2013/05/12 22:37
I must have overlooked this very interesting blog post by The Telegraph's Thomas Pascoe (probably because the Scottish holidays had already started at the time). He's arguing that Gordon Brown wasn't an innumerate idiot when he sold most of the UK's gold reserves at a ridiculously low price, as most people had assumed. What he really did was trying to...
2013/05/10 20:18
I'm pleased to be able to introduce the newest member of our family: Rosie Hamster. We bought her on a farm in the Coatbridge area today. She was born on 12th April 2013 (so she'll be one month old on Sunday), and she seems to be really lively and not shy at all. So far she's just exploring her cage,...
2013/05/24 22:53
Companies have lots of advantages compared to real people. Amongst other things, they generally only pay taxes on their profits, not on their income (revenue), and lots of companies are registered for VAT, which means they don’t pay any VAT on what they buy.
Companies have these advantages to encourage investment and promote growth.
However, one might argue that this should apply to individuals, too.
Imagine if every individual automatically owned a “personal” company (i.e., at birth I would have been made sole director of Thomas Widmann Ltd.), and all their work took place through their company (it would be illegal for companies to employ people rather than other companies). In this scenario, everybody would need to decide when to take profits out of their personal company instead of investing the money (which would be tax-free).
With the move away from direct employment towards self-employment, this is increasingly becoming a reality for a large number of people, so perhaps it would be worthwhile making this approach universal.
After this change, it would be possible to completely abolish income tax, because employment would then always an issue between two companies, and all that would be needed would be company taxation and taxes on withdrawing profits. I guess many people would let their personal companies own their house and their car and let their personal company provide free meals to its employee in order to minimise tax and VAT, but that would be a good thing as it would just be levelling out the playing field (which is currently distorted in favour of companies and rich people).
At the moment, most rich people have companies (or charities) to lower their tax bill, so giving everybody a VAT-registered company would basically just give normal people the benefits that the rich currently enjoy.
2013/05/12 21:44
I made a wee video starring Rosie yesterday: (The music is of course Drink, Drink Yer Zider Up by The Wurzels.)
2013/05/11 11:09
It's completely clear that David Cameron's plans to renegotiate the EU membership terms is just a plot to halt the progress of UKIP. He thought that promising a referendum in five years' time would make UKIP's voters come back to the Conservatives in time for the next general election. However, it's now increasingly clear that voters are drifting towards UKIP...
2013/05/02 17:40
I'm really excited by the upcoming release of Google Glass. Until now, there's been an inherent conflict in smartphone design between creating a huge screen and making the device small enough that you can be bothered carrying it around at...
2013/04/28 10:43
After the introduction of the euro, the German politicians got worried that Germany wasn't the best place to run a business any more (the "Standort Deutschland" discussion). As a result of this, salaries and other labour costs were lowered. This...
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