No need to alter MP perks.
Posted by: u5227470736789439 on 11 May 2009
It seems that a minority of MPs have managed modest or very modest claims against costs, which are entirely unobjectionable.
I would argue that MPs have given themselves enough rope to hang themselves with the current self-enacted system.
This is a very good thing as it has allowed some of them to make proper fools of themselves, and thus demonstrate their true colours in a way their dissembling mouths do not adequately seem to do.
This is a very useful information and should be used in helping memebrs of the electorate form a judgement about whom they choose to vote for at the next election.
What is splendid is that the Daily Telegraph has had the bravery to publish these details, and thus once again demonstrating that the real guardians of democracy in the UK are not the elected Memebers of Parliament, but the free press.
What we need is not a change in the rules, but to leave this self hanging rope there so that the free press can trap greedy pigs with their snouts in the trough!
Discuss, ... if you like!
ATB from George
PS: I am inclined to think that a greater turn out at the election would be likely if there were one more line than traditionally on Ballot Papers. One which read
"None of the above."
If the "None of the aboves" formed the largest single block of votes than all the candidates selected by their sponsering parties would be rejected and a new election of a different set of candidates should be sprung following deselection of the existing crew and selection of a new collection more worth voting for.
Thus there would be no reason why people like Gordon Brown should ever darken the gangway of the House Of Commons again, which I would consider to be a very good thing ...
I would argue that MPs have given themselves enough rope to hang themselves with the current self-enacted system.
This is a very good thing as it has allowed some of them to make proper fools of themselves, and thus demonstrate their true colours in a way their dissembling mouths do not adequately seem to do.
This is a very useful information and should be used in helping memebrs of the electorate form a judgement about whom they choose to vote for at the next election.
What is splendid is that the Daily Telegraph has had the bravery to publish these details, and thus once again demonstrating that the real guardians of democracy in the UK are not the elected Memebers of Parliament, but the free press.
What we need is not a change in the rules, but to leave this self hanging rope there so that the free press can trap greedy pigs with their snouts in the trough!
Discuss, ... if you like!
ATB from George
PS: I am inclined to think that a greater turn out at the election would be likely if there were one more line than traditionally on Ballot Papers. One which read
"None of the above."
If the "None of the aboves" formed the largest single block of votes than all the candidates selected by their sponsering parties would be rejected and a new election of a different set of candidates should be sprung following deselection of the existing crew and selection of a new collection more worth voting for.
Thus there would be no reason why people like Gordon Brown should ever darken the gangway of the House Of Commons again, which I would consider to be a very good thing ...
That's not outsourcing, but duplication.
Said like an MP claiming dodgy expenses Don.
quote:It was honest. I'm surprised you didn't realise.
Said like an MP claiming dodgy expenses Don.
THOSE MPS' TAX BREAKS IN FULL …
The Green Book
THE furore over MPs’ expenses has revealed how much preferential treatment members of parliament receive compared to other high earners. Slipped quietly into the Income Tax (Earnings & Pensions) Act 2003 by the then chancellor, one G Brown, were a number of exemptions for “special kinds of employee”.
Ranked only after ministers of religion and ahead of the armed forces, oil workers or miners came “MPs, government ministers”. Their exemptions covered more than any other group – not just overnight expenses, but also travel, transport, subsistence and even termination without extreme prejudice from their enviable existence.
The second home free exemption clause 292 states:
Overnight expenses allowances of MPs
(1) No liability to income tax arises in respect of an overnight expenses allowance paid to a Member of the House of Commons in accordance with a resolution of that House.
(2) “Overnight expenses allowance” means an allowance expressed to be in respect of additional expenses necessarily incurred by the Member in staying overnight away from the Member’s only or main residence, for the purpose of performing parliamentary duties — (a) in the London area, as defined in such a resolution, or (b) in the Member’s constituency.
Whole rivers of exempt income
Just what “necessarily” means has been severely challenged by the receipts presented and paid for gardens, tennis courts and light bulbs.
Like much of the wonderful tax-free world inhabited by MPs, their exemptions flow from statutory provisions they have voted through for themselves, rather than dispensations available to the taxpayer only in rare instances with the grudging agreement of the taxman. The effect has been to create for MPs whole rivers of exempt income denied to their constituents.
MPs have their very own tax office – Public Department 1 in Cardiff – which deals with sensitive tax files. The word among tax accountants is that the inspectors there, like officials in the Commons’ discredited Fees Office, know better than to raise too many questions. What’s good enough for the Fees Office is likely to be OK in Cardiff. The MP cheat’s Bible is the “Green Book” on salaries, allowances and pensions rules.
MPs, like other celebrity clients of PD1, alone do not now have to submit their tax returns online in order to benefit from the 31 January deadline. Too insecure! They can submit their returns non-electronically in January, whereas other taxpayers must do so by October. Many MPs have the benefit of top tax advice when it comes to filing their returns and weaving their way through the loopholes.
The Green Book rules
And when home secretary Jacqui Smith and other expense abusers dwell on the likelihood that next year they will pay the price at the ballot box for their bath plugs and pet food, they can be comforted by the fact that the first £30,000 of the golden goodbye they automatically receive on being ejected from the Westminster gravy train will be tax-free – even though it is a contractual benefit. This is 50-100 percent of their last salary – now £63,000 – plus “winding-up payments” including bonuses to family members they employ. Mere mortals have to rely on such payments being discretionary if they are to get that £30,000 tax break.
