Labour is signalling this weekend that it intends to clamp down on a loophole that allows thousands of investors in private equity deals to avoid paying income tax.
How do you do that without taxing sweat equity at income tax rates?
I’m sure it’s possible but who has confidence in politicians getting it right?
This will help pay for crucial investment in our public services.
Lol.
crucial investmentspending“who has confidence in politicians getting it right?”
It occured to me this morning that this might be characterized as the “No! Not the face!” election. We’re all going to get beaten to a pulp, the only question is how, and by whom.
Who has confidence in electoral campaign promises??
Well Julia, Dutton here in Oz has said he’ll introduce nukes!!!! to deal with global boiling. The only things that could possibly actually produce MOST!! of the energy we need without CO2.
I don’t know whether he’d actually do it. But I’m absolutely certain that all the promises of sabotage from Labor and the Greens will be more than exceeded.
Surely Australia of all places can just build a couple of million square miles of solar panels in the outback? That’ll do the job right quick.
Not sure what you’ll do at night though…
Goodbye investors. Sorry you had to leave the UK.
They could use Ayers Rock as a giant storage heater: point the solar reflectors at it all day, and have everyone sit around it at night.
A charming thought BiW.
PS. Calling it Ayers Rock is blasphemy these days. The proper abo-sounding name is Uluru.
My eldest son works in private equity. I don’t pretend to know the finer details of what he does, but I’m very proud of him because he earns a darn sight more than I ever did, and seems to have a sensible relaxed attitude to his career.
Before the last election, his company was visited by senior Labour politicians keen to both learn about the sector and share their plans for reform. My son said that their level of cluelessness was truly astonishing. His boss was practically explaining things using coffee cups and spoons on the boardroom table `(“Look, say we lend you this spoon, and then you add it to your sugar bowl…” etc.) and they seemed motivated by nothing but a vague idea that rich people need stuff taken off them. He said that average sixth-formers would have understood better.
That was under Corby, of course, but I wonder how much things have changed…
Sam:
The problem with explaining things to socialists is that their jobs depend on not understanding it.
So it is difficult to explain, and it tends to slip out of their heads right away.
I’m sorry but I have no sympathy. The PE guys should pay the same rates on the returns on their investments that the rest of us do. Income at up to 45%, capital gains at 20% (or 28% if its property). If those rates are too high to encourage investment, then lower them for everyone, not just give people who already have a lot of money a special tax break.
Yeah, but calling it Ayers Rock winds up all the right people!
Talking of Aussie names when we were in Queensland we heard some discussion about Bew Kan’s Point. I wondered what the language of origin was.
Turned out the bloody place was actually Buchan’s Point.
BiW & dearieme
To continue my bitching, there’s Fraser Island. Now called K’gari.
Alas the damn dingoes that infest the place are now protected. In the good old days, people’d just shoot them. They had to watch out for us. Now we have to watch out for them!!
BoganBoy: “PS. Calling it Ayers Rock is blasphemy these days. The proper abo-sounding name is Uluru.”
Bloke in Wales: “Yeah, but calling it Ayers Rock winds up all the right people!”
This reminds me of a long but, I think, very funny story, involving the late Queen and (as he then was) Prince Charles.
For maximum comedy effect, read it out loud to yourself, doing the voices as appropriate.
Towards the end of a tour of Australia, Prince Charles was visiting the place formerly called Ayer’s Rock but now known, for reasons of political correctness, as Uluru.
As he was being shown round, the Mayor noticed that he was wearing a hat made of dark reddish-brown fur, with some sort of tail-like appendage at the back.
The Mayor said: “Strewth, your Royal Highness! It’s 46 degrees Centigrade! Is that hat really a good thing to.be wearing?”
And Prince Charles said: “Well, in a way it’s an illustration of how, as it were, no matter how senior one’s position, one can always be outranked.”
“You see, I phoned the Queen last night, on a rather bad line, to update her on my tour.”
“I started in Darwin” I told her.
“Oh yes, Darwin. Very hot, as I recall. And lots of iron mines.”
“That’s right. Then I went to Perth.”
“Oh, Perth’s lovely. Much cooler. Quite windy, so the locals are really keen on sailing.”
“That’s right. Next was Adelaide.”
“Ah, Adelaide. City of Churches, they call it. Beautiful architecture.”
“Then I went to Canberra.”
“Oh, good. It’s relatively small, but all the most important people are there, so one definitely has to call in.”
“It’s really good to discuss these things with you, Mummy, as I think it’s very valuable to tap in to your experience. Next I went to Melbourne.”
“Ah, Melbourne. Good, solid, down-to-earth people, without the airs and graces one associates with some other places.”
“Errr, quite. And then I went to Sydney.”
“I remember opening the Opera House there. Lovely!”
“Yesterday I went to Brisbane.”
“Ah, getting hotter now! But you won’t have been short of wool or lamb.”
“And now I’m in Cairns.”
“Oh, you must be very hot, then. But the Great Barrier Reef must make it worthwhile. Where are you going tomorrow?”
“First thing tomorrow, Mummy, I’m flying to Uluru.”
And then the Queen said:
“Wear the fox hat.”