Dirty Cash

While billionaire Philip Green flies dozens of millionaire celebrities First Class to the Caribbean to celebrate his 60th birthday in style, here in the UK we are just days away from the country’s new financial budget being announced.

I realise this is a blog start guaranteed to turn you off quicker than a hormonal teenage male watching TV’s Embarrassing Bodies only to find it’s a special devoted to the cast of Loose Women. But, as always, it could be worse. A special on Anne Widdecombe anyone?

Perhaps I should have started this blog with an attention grabbing sentence like “This week I thought I’d discuss Aristotle’s conception of metaphysics” or maybe “Here’s Sean Penn with thoughts on his struggle to learn the alphabet”. But I have no confidence in my knowledge of philosophers or indeed Sean Penn’s ability to write .

So, the Budget it is. Money’s important.

For those reading this from outside the UK I should explain that “the Budget” is the Brits’ annual chance to complain together while our Government tells us the new ways it will rip us off over the next few years. Or, as they put it, “help us plan for our future”.

How important is it? Well there’s no need to worry about it costing you money unless you happen to be male or female, alive, and aged between embryo and one hundred and seventy nine. So relax. We’re all in this together, unless you work for Barclays bank or can afford a clever accountant who’s not already in jail.

I cannot object to the tax on cigarettes going up each year as anyone addicted to nicotine deserves all they get. Likewise it’s a bit difficult to object when tax on alcohol or petrol increases as we should be cutting back anyway. But as the search for new government income goes on, the year they introduce a tax on chocolate I’m leaving the country.

Trouble is we’re all so broke we’re looking for cleverer ways of avoiding taxes like never before but, like a one legged farmer, we’re falling in the shit. Our local retired cab driver - let’s keep him anonymous and call him Timmy even though his name is Tony - has been living the life of Reilly after his mum left him the house they lived in along with a substantial trust fund. The problem for Timmy is that his lawyer’s fees have now all but wiped out the fund and he can’t sell the house to move somewhere smaller as his mum’s will states that the proceeds have to go to his kids. He’s stuck in a house he doesn’t want, with no income. Great tax dodge, eh?

Then there’s another friend called Annie, (though her real name is......oh, never mind) whose accountant talked her in to a complicated scheme where she didn’t have to declare income on a property she owns and rents out. Now she wants to sell it, she can’t as, officially, it doesn’t exist. Another pal got a Portuguese holiday home in her divorce, registered to an overseas company to avoid stamp duty. It costs her a fortune in accountants and she can’t sell as she’ll have to pay prohibitive corporation tax.

As soon as someone offers to save us money we seem to jump in, head first and without hesitation, and hand over our life savings. Yet when someone asks us for a small donation to charity we make ourselves self important and ask what it’s for, what percentage is taken off for administration, etc, before handing over our ten pence. It seems the only charity we really want to believe in isn’t UNICEF or the RSPCA, but SCAMB - Saving Cash And My Behind.

This week several celebrities were exposed as having greedily invested with a conman who “guaranteed them” riches. No other person in the world could give them the return that he promised so, instead of asking questions, they simply threw thousands of pounds at him. He gave them back some money every month as “interest” to encourage them to invest more and then disappeared with their millions. This week he started a prison term. Serves him, and the investors, right.

Greed isn’t good so, I guess I’m asking the Chancellor to be wise in his budget this week and make us believe we don’t need to be sneakier than a career conman to pay what’s fair. Make it worthwhile for us to work. Get the charlatans at Barclays, Goldman Sachs and other banks to donate several million of their own ill gotten gains to worthwhile projects. Stop making us pay tax on savings. We’ve already been taxed on the money as we earned it. And stop taxing older people on their pensions.

Let me bring it back to earth. If all else fails as you prepare you budget this year Mr Osborne, just keep it simple. No tax on chocolate, and give generous tax breaks to anyone with the initials PC.

I could live with that.