ok pop quiz

[Peoplesoft bloke]

You are chancellor and you notice the tax system is a hideous mess - do you -
A. Use the mandate given to you to lay waste to most of the crappy mess and people responsible. Or
B. Set up a new "office" of similarly shiny-arsed tools to look into it ?

[eek]

C. find a way to get some "experts" in so you don't take the blame for the new screw ups it will create.

[Pondlife]

d. Ask the people what they want therefore absolving yourself from all future blame.

[DS23]

where's the pop quiz then?

[HairyArsedBloke]

You are chancellor and you notice the tax system is a hideous mess - do you -
A. Use the mandate given to you to lay waste to most of the crappy mess and people responsible. Or
B. Set up a new "office" of similarly shiny-arsed tools to look into it ?

Aye.

Hell, what do I care. It's got nothing to do with me.

[d000hg]

You are chancellor and you notice the tax system is a hideous mess - do you -
A. Use the mandate given to you to lay waste to most of the crappy mess and people responsible. Or
B. Set up a new "office" of similarly shiny-arsed tools to look into it ?

You're a contractor. Shouldn't you understand how you need to spend money and put people in charge of fixing broken projects, that they won't just magically 'get better' because you want them to? You think Dave's just going to rewrite the system in his 'spare time' after dinner? Unless people are made directly responsible, it won't get done.

[Doggy Styles]

You are chancellor and you notice the tax system is a hideous mess - do you -
A. Use the mandate given to you to lay waste to most of the crappy mess and people responsible. Or
B. Set up a new "office" of similarly shiny-arsed tools to look into it ?

Since 1997, the size of Tolley’s Tax Guide – the authoritative manual on tax in the UK since the start of last century – more than doubled from 4,998 to 11,520 pages.

The chancellor has not got time to personally sit down and sift through that lot, let alone work out the impact of every change he might want to make. It would take someone decades, with no time left over to do the rest of their job.

So he has delegated the task. What is wrong with that?

[NickFitz]

"The new body will initially conduct two reviews - streamlining 400 tax reliefs, allowances and exemptions and simplifying the tax system for small businesses, including a simpler alternative to the controversial IR35 code."

- Linky

What are the odds that the "simpler alternative" is "you're all under IR35"

[OwlHoot]

Just roll it back to how it was in 1994 then. Heck, things cant have changed that much.

OTOH, it might just be that all the extra complexity is to hinder any EU tax power grabs and "harmonization", or has that effect even if not originally intended, a kind of fiscal equivalent of barbed wire and trenches. For all GB's faults, he kept us out of the Euro and didn't seem keen on fiscal integration with the EU. So you never know.


edit:

What are the odds that the "simpler alternative" is "you're all under IR35"?

About 1:1 - Been saying it for ages.

[Peoplesoft bloke]

"The new body will initially conduct two reviews - streamlining 400 tax reliefs, allowances and exemptions and simplifying the tax system for small businesses, including a simpler alternative to the controversial IR35 code."

- Linky

What are the odds that the "simpler alternative" is "you're all under IR35"

IIRC it was Lib Dems policy