George Osborne’s reform of taxation could create new system of winners and losers, tax experts warn Government plans to merge national insurance and income tax expected in this week’s budget could be “politically explosive” and create a new system of winners and losers, tax experts have warned. The chancellor, George Osborne, will signal his intention to reform the two taxes as part of a drive to simplify taxation for business by reducing bureaucracy and cutting costs when he unveils his budget for growth on Wednesday. Reform will be trumpeted by Osborne as a way for people to see more clearly how much they are being taxed. Mike Warburton, tax director at Grant Thornton, the accountancy firm, said: “The plan is a good one in principle as it can’t be right that people’s earnings are subjected to two different taxes. But the issue is politically charged because an amalgamation of the two taxes would mean basic rate taxpayers would see their income tax jump from the current rate of 20% to 32%, to take account of the 12% NI rate that comes into force on 5 April. Psychologically, that could be difficult to swallow, so changes would have to be very carefully explained.” Higher rate taxpayers would see their rate jump from 40% to 52%. Over the years, Conservative and Labour governments have increased national insurance to avoid being accused of raising personal taxes. Warburton said the reality was “there is no separate national insurance pot that goes towards paying unemployment benefits or the state pension; NI is all part of general taxation”. He said that merging income tax and NI could create winners, such as stay-at-home mothers, whose state pension would no longer be linked to how much NI they pay. But losers could be pensioners or individuals who do not work, whose savings would be taxed at a new, higher rate of income tax. It could also hit people who pay the full amount into their pension over their working lives, as they would no longer qualify for an “enhanced’ state pension. Trade unions have warned that tax shakeups for workers must be carefully scrutinised as reform could be used as a way to increase tax receipts. Chris Sanger, head of tax policy at Ernst & Young, said reforming the system could be “politically sensitive” as employee taxation would be more visible and people would have a clearer idea of their tax bill. But he supported the idea as it would cut costs and paperwork for businesses. “It is pointless to have two separate employee taxes with two different sets of rules and regulations. Many millions of pounds could be saved and the government are absolutely right to look into it.” Sanger said employer NI contributions could be scrapped and replaced by an additional payroll tax. Experts point out there is no way that employer NI could be scaled down as the ration of pensioners to people of working age is forecast to jump from 25% to 43% over the next three decades. In a report on small business tax commissioned by the chancellor last July, the Office of Tax Simplification called for an end to the parallel systems of NI and income tax. “The overwhelming conclusion is that genuine and long-lasting simplification can only be brought about through structural change to the entire UK tax system,” the report said. Income tax George Osborne Budget National insurance Tax Richard Wachman guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Japan has long had an extreme dichotomy between its people and its politicians, and last week’s earthquake underscored that fault line: “The Japanese government has been hapless. And the Japanese people have been magnificent, enduring impossible hardships with dignity and grace,” writes Nicholas Kristof in the New York Times . Kristof…
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Ministers resign from Yemeni government and even the president’s traditional tribal supporters begin to turn against him Tens of thousands of mourners flooded the streets of the Yemeni capital on Sunday in a mass funeral for 52 protesters killed on Friday in a sniper attack by government loyalists . The 150,000 turnout for the funeral at Sana’a University was by far the largest gathering seen in Yemen since protests against President Ali Abdullah Saleh began in earnest over a month ago. Dozens of bodies were wrapped in Yemen’s tricolour flag and hoisted on to the shoulders of young men who paraded the bodies through the streets shouting, “There is no God but Allah” and “Ali Saleh the tyrant is the enemy of God.” A two-hour power cut prevented many in the capital from watching televised footage of the mile-long funeral procession, which carried the dead from the morgue of a local hospital back to the heart of the tent-filled square at Sana’a University where they were killed. After praying for the dead, protesters tore down a barricade used to trap them in Friday’s assault and replaced it with a memorial; a mound of flowers and photos of those who had died. “The massacre has moved our revolution into its second phase,” said 29-year-old medical student Mohammed Al-Iryani, whose 12-year old brother Fares was killed in Friday’s violence. Politicians and civil society representatives joined the throng. Ali Abed Rabbo al-Qadi, the head of the independent parliamentary bloc who was in the crowd, said those behind the killings must be “held responsible for every drop of blood that has been shed”. Most of the injuries