BN66 - Time to fight back (Chapter 3)

[bombaycat]

Invitation to MP surgery

I just got an email from my MP inviting me to come to her surgery, I have so far received no replies of substance on the matters I've raised (starting in February) only that she had written to the treasury.
She's LibDem and reasonably decent I think.
I sent the latest DR letter to her this week so perhaps I've gone up on the radar for her.
Would someone be so kind as to send me an outline of the points that you've raised with your MPs where those meetings went well? I'll tailor it all to my situation and book the appointment and give her a try.
Thanks a lot.

[OnYourBikeGB]

A month ago, I submitted the following FOI request to the Treasury.



The Treasury have responded as follows:



If they do refuse to release the information, then I intend to appeal to the Information Commissioner.

I wonder what they've got to hide?

There was an interesting chat on Radio 5 live yesterday. There were two journalists who had fought for years to get MPs expenses published. It was their work that led to the expenses scheduled for publishing in July, then of course the leak happened. Their FOI requests were blocked and ignored by the fees office until the journalists took the fees office to court, where the judge ruled that the fees office had to release the documents. He also ruled that the commons fees office should pay the journalists costs. The fees office appealed the costs decision on - get this - the journalists knew that the fees office case was so weak, they shouldn't have forced it into court. The judge by all accounts nearly laughed in their face. Moral of the story - these gits will use every resort to make sure the rules that apply to everyone else don't apply to them.

[Toocan]

Gordon Clarifies the rules...

Ever think Gordon “The Moron” Brown’s world revolves around Clarification?

They clarify this, they clarify that, and pretty soon you have a whole new set of laws.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8053833.stm

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/189972608X?ie=UTF8&ref%5F=sr%5F1%5F1&s=books&qid=1 242503858&sr=8-1

[phileds]

Sorry got to vent, I know this has been talked to death, but anyway...

How can it be that only a few months ago Harridan Harman was saying this:

Sir Fred should not be counting on being £650,000 a year better off as a result of this because it is not going to happen," she told BBC1's Andrew Marr show.

The Prime Minister has said it is not acceptable and therefore it will not be accepted. It might be enforceable in a court of law this contract but it's not enforceable in the court of public opinion and that's where the Government steps in.

(Translation - we don't care what the law says or what the rules are, we want Goodwin to hand back his pension)


...and yet when her colleagues were caught claiming expenses for items not wholly, exclusively and necessarily incurred as part of their job, she replied:

"The old system was the system that those claims were made under," she said earlier. "We've recognised that, though they might have been claims made in good faith, that's not acceptable for the future [my italics] and we are changing the system".

(Translation - we fiddled the expenses, but that was the old way, we'll change now - but no punishment for those who fiddled)

Un-****king-believable.

[Toocan]

Ask your MP this....

In a way, our MP’s are now feeling the effects of their Guardian led “holier than thou” attitude to tax avoidance. Perhaps we should be asking our MP’s to deal with the expenses scandal in the same way that they dealt with the IoM tax avoidance scheme closed by Budget note 55 in the 2008 budget (which became s.58 Finance Act 2008).

That is, that the expenses rules should be “clarified” back to 1945 and all transgressors should have to pay back the amount they claimed with interest at the HMRC overdue rate.

Those MP's that went further and broke the rules should be subjected to "distriant notices", dawn raids, and worrying visits by HMRC personnel.

[phileds]

We can but dream....

[PlaneSailing]

A month ago, I submitted the following FOI request to the Treasury.



The Treasury have responded as follows:



If they do refuse to release the information, then I intend to appeal to the Information Commissioner.

I wonder what they've got to hide?

So, lets get this right. The defence of Section 58 boils down to it being in
the public interest. However, it is also in the public interest to not publish
the consideration that went into it. So, it's not in the public interest
to see what they are doing in the public interest!

Pathetic.

And they're not going to make a decision to publish until the after JR hearing.
How very convenient.

[DonkeyRhubarb]

So, lets get this right. The defence of Section 58 boils down to it being in
the public interest. However, it is also in the public interest to not publish
the consideration that went into it. So, it's not in the public interest
to see what they are doing in the public interest!

Pathetic.

And they're not going to make a decision to publish until the after JR hearing.
How very convenient.

This was to be expected. If the information was easy to obtain, it wouldn't be worth having.

I have complained that I am not happy to wait any longer.

I wonder if the JCHR would be able to get hold of these documents more easily.

[helen7]

do we know how much money the other users (property developers etc) were putting through the scheme?

My concern is that whilst we are families that stand to go bankrupt, there may have been large companies using it - hence hmrc's justification.

[DonkeyRhubarb]

do we know how much money the other users (property developers etc) were putting through the scheme?

My concern is that whilst we are families that stand to go bankrupt, there may have been large companies using it - hence hmrc's justification.

We know of one developer who is in it for £60M but I think that is exceptional. I suspect if the scheme had never been promoted to contractors, the property developers would have been allowed to get away with it.

Jane Kennedy estimated that Section 58 could net around £200M.

We have discovered that the anti-avoidance measure in this year's budget (BN60), which targets a very similar double tax scheme used by the banks, is estimated to be costing the exchequer £100M per year. BN60 clarifies anti-avoidance legislation from 2005. Had they implemented it retrospectively back to 2005, they probably could have collected the same amount of money as they are "hoping" to get from Section 58.

Draw your own conclusions.