal market'...
Correct me if I'm wrong but as far as I know the current situation was largely forseeable using well known ecomomics models. Mind you, there's not only one possible outcome although even with modest knowledge of economics it was pretty obvious that we were running into troubles.
Rather than clueless economists the problem was that as long as all profited no one could be bothered to change course.
Put me down for 10 of those please. While we are at it could you add:
Gordon & Alistair, the men who bankrupted Britain.
Gordon Brown, Arbitrary private pension destroyer.
Gordon Brown, Gold sell off Swindler.
Jesus, do any labour voters have any marbles.......................?
Personally, I think all labour politicians should all be put up against a wall and shot for crimes against the state. All except mandy - I want to bludgeon him to death with an extremely blunt spoon. Even that is too good for him.
Most gubberments (& economists) follow keynesian economics, which is known to be terribly flawed - they have always known it will go bang (or tits up, whatever you prefer) one day. Unfortunately that day is extremely close now.
Don't think anybody can predict what will happen, other than to say it is not going to be pretty. The yanks are mainly to blame for completely killing off the gold standard when they discovered they could not pay for the Vietnam war. A lot of other countries followed suit - since then its simply spiralled our of control. The Dollar is more than likely dead, as is the pound and the Euro.
Meantime China and India have been buying up all the physical gold and silver they can as they know the paper markets that represent the metals have at least 10 times more paper than the actuals. They also know that the gov't bonds and gilts of most countries in the west are not worth the paper they are printed on.
Europe meanwhile (which is perhaps the greatest abomination of all) allows corrupt and idiotic countries/governments like Greece to join where you could retire at 46 as well economically inferior countries from eastern Europe - a recipe for economic disaster given the UK's 'socialist' preoccupation.
Wow - how did an order for T shirts turn into that........ Guess I'm just really pissed having elected officials who are at best incompetent, secretive and self perpetuating.
As the economic crisis has proven is that economists/cpaitalists can't help but line their own pockets at the expense of the system and it's contributors. They demonstrate an a fearsome addiction to money and attempt to create alternate realities and economic models which almost always eventually collapse or are simply reset and allowed to collapse again once the current disaster is a long distant memory.
' They demonstrate an a (sic) fearsome addiction to money and attempt to create alternate realities and economic models which almost always eventually collapse or are simply reset and allowed to collapse again once the current disaster is a long distant memory...'
Oddly enough, that pretty much sums up the last Labour government.
The fact is that, averaged over time, boom and bust is still better than the no growth situation that extreme socialism ends up giving you. Look at East vs West Germany as a fantastic example. East Germany hardly grew at all (in GDP terms) in the time between WW2 and the reunification; whereas West Germany grew many times over, despite going through a number of recessions.
Recessions are painful and some people are hurt disproportionately large amounts, but capitalism even with its problems is significantly better than any alternatives people have yet come up with.
Remember also that the reason this time was so painful was because the bubble was ready to burst way back in 2002, but governments spent their way through the bubble in Keynesian terms, allowing it to grow even bigger before it actually burst. If we had taken our medicine in 2002 rather than idiots like Brown trying to spend our way through a recession in the belief that they had done away with boom and bust, we would have got rid of the debt bubble far earlier and far less painfully.
You must be thinking about using public spending to stimulate growth.
Keynesian theory is quite clear about how increased public spending is supported - taxation, bonds etc and recognises that there will inevitably be a rebalancing - this is because Keynes knew how to do sums.
All that was stimulated during the last decade was unsupported credit to all and sundry - not just governments. The failure point when the cost of default is greater than the value of new credit can be worked out with a pencil and a very small peice of paper.
Just a thought but maybe being able to do sums should be a requirement for bankers (and for Treasury ministers).
That's you, isn't it Maggie? Clever using the name Ted...great double-bluff.
Ted Treen: "The trouble with socialists...is that they inevitably run out of other people's money."
Maggie Thatcher: "The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money. "
I wonder if Maggie was thinking of a particular politician when she said: "Being powerful is like being a lady. If you have to tell people you are, you aren't."
