I find it interesting that in the US the wealthy do still see charitable giving as worthwhile, in a way that has - to some extent - been lost here. I found it rather depressing - and telling - that when Osborne tried to clamp down on some of the egregious tax reliefs for charitable giving in the "omnishambles budget" so many rich people complained that if they didn't get the tax relief they wouldn't give to charity. That seemed to me to be completely arse over tip. I wish he had held firm. People should give to charity because they want to not because it benefits them financially, particularly at the levels of wealth the complaining people had.
Don't mean to be funny, but a lot of charitable giving in the US is tax reduction based as well. Although, I do take your general point. IMO, in the US it is socially acceptable to make tonnes of money and brag about how successful you are, but equally socially unacceptable to have made it in life then not give back to your school, uni, etc etc etc. Here although it goes on, I don't think there is quite that same attitude or to same extent.
I'm generally in favour of tax relief for charitable giving. I just felt that the wailing we heard from very rich people at what seemed to me to be reasonable proposals to limit the total amount of tax relief someone could claim in one tax year was unseemly. And even more unseemly were the threats not to give to charity at all if the proposals went ahead. How charitable are you really if you're only going to do it to get a personal benefit? It was all very Pharasaical. Osborne should have held firm on that one, IMO.
I am not religious but enjoy looking around churches and cathedrals.
I was exploring a parish church at the weekend where I read a leaflet from the CoE recommending that 5% of post tax income should be given to charity, but also options of 2.5% and 10%.
Sounds reasonable to me. But I don't give anything like that.
Does anyone?
I aspire to 10pc but have probably only kept to it about half the time I've been earning (that's a very Anglican gap between aspiration and achievement). I hope to be able clear the arrears one day...
Hello from Emirates Flight 009. The inflight Wifi blocks politicalbetting.com with a warning about viewing "inappropriate content" on the flight. Fortunately using vanilla works.
Etiquette question for PBers. On checking in, the lady asked me: "Do you mind getting broken up, because I can upgrade one of you to First Class." I immediately put my wife forward and offered to look after our two small children for the seven hour flight at the back of the bus.
She accepted (and then texted me to say she was enjoying vintage Don Perignon.)
What would be appropriate recompense for my extraordinary selflessness?
Josias - Why I changed from REMAIN to LEAVE I welcomed joining the EEC in the 1970s as a student because of the logic of joining a bigger growing market which is what Economics taught me. In the late 1980s and early 1990s I leaned towards the view of Heseltine/Howe etc that the ERM etc was a good idea to making trade easier and it was a major reason why I was, by 1990, in favour of Thatcher being replaced. It was also a common view of the people at the top of the FTSE100 company I was in and also the mainstream view amongst most of the media. But then I watched the ERM debacle. I then observed the same people that pushed for the ERM start to speak about terrible economic destruction if we did not adopt the Euro and when that failed to happen I started to change my view about the EU project. We are now in a political project with stagnating economies that imposes costs on our businesses which our international competitors do not have.
Claps and cheers. My journey in a nutshell too (though far more eloquently expressed than I could).
If Mrs B is who I think she must be, she managed two very respectable second places against Redwood, with Labour a long way behind in third. In a constituency with Wokingham's demographic and economic makeup, that's a pretty formidable achievement in itself.
Yes I am who you think I am. Thanks for being nice about me coming second. I would have preferred to have come first though.
I've just read Jess Phillips article. I thought this gobby woman wouldn't be able to keep her mouth shut. It was the usual nasty, spiteful, class-warfare nonsense. For me, Labour have always been the real nasty party. I'm absolutely convinced this is a complete stitch up between The Guardian and BBC.
I may be naïve, but I find it pretty hard to believe that Dave and George would make the statements they have about morality and tax, and avoidance, if they were benefiting from the kinds of arrangements that they have so vocally criticised. I just don't think they are that venal or, frankly, stupid.
For me the real story from the Panama Papers is that it shines a light on a super wealthy elite who are more interested in ensuring money they can never hope to spend is hidden away than they are in seeing it used to help people who might benefit from it. The idea that there is no money left has now been killed. And the super rich may find they have to spend a little more in the future to keep their vast wealth sitting in places where no-one - including them - can ever get a hold of it. In the end, their greed will destroy them. Vast wealth inequality is not sustainable.
I've always assumed that places like Panama are for people who are systematically stripping the wealth of their country, or hiding vast earnings from their drugs empires, or facilitating payments for arms shipments, rather than trying to find a way to stop HMRC taking 45% as PAYE. But I may be naïve....
So which category does Cameron Senior fall in to?
A reverse Mark Thatcher ;p
Greedy grasping no morals Tory SNP category
Fixed it for you.....
Problem is it is clearly the Tories that have the repetitional problem with greed and favouring the wealthy. It is their achilles heal - however hard they try to spin it something like Panama always pops up to reinforce the stereotype
Comments
https://twitter.com/paddypower/status/717665085938921472
Sigh.
I guess I should create PB.com <-> IRC bridge.
(But not today.)
She accepted (and then texted me to say she was enjoying vintage Don Perignon.)
What would be appropriate recompense for my extraordinary selflessness?