Tuesday, December 17, 2013

Dreams of Level Playing Fields

Boris Johnson has a piece in the British Telegraph in which he claims that we should be ‘humbly thanking the super-rich, not bashing them’. The rich do pay a high percentage of the treasury’s total tax share. The problem with Boris’ logic, however, is that it ignores one important fact: the poor pay a higher tax rate than the rich. According to recent analysis by the Office for National Statistics, the least well off households pay 36.6 per cent of their income in tax compared to 35.5 per cent paid by the wealthiest. Poor Tend to Carry tax burden Richard Murphy a rare wise man on thi earth boris johnson and michael meacher both want the tax returns of the wealthy published but not for the same reasons



When two words will do This is from a headline in the FT this morning:   There are occasions when a two word analysis will do. This is one of them. Callous bastard. Not very parliamentary, I know. But totally appropriate.