Do tell.
http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/198468.Margaret_Thatcher
Labour may have their faults (and I'd be the first in line to see Tony hanged for war crimes and Gordon locked up for massive economic fraud) but if you think the Tories are here to benefit anyone posting on these forms you're suffering from clinical-grade delusions. If they could figure out a way to reintroduce a serf class for their Eton chums we'd all find ourselves working for gruel and shelter tomorrow.
I think it is not.
UK is one of those countries where it is considered unnatural for a technical manager to be paid less than some of their qualified staff. Prior to ir35, this "unnatural" situation was naturally resolved by the most qualified going on a contract. It is one of those UK specific outright sillies, but nobody found it "unnatural" to pay a _HIGHER_ rate to a contractor than the manager was getting while the same situation for permies was considered untolerable.
IR35 did very little in terms of getting tax revenue and I am inclined to think that this was the intention of its "sponsors" like Capita in the first place. It gave all highly qualified technical staff earning more than the GMs a choice - either lobotomise themselves into a managerial function or take a pay cut.
7 years ago UK was a country plenty of places where you could get four people to write you a whole embedded system or a single person to write you a whole networking stack in a couple of months before moving off to their next contract. There were FTSE500 companies whose existence and business model was based on that. UK had a competitive industry on the global scale.
7 years later there is nothing left from this. The few remaining manage 60 wannabies in a warmer climate who fail to deliver where two British contractors delivered with ease 7 years ago.
That is the real damage from IR35. It made the entire UK IT and Telecoms industry anticompetitive in the long term. From an overall cost vs benefits to the economy point of view I'd rather have people avoiding taxes till this day but still have an innovative and competitive industry as it creates a whole chain of jobs each and every one of which is taxed.
If VodaPhone were managing their taxes efficiently then I can't see why the HRMC had a claim for 12bn. Avoiding Tax and managing tax efficiently..... guess it depends on which side of the fence you are sitting on.
I take it you work Cadbury. Another great British institution managing their tax efficiently by moving to Switzerland.
I'm PAYE.
What's your status anonymous coward?
Because that would be classed as a default, which would mean we could not borrow more or it would be extremely expensive, at the same time anyone who holds guilts would see their holdings drop hugely in value. (Not just banks who would suffer, but it would devastate our pensions.) It would also massively devalue the pound causing huge inflation causing all sorts of social chaos.
Wait, is 'ooFie' Bob Crows Reg screen name??
I'm not sure if you meant that as a facetious comment. However, it appears that there are many that don't understand, so in just in case...
The government raises money through taxation, and then spends money on roads, rail, armed forces, schools, health. If they spend more than they raise, this is called a "deficit". The "national debt" is effectively all of the deficits that have been accrued by various governments over the years. (The amount of that is open to interpretation, but is well over £1 trillion and still climbing)
Like any other person or organisation, if you spend more than you receive in income, you have to draw on existing assets, or borrow the money. You borrow money from other people and in return, you pay them for their generosity by giving them a bit more money than you borrowed. This is called "interest".
If you decide that you don't want to pay interest, then you are going to find it difficult to get anyone to lend you money. And, if you decide not to repay the money that you have borrowed, you are classified as a bad risk and no-one will lend you money except at stupidly high rates of interest which reflects the level of risk that they are taking.
In serious cases, the lender will send the boys around to encourage you to make a payment. Whilst we would not see that at a government level, instead we see other countries refusing to supply us with goods.
That is a very good summary of the facts.
The two questions that lead on from this is
1) WTF do we do to pay off national debt - not just cut the annual deficeit.
2) How do we stop the politicos having short term polivy views (lets speand today and let whoever wins the next election pay of it) from over speanding again.
If texting came to be too expensive, most folk with PAYG smartphones would use their online minutes or (and I assume not just Orange do this) the £1 for a day of internet deals and use email, twitter and Facebook to chat to their friends instead of txting.
As for the rest, how does the extra tax work on my unlimited texts bundle?
Given operators are already managing to charge a base rate of, say, 10p for sending 140 bytes (or 160 7-bit chars) I think folks would probably pay it - they have so far! Bundles may mask it, but you're still paying huuuuuuge amounts compared to the data you're shifting, and that's assuming you fill every text message. SMS was an absolute gift to mobile providers.. And it's utterly mental when you consider it.
It's about £75 per MB on PAYG for SMS payloads...
when I first had SMS turned on on my phone (as you had to initially!) they were 2.4 pence each!