on Friday were caused by plainclothes gunmen crouched on the roofs of nearby houses who sprayed bullets down on the crowd. On Saturday protesters said they had captured five snipers carrying government identity cards, but Saleh has denied this, blaming the violence on “unknown armed civilians”. A government spokesmen said late on Sunday night that 16 suspects had so far been arrested for orchestrating the shooting. Saleh declared Sunday a national day of mourning for the “martyrs for democracy”, while blaming the opposition for “incitement and chaos” that had led to the killings. The bloodshed has prompted a string of defections from Yemen’s government; in a move echoing the early days of Libya’s uprising, Yemen’s ambassador to the UN, Abdullah al-Saeed, quit on Sunday citing Friday’s brutal crackdown. His resignation followed that of four government ministers, including Huda al-Ban, one of only two female ministers in the government. Her deputy, Ali Saleh Taisir, also resigned in reaction to what they termed as a “gross use of violence” again peaceful demonstrators. Yemen’s tribes, one of the few remaining bastions of the embattled Saleh’s rule, appear also to be turning against him. Sadeq al-Ahmar, the leader of Yemen’s most powerful tribal confederation, issued a statement on Sunday asking Saleh to respond to the people’s demands and leave peacefully. Meanwhile, troops and security forces moved into the capital on Saturday to enforce a state of emergency declared by Saleh. Tanks were also deployed across the city for the first time in five weeks of civil unrest in which over 70 people have died. In addition, hundreds of soldiers moved into the streets to set up checkpoints and enforce a ban on carrying firearms in public. The opposition says the president – a key US ally in the war against al-Qaida in the region – must resign this year, but he has refused to leave until his term expires in 2013. He has also offered to devolve power to parliament under a new constitution, a pledge rejected as “too little, too late” by the opposition which says the president cannot be trusted to honour his promises. “The chances of reaching a meaningful political solution are minute now,” said opposition spokesman Mohammed al-Sabri. Saleh has promised to protect the right to peaceful assembly, but as the death toll soars he seems unable or unwilling to honour his pledges. Yemen Arab and Middle East protests Middle East Protest guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Ministers resign from Yemeni government and even the president’s traditional tribal supporters begin to turn against him Tens of thousands of mourners flooded the streets of the Yemeni capital on Sunday in a mass funeral for 52 protesters killed on Friday in a sniper attack by government loyalists . The 150,000 turnout for the funeral at Sana’a University was by far the largest gathering seen in Yemen since protests against President Ali Abdullah Saleh began in earnest over a month ago. Dozens of bodies were wrapped in Yemen’s tricolour flag and hoisted on to the shoulders of young men who paraded the bodies through the streets shouting, “There is no God but Allah” and “Ali Saleh the tyrant is the enemy of God.” A two-hour power cut prevented many in the capital from watching televised footage of the mile-long funeral procession, which carried the dead from the morgue of a local hospital back to the heart of the tent-filled square at Sana’a University where they were killed. After praying for the dead, protesters tore down a barricade used to trap them in Friday’s assault and replaced it with a memorial; a mound of flowers and photos of those who had died. “The massacre has moved our revolution into its second phase,” said 29-year-old medical student Mohammed Al-Iryani, whose 12-year old brother Fares was killed in Friday’s violence. Politicians and civil society representatives joined the throng. Ali Abed Rabbo al-Qadi, the head of the independent parliamentary bloc who was in the crowd, said those behind the killings must be “held responsible for every drop of blood that has been shed”. Most of the injuries on Friday were caused by plainclothes gunmen crouched on the roofs of nearby houses who sprayed bullets down on the crowd. On Saturday protesters said they had captured five snipers carrying government identity cards, but Saleh has denied this, blaming the violence on “unknown armed civilians”. A government spokesmen said late on Sunday night that 16 suspects had so far been arrested for orchestrating the shooting. Saleh declared Sunday a national day of mourning for the “martyrs for democracy”, while blaming the opposition for “incitement and chaos” that had led to the killings. The bloodshed has prompted a string of defections from Yemen’s government; in a move echoing the early days of Libya’s uprising, Yemen’s ambassador to the UN, Abdullah al-Saeed, quit on Sunday citing Friday’s brutal crackdown. His resignation followed that of four government ministers, including Huda al-Ban, one of only two female ministers in the government. Her deputy, Ali Saleh Taisir, also resigned in reaction to what they termed as a “gross use of violence” again peaceful demonstrators. Yemen’s tribes, one of the few remaining bastions of the embattled Saleh’s rule, appear also to be turning against him. Sadeq al-Ahmar, the leader of Yemen’s most powerful tribal confederation, issued a