But:
On Friday Viscount Eccles acknowledged that the £44,000 claim was more than it cost to run the home, but said the couple were entitled to the payments as they had “forgone income” they could have made by selling the flat.
This is the concept of opportunity costs. Good luck with getting that one across to the voting public in their current mood.
Eccles? He’ll be deaded if he tries that on!
So they want the money they would have got had they sold the flat, OK and having pocketed that, when they do sell it a few years time, who gets that money?
Oooh!! A politician beginning to understand opportunity costs! Excellent: so what are the opportunity costs of having money extracted from us in tax? What could we have done with it if it hadn’t been swiped from us?
I don;t really think they want to go down that route…
And Andrew K, unfortunately as I recall, Eccles usually did get away with the money – it was Bluebottle that always got shafted…