The greatest thing the operators did (for them, I may add) was convince people they get "free" texts or calls. They are not free, you paid for them upfront.
By the way, Bob crow earns over £100K a year, can we squeeze him till we see his pips?
actually. eeew. I don't want to see his pips....
or, in the Battlestar Galactica vernacular, "so say we all".
Can never understand the assumption that to be rich is somehow inherently illegitimate. Or that all people in authority/seniority must, through some magic, be at worst utterly rubbish or at best completely replaceable.
I've seen very clever people above me in the hierarchy, just as I have seen people take excellent, farsighted decisions that I do not believe I could've spotted in a million years. I've also watched some managers take tough, tough calls that were right and needed to be made but I'm not sure I'd have had the guts to follow through. These people earn their pay and often much more besides. To drive them away or take their rewards from them is not just stupid but I believe fundamentally unethical - people are far too grasping with other people's money.
Tax has the power of the law behind it and severe penalties for non-compliance. If you are going to essentially partially revoke someone's right to do what they want with their own possessions then you need to be damn sure its necessary and you're getting good value for money out of it.
Not to give the impression that I am some right wing anti-tax nut. I support paying for great schools, hospitals, a social safety net and so on. Hell, I even worked in the public sector for 4 years after graduation, partially in thanks for my 17 years of essentially free education. I just think many people lose sight of the fundamentals of how it is paid for.
Anyway, to close, Mr Churchill has some fine words:
Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.
"Can never understand the assumption that to be rich is somehow inherently illegitimate."
Illegitimate? I wouldn't call it illegitimate: More like self-congratulatory back-slapping.
Consider the following argument.
The usual method of getting rich is to:
a) Work hard;
b) Be intelligent;
c) Be born to wealth;
d) Steal money;
e) Get lucky,
Or some combination of the above.
Ignoring (c) and (d) let's concentrate on (a) and (b) (which are the more usual routes to money).
Whether or not an adult human has the ability to work hard and intelligently will largely depend on the interaction between their genetic inheritence and their environment, particularly during their formative years.
However, humans don't usually get to choose their own genes, nor their own parents, nor their early - and formative - environment.
Thus:
The desire and ability to work both hard and intelligently is something you don't get much of a choice about.
Given that reward in a capitalist society is generally gauged on how hard and intelligently one works it seems quite a small step to conclude that being rewarded for the desire and ability to work both hard and intelligently constitutes being rewarded for something you don't get a choice about, and conversely that not being rewarded for lacking the desire and ability to work both hard and intelligently constitutes not being rewarded for something you don't get a choice about.
In effect, then, what you're doing is rewarding those people who have more. Yes, I agree they worked harder for it, but then that's how they were conditioned to respond. They're following their programming, just like someone who's lazy.
Discuss.
There is already tax on texts. Or didn't he notice that his mobile network charge him 12p for the texts they advertise at 10p each?
How exactly would this be squeezing the rich till they pop? I see plenty of young neds texting on their mobiles so surely it would hit the poor harder since it isn't means tested.
If only there was an intelligence test to become leader of a trade union this guy would have failed at the first question.
You run a deficit budget so you have extra money to buy off the voters.
Failing that (i.e. losing the election) you can then crow about how you spent much more on the public (as if this is necessarily a good thing) than the new government, who are trying to sort out the mess of finances you've left.
A Budget surplus is not always a good thing. It tends to be quight damageing to the world, slows groth and is an extreamly insular way of working. I guess you have even less of a grasp.
Befor you point to Germany, they only got away with it because of the large defecit being run by other EU economys, which are effectivly the same economy.
To be fair, Gordon Brown said he had abolished "Boom and Bust", not the economic cycles. What he did say he would do is balance the budget (net or investment expenditure) over the economic cycle. However, he failed to define precisely what the economic cycle was (it kept moving), and we all saw what happened with "boom and bust".
He also engaged in a lot of off-book accounting with things like PFI and public sector pension liabilites. He also presided over a period of debt expansion in the private sector too, and the growth phase was undoubtedly boosted by this and increasing government expenditure. The clue over whether a crash, rather than an economic downturn is coming, is usually asset and commodity price bubbles. Recently it was property, but it's also happened with stocks & shares and even tulips. We aren't really on a commodity price boom - it loosk rather like the price for oil, food & minerals is a sustained one.