statement on Sunday asking Saleh to respond to the people’s demands and leave peacefully. Meanwhile, troops and security forces moved into the capital on Saturday to enforce a state of emergency declared by Saleh. Tanks were also deployed across the city for the first time in five weeks of civil unrest in which over 70 people have died. In addition, hundreds of soldiers moved into the streets to set up checkpoints and enforce a ban on carrying firearms in public. The opposition says the president – a key US ally in the war against al-Qaida in the region – must resign this year, but he has refused to leave until his term expires in 2013. He has also offered to devolve power to parliament under a new constitution, a pledge rejected as “too little, too late” by the opposition which says the president cannot be trusted to honour his promises. “The chances of reaching a meaningful political solution are minute now,” said opposition spokesman Mohammed al-Sabri. Saleh has promised to protect the right to peaceful assembly, but as the death toll soars he seems unable or unwilling to honour his pledges. Yemen Arab and Middle East protests Middle East Protest guardian.co.uk
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Local representatives of the president’s party are leaving the party logo off election material to avoid ‘punishment’ vote Nicolas Sarkozy is braced for his last political test before next year’s bruising presidential race as local elections this weekend are expected to expose France’s vast disillusionment with its ruling class. Half of France will vote on Sunday to appoint about 2,000 local councillors in cantons, the smallest segment in France’s labyrinthine local administration. But the first round vote was expected to show abstention hitting record levels of over 50%. By 5pm, there had been a turn-out of only 36%, low for a local vote. One year before the presidential vote, local representatives of Sarkozy’s ruling right-wing UMP party are so fearful of a backlash “punishment” vote against Sarkozy that many of them have deliberately left the party logo off their election material and beseeched party leaders not to canvas on their behalf, embarrassing the government. At one meeting last week in Le Raincy, a right-wing residential town surrounded by the neglected high-rise ghettos that saw France’s worst urban riots in 2005, the higher education minister Valerie Pécresse tried to rally the troops by quoting Winston Churchill on the need for courage. She blamed the financial crisis for the nation’s extreme pessimism, arguing that Sarkozy was still the best hope for the 2012 presidential race. “When a country goes through a storm it needs a captain to steep up to the bridge,” she said. Imploring candidates to remind voters that Sarkozy had succeeded in changing France, she cited only three reforms, the raising of the pension age, an overhaul of universities and compulsory minimum service on public transport on strike days, which means France can no longer be paralysed by industrial action. The Socialist party hopes to detract attention from its own bitter-infighting over who it will chose as its presidential candidate and capitalise on the mood against Sarkozy. Before the military invention against Libya, the president was festering at his lowest ever approval ratings in the polls, 29%, with two polls showing him knocked out of the first-round presidential race by the extreme right Front National. The left, which trounced Sarkozy’s party in the regional elections last year, currently holds 58 department councils up for election and wants to push above 60. The right holds 42 councils and could lose 12 of them, including La Sarthe, the rural fiefdom of the prime minister, Francois Fillon. The much-reduced Communist Party is battling to hold onto the last vestige of the “red” working-class suburbs of Paris, Val-de-Marne, in the east. The vote is the first electoral test for the new Front National leader, Marine Le Pen. Seven out of 12 polls in a space of eleven days showed her getting through to the final round of the presidential race in 2012. But the local “cantonales” elections have never been an easy ground for the party, which currently has no local councillors at this level. The FN is keen to make ground in the old mining communities of Pas-de-Calais where Le Pen made her name. However it is Le Pen’s rhetoric against immigration and the “islamification” of France that has dominated public debate in the run up to the elections and set the tone for Sarkozy’s UMP party which has tried to win back ground by organising a controversial debate on islam and secularism for April 5. When the new interior minister and former Sarkozy advisor Claude Gueant said last week that “French people no longer feel at home in France” he was lampooned by the left for veering onto extreme right territory. If the left do well in the local elections, it could have a direct bearing on the French senate and cause another headache for Sarkozy. Half the senatorial seats are up for renewal in September, voted for by local representatives. A surge in the left at the local level could make it hard for the right to keep hold of the senate, causing difficulties for Sarkozy’s ability to govern in his final months. France Europe Nicolas Sarkozy Angelique Chrisafis guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Local representatives of the president’s party