HM Revenue & Customs insists that the test for all employees is the same – ie whether a benefit is received “wholly, exclusively and necessarily” in the course of employment. On that basis it is hard to see how many of the tax-free items claimed, particularly for their supposed second homes, qualify for MPs, even if they were accepted by the Fees Office. But it is Green Book rules.
A basic rule for the taxman is to avoid “duality of purpose”. The claim must be for an item which is either business or personal, not both. The former is allowable, the latter not. Yet an MP can go shopping for food at the local supermarket, whereas any other employee usually cannot. The normal rule is that you eat to live, not eat to work, so food is normally not tax-deductible. But not in the Green Book rules.
Glitter toilet seats
Even so much of what has emerged from MPs’ receipts would be hard to justify as not being personal benefit – “bad taste” Artex ceilings, pergolas, mock-Tudor beams, glitter toilet seats, pouffes, not to mention porn films. Try claiming any of those from your local tax inspector and see what happens.
MPs have always, uniquely for employees, enjoyed a tax break on second homes because it was accepted that they were necessary for those who represented constituencies well away from London. An important point in the debate about this and much else regarding MPs is that the tax rules and the Green Book rules for allowances are mutually exclusive. So what counts as a second home for Green Book purposes can count as a main home for capital gains tax and thus not be taxable – as Hazel Blears profitably exploited. In the same way, the rules for UK residence when it comes to being a peer are very different from those set down by the taxman – as Lord Michael Ashcroft could no doubt explain.
But MPs are not unique in being able to avoid capital gains tax on second homes. The situation is complex but there are also allowances available to both MPs and property dealers, when not one and the same, to avoid capital gains tax based on the fact that an individual can always nominate or elect any home at any time to be their main or primary residence and so avoid capital gains tax on its sale. All they have to prove is that they live or did live there. This election can also be done within two years of purchase. And a three-year window of similar opportunity can be achieved by moving into the second home for a month and then designating it as the primary residence. The only problem is if the home has been let, as that can complicate the tax-free nature of any gain. Otherwise gains tax can be mitigated by apportioning it to just the time a property was not the primary residence.
A licence to steal
All this is available to any taxpayer, not just MPs. But it seems that some of them – Blears, James Purnell and Geoff Hoon – have gamed the system to their advantage and to HMRC’s disadvantage. But then why not, when the property bubble, especially in London, meant that the taxpayer could pay for MPs to play and walk away with a tax-free profit as the values of their homes and flats soared thanks to their friend Gordon?
Since the 1970s the provision of accommodation as a benefit has been a chargeable item to executives. However, ministers have a get-out-of-tax card called security. If it is necessary to live in a secure building – because you are so loved by the voters or others on the receiving end of government policy – then that would not be taxable. This special case is believed to make the provision of “grace and favour” homes in reality a non-taxable benefit in kind, even if they are in theory chargeable to tax.
HMRC may well be excised by what the public sees understandably as abuse by MPs of their allowances. But tax experts have doubts that they will be able to get very far unless fraud can be proved. Hard if not impossible, given the vagueness of the Green Book rules – witness the decision not to prosecute Derek Conway despite what looked very much like fraud when done by a Social Security benefit claimant. The seeming blanket exemption provided by the 2003 act and earlier legislation means the Green Book rules apply. And they are a licence to steal.
I wish I had your touching faith in human nature 555, and I'm glad you appear to be so honest. I must be morally corrupt... 
As an ex-employer of a fairly sizeable workforce (I'm now thankfully retired) I discovered that when it came to expenses, most folk were keen to claim every little itty-bitty thing they thought they could get away with, largely on the back of being "Entitled" to it. I hasten to add a sizeable number of my staff were "professional", and on high salaries. And our best staff were more often than not the ones who exploited the expenses system the most.
Every so often something comes along to shake up the politicians and I've no problem with MPs being knocked down a peg or two - does them and the system good. However I don't consider all MPs to be crooks or corrupt as a result of the "Revelations", and if we're not careful we'll be throwing some babies out with the bathwater.
As an ex-employer of a fairly sizeable workforce (I'm now thankfully retired) I discovered that when it came to expenses, most folk were keen to claim every little itty-bitty thing they thought they could get away with, largely on the back of being "Entitled" to it. I hasten to add a sizeable number of my staff were "professional", and on high salaries. And our best staff were more often than not the ones who exploited the expenses system the most.
Every so often something comes along to shake up the politicians and I've no problem with MPs being knocked down a peg or two - does them and the system good. However I don't consider all MPs to be crooks or corrupt as a result of the "Revelations", and if we're not careful we'll be throwing some babies out with the bathwater.
quote:... depneds ...
Is that MP expenses code talk Don?
As Ice T would say - "If only MPs had 'fessed up!"
& the departing sleazy MPs get to say "I'm outta here like I stole something!"
What is your interest in the status quo Don?
& the departing sleazy MPs get to say "I'm outta here like I stole something!"
What is your interest in the status quo Don?