To be fair, Gordon Brown is hardly the first to egnage in such behaviour, but I think that he set new peace time records.
For those who want to know how governments reduce their debt - well, a well tried and trusted one is to use inflation to decrease the real value of government debt. A bit tough if you have savings and interest rates (especially after tax) are below inflation, but that happened all through the '70s & early '80s. It is, of course, happening now.
Governments run a deficit because it is economically responsible.
If there is inflation (while death and taxes may be guaranteed, inflation is pretty damn close) borrowing is worth more than saving. Borrowed money now takes proportionally less money to repay later when compared to the standard of living.
The whole "government" angle makes this complicated though. When you and I deficit spend, we have an ultimate term on our debt. We are going to retire, going to die, and sooner or later we want our debt settled. For the government, tomorrow never comes. The government expects to operate into perpetuity and therefore has little motivation to pay off debt in a pure financial perspective. As long as the debt collectors don't come around with a baseball bat, there isn't much reason to pay debt.
People argue for a surplus so that we can pay down the debt. But as I showed above, there is really little reason to, barring some kind of action from our creditors. Therefore a surplus would indicate that more money was seized from the people than was necessary. That's not a situation the government wants to be in, unless they enjoy being tryanical and dictatorly.
The final cog in the gears is that while inflation is something independent and random to you and I, it is not for the government. Our currency is fiat, it has value because the government says so. The government can cause inflation by printing more money. They can pay off debt very easily that way, at potentially great cost to the economy and the citizens.
All in all, there isn't much reason for the government NOT to spend in the deficit range, assuming they are "good" at it. The argument that I and many others who identify with me ideologically would make is that the government is poor at the whole process, from selecting things to spend on all the way through execution. Therefore we want to reduce government spending and tax intake allowing individuals to make better decisions and execute more efficiently.
>> the government expects to operate into perpetuity and therefore has little motivation to pay off debt in a pure financial perspective. As long as the debt collectors don't come around with a baseball bat, there isn't much reason to pay debt.
The government has the same incentive as everyone else not to run up too much debt; interest payments. As an individual the amount of debt you can sustain is tied to the amount of interest you can pay without compromising your ability to support yourself in other ways. Less interest = more to spend on yourself / others.
As a country, how much of our current spending is going to just paying off interest on our debts ? We cannot avoid that spending and no cuts, alone, will ever reduce it by a penny. The only way to reduce interest payments is to pay the debt off (or by generating hyper inflation to reduce the effective debt amount, but that is somewhat akin to chopping off your arm to lose weight...).
Of course, as an individual, you could get more and more credit cards and run up more credit (and therefore more interest) paying one off against the other but - at an individual level - this will eventually fail as you run of of creditors willing to lend to you. Also, the longer it goes on the worse the aftermath will be. Your offspring or relatives may even be hounded to pay off your debts after your demise.
At a governmental/country/world level this may work but only if *all* other countries are doing the same. However not all countries are. I wonder what China will do with all its stockpiled gold that we sold off cheap to feed our spending ? Keep lending it back to us ? Maybe, maybe not. I'd rather not risk finding out, personally.
I'm no economist, but surely a more responsible attitude is to use credit when you need it (or for convenience) but pay it off asap to avoid paying too much interest - balancing defecit and surplus over the long term. We might then, as a country, be able to afford to pay for the basics of a what modern society needs.
>I'm no economist, but surely a more responsible attitude is to use credit when you need it (or for convenience) but pay it off asap to avoid paying too much interest - balancing defecit and surplus over the long term. We might then, as a country, be able to afford to pay for the basics of a what modern society needs.
Yes and no. That kind of financial perspective for a business or government would be considered under leveraged. National debt is a little more like a mortgage on your home than a credit card bill. Sure, you don't want to be underwater on your mortgage, but you aren't going to buy a house with cash usually either.
It isn't the clearest topic in the world. "Too much" is bad, but no one is really sure where "too much" is and where that line is drawn changes based on a ton of variables.
Keep in mind too a lot of why China is where it is is because their government is artificially manipulating their current to keep the value low. This way the trade deficit will work in their favor. If other nations began manipulating their currency higher, China would stand lose out on a decent chunk of money in terms of debt.