are leaving the party logo off election material to avoid ‘punishment’ vote Nicolas Sarkozy is braced for his last political test before next year’s bruising presidential race as local elections this weekend are expected to expose France’s vast disillusionment with its ruling class. Half of France will vote on Sunday to appoint about 2,000 local councillors in cantons, the smallest segment in France’s labyrinthine local administration. But the first round vote was expected to show abstention hitting record levels of over 50%. By 5pm, there had been a turn-out of only 36%, low for a local vote. One year before the presidential vote, local representatives of Sarkozy’s ruling right-wing UMP party are so fearful of a backlash “punishment” vote against Sarkozy that many of them have deliberately left the party logo off their election material and beseeched party leaders not to canvas on their behalf, embarrassing the government. At one meeting last week in Le Raincy, a right-wing residential town surrounded by the neglected high-rise ghettos that saw France’s worst urban riots in 2005, the higher education minister Valerie Pécresse tried to rally the troops by quoting Winston Churchill on the need for courage. She blamed the financial crisis for the nation’s extreme pessimism, arguing that Sarkozy was still the best hope for the 2012 presidential race. “When a country goes through a storm it needs a captain to steep up to the bridge,” she said. Imploring candidates to remind voters that Sarkozy had succeeded in changing France, she cited only three reforms, the raising of the pension age, an overhaul of universities and compulsory minimum service on public transport on strike days, which means France can no longer be paralysed by industrial action. The Socialist party hopes to detract attention from its own bitter-infighting over who it will chose as its presidential candidate and capitalise on the mood against Sarkozy. Before the military invention against Libya, the president was festering at his lowest ever approval ratings in the polls, 29%, with two polls showing him knocked out of the first-round presidential race by the extreme right Front National. The left, which trounced Sarkozy’s party in the regional elections last year, currently holds 58 department councils up for election and wants to push above 60. The right holds 42 councils and could lose 12 of them, including La Sarthe, the rural fiefdom of the prime minister, Francois Fillon. The much-reduced Communist Party is battling to hold onto the last vestige of the “red” working-class suburbs of Paris, Val-de-Marne, in the east. The vote is the first electoral test for the new Front National leader, Marine Le Pen. Seven out of 12 polls in a space of eleven days showed her getting through to the final round of the presidential race in 2012. But the local “cantonales” elections have never been an easy ground for the party, which currently has no local councillors at this level. The FN is keen to make ground in the old mining communities of Pas-de-Calais where Le Pen made her name. However it is Le Pen’s rhetoric against immigration and the “islamification” of France that has dominated public debate in the run up to the elections and set the tone for Sarkozy’s UMP party which has tried to win back ground by organising a controversial debate on islam and secularism for April 5. When the new interior minister and former Sarkozy advisor Claude Gueant said last week that “French people no longer feel at home in France” he was lampooned by the left for veering onto extreme right territory. If the left do well in the local elections, it could have a direct bearing on the French senate and cause another headache for Sarkozy. Half the senatorial seats are up for renewal in September, voted for by local representatives. A surge in the left at the local level could make it hard for the right to keep hold of the senate, causing difficulties for Sarkozy’s ability to govern in his final months. France Europe Nicolas Sarkozy Angelique Chrisafis guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …An 80-year-old woman and her 16-year-old grandson emerged today from the rubble in northeastern Japan, nine days after the 9.0 earthquake that leveled their two-story house. The teen, Jin Abe, finally managed to pull himself out of the wreckage, and authorities spotted him waving for help from the collapsed…
Continue reading …How did Libya, a desert nation of 6.5 million people and less than 2% of the world’s oil reserves, become a French and British war? Michael Elliot in Time checks off a bunch of wrong answers first: No, the outcome in Libya is not a vital national interest of…
Continue reading …WikiLeaks has toppled its highest-ranking US official yet—the US ambassador to Mexico, Carlos Pascual. In diplomatic cables, Pascual called Mexico’s police and armed forces corrupt, risk averse, inefficient, and “reliant on the United States for leads and operations,” which really didn’t sit well with Mexico’s conservative, nationalist president Felipe…
Continue reading …More than two years after Chesley Sullenberger crash-landed his plane into the icy waters off New York City, the Airbus A320 dubbed “The Miracle on the Hudson” is going on display at a North Carolina museum, reports the AP . The plane has been sitting in a northern New Jersey warehouse…
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