The dog barked.
The letter box rattled.
The brown envelope was slipped through. It bore the legend HMRC.
Here comes the tax man after my cash.
One of the many fantasies about benefits is that they are tax free. Well of course some benefits are. Especially if you one of those whose sole income is represented by the benefit you receive.
Of course a state pension is a benefit, it is in fact one of the larger costs of welfare. And it is of course like so many benefits riddled with myths, urban and otherwise.
I heard one such myth about a pensioner who lives in Gordon Brown's constituency. He went to a surgery to ask why he was paying tax on his pension.
The then Chancellor denied that this was the case.
In today's newspaper the same Gordon Brown was quoted as telling Scottish Pensioners that they would lose the benefit they had paid for during their working lives if they voted yes to scottish independence.
But as I have mentioned previously in this blog.
Income Tax and National Insurance pay for pensions, there is no fund into which you pay and from which you withdraw when you retire.
So my pension is paid for not by me paying in over the forty seven years that I worked but by those who are working and paying tax today.
And that includes me.
Because I am fortunate enough to have an occupational pension, which I paid for from 1968 until I retired in 2007 I pay tax.
Because I am over 67 I receive a marginally higher personal allowance.
But in his letter to me today, the taxman explained that because I also receive a state pension and the DWP cannot claim the tax, my personal allowance is reduced by the amount of state pension I will receive in the coming financial year.
So I do pay tax on my pension.
One of the frustrations of living close to the Scottish Border is knowing that whatever the outcome of the referendum I personally cannot vote.
On Saturday I was in Annan, a twenty minute drive from home, but soon to be (possibly) another country, the indoor critic and I decided to stop to buy a picnic lunch and I went into a bakery to buy two Macaroni Cheese Pies, what could be more Scottish, reflecting as it does a tradition that goes back to Robert Burns via Gramsci and the Italian Ice Cream sellers who made their home in Scotland enriching both the culture and the food.
I commented to the Baker as I handed over a Scottish Twenty Pound note, I wonder what the transaction cost will be after independence?
She dismissed George Osborne's finger wagging warning as rubbish. Commenting you cannot spend a Scottish Five Pound note any place south of Blackpool anyway, so we do have our own currency now. .
In which view she totally supports all those from the South who refuse to take cash out of a bank machine in a Scottish Airport if they are flying back to England because their money would be refused by every single taxi driver at any of the London Airports as my Scottish Ten Pound note was refused when I tried to pay for a round of drinks at a pub in Cleckheaton in West Yorkshire.
But perhaps the best way to resolve the debate between First Minister and Chancellor is to quote from the 1984 Scottish Pound the legend on which reads:
Nemo Me Impune Lacessit (None provokes me with impunity)
And as for the Tax Man I can do little better than reading from the edge of the two pound coin in my pocket:
In Victory Magnanimity in Peace Goodwill
Maybe all benefits should be paid in two pound coins and handed over personally by Mr Duncan Smith.
The letter box rattled.
The brown envelope was slipped through. It bore the legend HMRC.
Here comes the tax man after my cash.
One of the many fantasies about benefits is that they are tax free. Well of course some benefits are. Especially if you one of those whose sole income is represented by the benefit you receive.
Of course a state pension is a benefit, it is in fact one of the larger costs of welfare. And it is of course like so many benefits riddled with myths, urban and otherwise.
I heard one such myth about a pensioner who lives in Gordon Brown's constituency. He went to a surgery to ask why he was paying tax on his pension.
The then Chancellor denied that this was the case.
In today's newspaper the same Gordon Brown was quoted as telling Scottish Pensioners that they would lose the benefit they had paid for during their working lives if they voted yes to scottish independence.
But as I have mentioned previously in this blog.
Income Tax and National Insurance pay for pensions, there is no fund into which you pay and from which you withdraw when you retire.
So my pension is paid for not by me paying in over the forty seven years that I worked but by those who are working and paying tax today.
And that includes me.
Because I am fortunate enough to have an occupational pension, which I paid for from 1968 until I retired in 2007 I pay tax.
Because I am over 67 I receive a marginally higher personal allowance.
But in his letter to me today, the taxman explained that because I also receive a state pension and the DWP cannot claim the tax, my personal allowance is reduced by the amount of state pension I will receive in the coming financial year.
So I do pay tax on my pension.
One of the frustrations of living close to the Scottish Border is knowing that whatever the outcome of the referendum I personally cannot vote.
On Saturday I was in Annan, a twenty minute drive from home, but soon to be (possibly) another country, the indoor critic and I decided to stop to buy a picnic lunch and I went into a bakery to buy two Macaroni Cheese Pies, what could be more Scottish, reflecting as it does a tradition that goes back to Robert Burns via Gramsci and the Italian Ice Cream sellers who made their home in Scotland enriching both the culture and the food.
I commented to the Baker as I handed over a Scottish Twenty Pound note, I wonder what the transaction cost will be after independence?
She dismissed George Osborne's finger wagging warning as rubbish. Commenting you cannot spend a Scottish Five Pound note any place south of Blackpool anyway, so we do have our own currency now. .
In which view she totally supports all those from the South who refuse to take cash out of a bank machine in a Scottish Airport if they are flying back to England because their money would be refused by every single taxi driver at any of the London Airports as my Scottish Ten Pound note was refused when I tried to pay for a round of drinks at a pub in Cleckheaton in West Yorkshire.
But perhaps the best way to resolve the debate between First Minister and Chancellor is to quote from the 1984 Scottish Pound the legend on which reads:
Nemo Me Impune Lacessit (None provokes me with impunity)
And as for the Tax Man I can do little better than reading from the edge of the two pound coin in my pocket:
In Victory Magnanimity in Peace Goodwill
Maybe all benefits should be paid in two pound coins and handed over personally by Mr Duncan Smith.
No comments:
Post a Comment