Note too: I'm not that familiar with whats going on the in UK, I'm talking general principles here.
...is that they're rich.
The either rearrange things to take advantage of the inherent holes in tweaking the tax system yet again, or, if it's done properly, the fuck of abroad.
Even the greatest patriot gets pissed off with his country if the country picks on him enough.
I personally can’t reconcile why the more you earn the more tax in terms of a percentage one must pay. We all have a lifetime in which to make our fortune and why should those who do make their fortune subsidise those who don’t.
I would suggest one tax band for everyone earning over what would be an independently determined minimum wage to live. So just as a starting point if you earn under £20K you pay no tax if you earn over £20k you pay 30% on the amount over.
Completely fair and transparent.
Oh and by the way I am not rich and don’t have any political persuasion I choose sides on an issue by issue basis not an ideology, whilst we are at it I would do away with political parties and have the county run by the civil service. I would have accountants running the economy, I would have generals running the MoD, doctors running the NHS and so on...
So taxing the balls off a group of people that chose to live here is going to raise any revenue? The so called rich are not here as they have to be, they want to spend stupid money in places like Harrods on tat that costs 20000x more that it's worth. I'm all for that. That's money spent here which is money we can tax. Taxing them directly though is a pointless and doomed effort.
I use a pre pay mobile at the moment basically because I am a bit skint and don't want to be tied in a contract, I would mind paying an extra pence on the texts they are expensive enough on pre pay as it is thanks.
It would more likely end up taxing those worse of rather than those better off if you taxed pre pay.
I think Mr Crow could be on to something here, with his "squeeze the rich 'til the pips squeak"
May I suggest that Mr Crow starts with the London Tube drivers getting an average of £35,856 (http://www.mysalary.co.uk/average-salary/Tube_Driver_3207) They would seem to be rich to me and they always go on strike for more money.
He could then go on to normal train drivers getting an average of £35,036 (http://www.mysalary.co.uk/average-salary/Train_Driver_3139), also always going on strike for more money.
Whats that you say Bob Crow is the railway union boss ahh
Paris well she's rich and like a squeeze
If choo-choo drivers can get £35K salaries, good luck to them! If you think this is more than they deserve, perhaps you should become a train driver? It's a shit job with anti-social hours, shite management and even shittier working conditions. Who thinks £35K is anywhere near enough compensation to have Beardie or Boris as their boss?
If there was a decent trade union for readers of El Reg, maybe Comrade Bob Crow could get the likes of Mine's a pint as much as £35K/year? Or better...
How about the train companies are fined for every single train that is late and for every route that has high levels of overcrowding because the train companies are too greedy to invest in new carriages? The money raised can then be used to increase capacity and stop subsidising the god awful rail system!
There is an idea a bit closer to home and within his purview rather than making stupid suggestions for which he is singularly unqualified to have an intelligent opinion on!
"Well, your leaders misspent your hard-earned tax dollars, so you the people now have to tighten your belts and we gotta start paying this back."
How about the leaders who got us "in this mess" start taking pay cuts as a positive example they care? Oh wait, silly me I wasn't thinking straight, they don't care about us, just how they can manipulate us to do their bidding and manipulate finances to make themselves rich.
If you look at the penetration and usage of SMS from a demographic perspective then you will find that the “lower” classes would be hit far far harder than the rich which his intended target.
Those on lower incomes are “typically” more likely to be on PAYG contracts so may get hit even further percentagewise compared to all you can eat SMS packages.
So as a strategy it would seem as appropriate as some of his other policies.
FAIL
...are enough to tell you that whatever follows is unworkable.
At least this time when he's told he's an idiot he won't have an excuse to strike.
Not that he usually needs much of one. Sacking staff for excessive drinking during working hours while in care of safety critical equipment, didn't deter that utter moron.
Someone proposed an email tax a few years ago. The idea never caught on because to collect it you would have to stop people tunneling an email protocol inside an opaque one from the outside of which you can't detect what is going on inside it. As with almost all tax proposals these are taxes on those with the least ability to disguise their real behaviour.
So so many of you seem to be economists. Or your just talking bolooolx.
