A London barrister plans to spend up to £750,000 on the restoration of a historic Sussex windmill.
Jolyon Maugham and his wife Claire bought the Grade II* listed Jack windmill at Clayton for £1.1 million last year and have submitted plans to the South Downs National Park Authority for a “massive” restoration project.
£2 million to piss away on a vanity project?
Isn’t this something that MOAR TAX would solve?
Physician, heal thyself:
http://labourlist.org/2016/05/welfare-for-the-wealthy-lets-focus-tax-relief-away-from-the-1-per-cent/
I believe the Treasury accepts donations.
P.S. The name ‘Jolyon’ even out-Jeremies ‘Jeremy’. Can anyone come up with a better one for a lefty? Rollo? Tristram? Isolde?
Will it suddenly become Dusty Chambers?
Nobody should be paying more tax. Even people that spend their money on projects we don’t approve of should just be left to spend it and enrich the economy they way it should be enriched.
Everyone who pays tax should pay less tax.
Anybody named ‘Jolyon’ should be paying the Twat Tax.
I read a whole article about Corbyn’s wide-ranging support, leaving the author’s name to the end as a punchline, just because… well… I just knew it had to be something achingly posh.
I wasn’t disappointed.
“Crispin”
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/the-jeremy-corbyn-story-that-nobody-wanted-to-publish-a6848651.html
I don’t know if you’ve caught it but there’s a whole series with people doing this and in almost every case it’s a disaster… because of the regulators.
Cynic – There is a fantastic range of talented people who will perform or speak for Jeremy, including Charlotte Church, Michael Rosen, Brian Eno, Ken Loach, Billy Bragg, Mark Steel, Jeremy Hardy, Francesca Martinez, Mark Serwotka, Shappi Khorsandi, Arthur Smith, Patrick Monahan, Janey Godley and many more.
I haven’t been this excited since Red Wedge!
“I don’t know if you’ve caught it but there’s a whole series with people doing this and in almost every case it’s a disaster… because of the regulators.”
Good, the more statists fall foul of the state the better.
Surely the parents of someone called Jolyon should be paying the Twat Tax.
Rupert, Rudolph, Ptolemy, Obama, oops sorry, Evelyn, Hilary, Seleucus, Agamemnon, Xerxes
Why do barristers like him earn so much money? Is his knowledge really that valuable, or is there a ‘brand’ thing going on?
Where’s the proof that he earns that money? All you know is that he is paid that money.
@Oblong
Having been in conference with a number of tax barristers I would say that they seem to have incredible memories and incredible powers of analysis. They don’t necessarily know all tax law (who possibly could?) but presented with a scenario they can find the law that applies to it and (usually) work out what that law means and how that law will apply to that given situation. These abilities are rare.So they probably do deserve their income.
Doesn’t stop them being irritating cunts, though.
Thanks, interesting. I guess there is almost something Rabbinic about the learning required, given the vast maze of tax rules
‘Jolyon’
Just sayin’
“something Rabbinic about the learning required”
It’s basically the same skill – memorise a huge list of arbitrary rules and precedents for how they are applied and then work out which ones apply to the current situation.
dearime: Hilary is a perfectly good name, as my sister will attest. Hillary on the other hand fits right into your category above.
‘A spokesperson for the South Downs National Park authority said: “The planning committee will take the planning application into consideration when it comes to them in due course.” ‘
Our bureaucrats at work.
@TG. The challenge was for men’s names, I thought: Evelyn and Hilary probably fit the bill for promoting snorts of derision.
There is a fantastic range of talented people who will perform or speak for Jeremy, including Charlotte Church, Michael Rosen, Brian Eno, Ken Loach, Billy Bragg, Mark Steel, Jeremy Hardy, Francesca Martinez, Mark Serwotka, Shappi Khorsandi, Arthur Smith, Patrick Monahan, Janey Godley and many more.
Who cares?
Remember when you used to read articles in the Guardian sneering at ‘celebrity culture’?
Anyone care to bet there aren’t grants and tax reliefs available to help the selfless lawyer bring his property up to standard?
Rob,
The Graun sneering at celebrity culture – was that before or after Cool Britannia?
‘£2 million to piss away on a vanity project?’
Bill Clinton got a tax on yachts.
Killed the industry. Thousands of workers lost their jobs.
Why wouldn’t we want people to spend their money, even if we consider it frivolous? There are people making their living selling the frivolous.
Gamecock,
Apparently, there are people who make a far better living taking the frivolers’ money and putting them out of business.
“Bill Clinton got a tax on yachts. Killed the industry.”
Not true. It was the expectation that the incoming republican president would repeal the (10% marginal) tax which deterred orders.
Actually Clinton repealed the yacht tax. It was the Democrats in Congress who passed the yacht tax in 1990, admittedly sign off on by George Bush snr. So its a bit of a stretch to say that purchasers of a new yacht were planning to wait at last 2 years until a new president (of unknown political party) was elected, who ‘might’ then repeal it (if he could?). Basically a tax on yachts killed the yacht industry and was quickly repealed when the damage was seen.
http://www.wsbradio.com/weblogs/nealz-nuze/2011/jun/30/lesson-yacht-tax/
At least, not last.
Incidentally, would a windmill constitute a business asset if ‘occasional wedding events’ were planned to be held in it? If so could the renovation costs create tax losses in the early years? Which could be offset against other income?
It’s often said that there are 16,000 barristers in England & Wales; there’s enough work for 8,000 of them; and all that work is actually done by 4,000 of them.
I’ve checked: the yacht tax was both introduced and repealed under Bush snr.
Well you better go to specsavers then cos your eyes need testing:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luxury_tax#Luxury_tax_in_the_United_States
Introduced in Nov 1991 under George Bush Snr, repealed in Aug 1993 under Clinton.
Yes, my timing was a little off. It was part of the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1990 (the one that cost Bush Sr his job), taking effect in 1991.
http://townhall.com/columnists/walterewilliams/2011/08/10/ignorance,_stupidity_or_connivance
But the point remains, as Dr. Williams points out, taxing the frivolous is not necessarily a good idea.
Well you better go to specsavers then cos your eyes need testing
Quite true. Apologies.
However, that doesn’t affect my point, which is that you learn nothing about the long-term effects of a tax unless there’s an expectation that it will apply in the long term.
Ah, the ‘not true socialism’ argument. If only the luxury tax had been kept in place even longer, all those businesses and jobs that had disappeared as a result of it (with their attendant tax revenues) would magically have reappeared. After all if Daddy Big Bucks knew that his yacht from USA Yachts Inc was going to cost him 10% extra in perpetuity, of course he isn’t going to swan off to the nearest country without such a tax and buy his yacht there, he’s going to pony up the extra tax. Of course he is. He didn’t get to be a millionaire by not paying every tax going……..