Budget

[The Natural Philosopher]

I've already proclaimed my attitude to tax: no tax but a consumption tax. No tax on income, on savings, on capital,on deat or on ownership. Only a tax on consumption, applied via duties and VAT.

And returned to the taxpayer to:-

(i) subsidise lower wage earners by offering a national pension to anyone who is actually a provable citizen of this country. (ii) free medical insurance, but privatise the NHS (iii) re nationalise or at least subsidize the three crucial de facto monopoly infrastructures - Railtrack,the National Grid and the Post Office. Roads are already essentially nationalized.

That would encoiurage thrift, savings and capital accumulation, and work, and discourage idleness, gross excessive consumption, and make believe work as a substitute for production.

And remove a huge burden of form filling from most small businesses and totally from sole traders, unless they need to register for VAT.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Yes.. so you could increase VAT and reduce duty, if you wanted to e.g.make private owners pay more. But releive stress on corporate juggernauts.

The VAT/duty scheme is an extremely flexible way to tailor taxation effects to achieve the result you want.

You tax things you want to reduce.

That's why you tax work. To encourage people to go on the dole. ;-)

[Rod]

Certainly where I live there are many varieties of mushroom in the local area. Some even safely edible. I think (but would have to verify my records) that I have now seen edible varieties in the wild in all twelve months of the year.

[dennis]

Not once you have covered all the fields in glass and put heating in them. It is quite possible to have local produce most of not all the year around if you can afford it.

The waste heat from a nuclear power station would make all year round salad easy to do.

Anyway have you noticed its always the people living where you can buy local stuff that think its a good idea.. they think stuff the 95% that live in cities and can't buy locally produced stuff. They soon complain when there are no buses or they can't get broadband or the ambulances take 34 minutes to get there but want us to suffer so they can feel good.

[The Medway Handyman]

Too right. My mate drowned in a bowl of muesli. He was pulled under by a strong current.............

[Andy Hall]

What was the raisin for that?

[Dave Plowman (News)]

No it's not. Controlled by the EU.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Is this going to turn into a cereal?

If so I can barley wait for the next episode.

[Andy Hall]

Existence yes/no is (almost), but not rates.

Practically, childrens' clothes are VAT free but technically they are zero rated.

[F]

They sold *our* gold. At rock bottom prices after they told the markets what they were about to do...

[geoff]

Shhh ... the bugger's already on LSD

or some other hallucigen

[geoff]

In message , ":Jerry:" writes

Or even the gold reserves that Brown sold off for some inexplicable reason (well, we do know, don't we kids) a few years ago - now worth three times the value then

[Tony Bryer]

If chancellors were as clever as some people think they should be, whoever held that post in 1980 should have sold off our gold when the price (in cash terms) was not very different to now, and we would have got 25+ years interest on the proceeds. And interest rates during a lot of that period were a lot higher than in recent times.

One has to ask why he rushed to sell off those 3G licences when he did .. if only he'd waited

[Andy Burns]

Didn't all the mobile companies make huge losses for the year or two after buying the 3G licences and threfore write-off the costs against tax, effectively clawing it back from the treasury?

[Bob Eager]

And the stuff costs an almond a leg.

[Brian Sharrock]

Close ..; but no cigar

In accordance with EU regulation/ Directives VAT _must_ be levied by member states with a portion of the 'take' being remitted to Brussels.

Furthermore; the EU - in furtherance of an ever closer Union- wishes to have VAT rates "harmonised" across the EU and has stipulated the bands and the rates at which they can be applied by member states. The end-goal of the EC is 'full-harmonisation' collectively the EU 'suffers' from 'Partial Harmonisation'

AIUI, member states have permission to vary the rates levied each within a narrow range.

The EU declares that certain items are EXEMPT from VAT, (mainly medical items. prosthetics etc...). all non-exempt goods and services should then 'Attract' the impost (no kidding, they actually use such language) at a low-medium-high rate of VAT.

The member state decides what category of items to assign to the bands.

The UK , according to its critics, 'cheats' by establishing a rate of ZERO percent as it's LOW band and bundles children's clothes, books, magazines, papers and food, This could change today/tomorrow at a stroke of the pen of Brown's Darling.

[:Jerry:]

That would be why Brown was prevented from *removing* VAT on domestic fuel (rather than just lowering it to 5pc) back in 1997 at his first budget, at the time it was made clear that such fuel could not be zero rated due to EU tax regulations.

[:Jerry:]

You're all bananas...

[The Natural Philosopher]

So talk to the EU. I dont think it is actually.

Duty certainly is not.

[:Jerry:]

Better still perhaps, get out!