The problem with capitalists is, well, everything! That's why we are in this mess, kn b head bankers rolling bad debts into "packages" with 'good' debts and selling on to each other, with no way of tracing it.
There are some really scummy responses here, proud eh?
"knob head bankers" would actually be Actuaries, not bankers.
And they didn't roll bad debts into packages with good debts, they sliced bad debts up into smaller packages, creating AAA packages from essentially bad debts.
And the actuary who came up with the original calculation, that a large part of the world-wide bond market was based on, actually warned everyone that his calculation had an inherent flaw back in the late 1990's - but he was largely ignored.
And if you think that taxing people into the stone age is fine and dandy, thats great for you, but frankly i'm sick and tired of being continuously targetted as an easy mark to strip more money from - single, home owner, drive a sports car and love a drink or 10.
A better solution to the deficit problem would be to remove the legal protection unionized staff enjoy currently. Without the threat of strike action public sector workers would be forced to accept reasonable pensions (the current unfunded liability of which is actually higher than the current deficit) and would result in huge cost savings elsewhere such as in the tube network where £35k a year a tube drivers could be replaced by automation.
Also get rid of all the QUANGOs that contain the word “council” in their name such as the Arts, Milk & Cheese etc.
Bob 'Tax the rich!' Crow earned £133,183 in 2009
The trouble with socialists is they seem unable to spot when someone is taking the p***
The trouble with capitalists is they seem unable to know when to stop.
The trouble with economists is they believe their latest model is complete.
The trouble with IT guys is they know it all.
Apparently barons are only bad news if they don't inherit the title or something like that.
Its a silly idea from a union leader -- even if it did raise tons of money the govt would just find plenty of deserving causes to use it on. But whatever he is, whatever he say, he's not a "baron" lording over the rest of us. Those people are found elsewhere (in govt'......no less).
@Whomever
Why would government need to borrow money from whomever at intrest when it has the right to make law, collect taxes and produce money.. in fact they kind of do the last one now, but they are called government bonds and they are simply a promise to pay but are still perfectly legal, because really that is all money is..
So why would we continue to pay interest to private banks for money they didnt really put into the system when our governments could simply produce the money interest free?
Have you ever wondered by your local bank was called a branch?
Also look up fiat currency and fractional reserve banking.
Bob Crow can just f**k off - hopefully sooner rather than later. he has already demonstrated
a total lack of knowledge of his chosen industry - along with a lack of awareness of his end affected customer base....and now he thinks he can make some form of comment , glib that it is, about technology and UK national deficits.
the idiot.
Just a thought, but this may not be the best forum to lump IT and Consultants in amongst the problems. Many of the people around here work in those sectors...
Oh hang on, public sector IT spending you mean? In that case you may have a point. Those guys do rather take the whole packet of chocolate hobnobs...
...any time the ArchIdiot of Canterbury opens his mouth on a political issue. Who? What? Why?
Bob Crow, by all means have an opinion, but you're nothing to do with tax avoidance legislation and you shouldn't be advocating taxing everyone who sends a text message. I'm not avoiding tax; I'm paying my taxes. Why should I be taxed more?
Don't we already pay VAT on text messages as part of our phone bills? Wouldn't that be like taxing a tax? Is that even legal?
Unfortunately it's already been done.
Petrol & Diesel have a hefty excise duty charged;- and VAT is charged on that excise duty.
I'm sure there are bound to be other examples.
Booze? Baccy?
Gubmints AND Revenuers seem to forget that it's OUR money - it is NOT a pot into which they can dip whenever the whim takes them and for whatever they want.
If only there were some effective way we could remind them sharply of this point.
How typical, increase the price and down would go texts, people would just go to calls which are often free to regular persons, emails, and so on. The thinking is the same as railway philosophy has been after losses on railways, put the price up, they still have not realized that people will then just avoid that thing. See for example the post, up the price, down the letters.
To really reduce taxes one has to reduce costs.
The Labour cock ups and philosophy and always spend what you have not got and give that to your mates has left the UK in the merde again, phucked up our military from which it frankly cannot recover.
How about a levy on unionists and labour backers. This is an easy plan, as people leave the group raise the cost / tax to cover the lost revenue. I do wonder how long before these twits cotton on to the mauvais philosophy.
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