They did what?
Under HMRC rules, expenses are taxed unless they are “wholly, exclusively and necessarily” incurred in the course of employment. MPs voted themselves a special tax break in the Income Tax Act 2003, which means they are exempt.
They deliberately excluded themselves from the tax system which they impose upon everyone else?
Grrr…..
Surely Richard Murphy and the Tax Justice Network are on the case.
Surely??
I have a much much more important point: that of Brown’s insistent muddling of the difference between “investment” and “spending”.
In the case of scools’n’ospitals, he has been spending and calling it investment. When it comes to this row, MPs are calling it “expenses” when it is actually – in many cases – “investment”.
If an MP “expenses” the cost of his smart new plasma telly, he ends up with the telly. That is wrong – as soon as you reclaim the money, it belongs to the taxpayer. When is anyone with any voice at all going to mention this basic accounting fact?
(And what Georges said. Murphy is conspicuously silent on this.)