local authority improvement grants for boats used as liveaboards

[bobfrost]

What's everyone so uptight about?

When I bought my present house over two decades ago I got home improvement grants for rewiring, insulation,new kitchen etc.etc.

It was and is a bit of a farce that comparatively rich people like me who can afford a house were and are getting subsidised in their investment by low income tax payers. I (and I suspect you) was also getting tax relief on the mortgage of my property from which I have done very nicely thank you.

Charitable status for private schools? Tax relief on private health care? Council tax relief on the second home when there are those who do not have a first one?

I have also done very well out of the lottery where lots of usually poor and invariably stupid people have been subsidising my tickets to the opera.

WTF is the difference between putting ones financial affairs in an order so that one pays a minimum of tax and putting ones affairs in a position where one can claim maximum benefit??????

Too many Daily Mail readers on this forum getting hot under the collar about the odd pound going astray whilst the real villains of the peace Murdoch, Branson etc are driving a coach and horses through the tax system.

It's a bit like Aid to Africa.......................poor people in rich countries sending money to rich people in poor countries.

Get a life (and stop parking in the disabled spaces at the supermarket to save you walking the extra few metres to the door you overweight self righteous smug b@stards). /forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif

 

[Tisme]

Fine, you send him some money to do his boat up then. Personally I don't think that public money should be spent on refitting a leisure craft.

 

[BrendanS]

I like parking in disabled spaces as they are wider, and no one else ever uses the over abundance of them. Whilst I may be a self righteous smug b@stard, I'm definitely not overweight as anyone who has met me can testify.

 

[bobfrost]

[ QUOTE ]
I like parking in disabled spaces as they are wider, and no one else ever uses the over abundance of them.

[/ QUOTE ]

Three obvious solutions:-

1. Cut back on disability benefit so they can't afford cars. What was wrong with the little blue things they used to drive?

2. Learn to park.

3. Drive a car which reflects your need for transport rather than your wish to show off your wealth.

 

[BrendanS]

I like 1 best out of the three!

 

[tcm]

Message for Bob

Small point, but there's no council tax relief on second homes, Bob. Now, there might have been a small bit of relief a while back, on account of second homes not using as much schools and hospitals and police and sucklike, but anyway these days it's full whack , although i admit it depends on the council.

Don't it worry about this too much, cos you're a teacher as i see from you bio, hence obviously, and don't have a second home and won't likely run to a second home either unles the lottery actually pays out bigtime. But anyway i know you're always right and so on, so please excuse a factual correction just on that one small, tiny point on this issue.

Oh, nother small point, there's no tax relief on health insurance either. Not a huge issue but you did mention it, and i thought it worth a small little correction that anyone with private health insurance doesn't actually get tax relief on it.

Actually, heh, whilst we're about it, you gave Branson and Murdoch and bit of a biffing too. Not my place but really, they actually started some quite large uk enterprises, didn't they? I think they did. In fact they pay loads of tax, too. Obviously they could pay more as you suggest, but as it stands the businessses they started are resposnsible for more tax being being paid in a week than many people pay in their entire lives. Especially... more than YOU would ever pay. Cos you don't pay any! Oh no no you don't!

Think about it - you've never really and truly created anything that is taxable, have you? Not realy? Cos you work in a school, which is in the public sector, paid for by the private sector generating all that GDP thingy you see on the news and say pah! at the telly. But your school and all the salaries are paid for by tax.

The tax doesn't swim round and round and round with teachers and doctors and nurses "paying" it, you know. That wouldn't create any money at all, would it? No it wouldn't. Someone would have to bung in the money to start you off paying the tax. You're only paying to make it look good. Public sector may as well not pay at all, cos it wouldd save the exchequer paying it into schools and schoolteaxchers, collecting some it again and so on. But it starts by someone generating wealth. No wealth generation, no tax, no tax, no job for bob.

Not the same if you were in a private school but i guess that with your sideswipe at private schools that doesn't apply, hm? True, they do have some tax benefits but they do pay full vat as a consumer don't they? So they generate wealth too, pay the exchequer, and are yet another target of your ill-informed and inaccurate post - yet who also hence help pay for your salary that you are so smugly self satisfied about. And your house and mortage and everything sodding else yer flippin loon grauniad reader with yer flippn disabled space whinge I mean fer crissakes when exactly did you see someone disabled go to the flippin DIY shop to put up some shelves eh? EH? Never! That's flippinright you and your lot with twit loony political correctyness rules about carparks whereas it would actually be much better all round if the disabled were BARRED from DIY shops in case they do themselves a mischief and gobble up even more tax, almost as much as a self-righteous maths teacher! Hm?

Er ahem, anyway, forgive me. Sorry about that, i don't know what came over me. My original post disagreed with the idea of giving away for money for boatfixing and whilst i can fully appreciate the wisdom of paying maths teachers I suppose it's a matter of degree.

I supose it was once said that the only truly fair taxes are no tax, or 100% tax.
With 100% tax, we'd all get a free house and house grant and boat from the state. errr ....which, as above is effectively what you've actually achieved already... Which er explains why you leapt to his defence. Ah. Damn damn damn.

Carry on.

 

[theforeman]

Re: to the baltic with you

i really should get a life posting at this time in the morning but here goes. we should all be issued with a machine gun. the last man standing would obviously not be eligible for the darwin award and would, equally obviously, be the cleverest and best economist and social scientist around.
discuss in not more than 3 lines.

 

[bobfrost]

Re: Message for Bob

Oh dear. I presume it was the bit about the inability to park that got you going. I find it usually works! /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif
/forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif

 

[tcm]

Re: Message for Bob

No problem. Is parking your specialist subject then?

 

[Stingo]

[ QUOTE ]
...and stop parking in the disabled spaces at the supermarket to save you walking the extra few metres to the door you overweight self righteous smug bast@rds

[/ QUOTE ]
Will do, but only when the disabled folk stop parking in the "abled" spaces.

 

[zefender]

Re: Stop bullying teecha

I don't know about Murdoch (but he'd be off my Christmas card list for other reasons, as you might have guessed) but most folk seeking to investigate Branson's wealth and the profitability or otherwise of his businesses, have been struck by the incredible complexity of a web of offshore trusts which ensures he, to use a polite phrase, is highly tax efficient. The cash profits seem to escape out of the UK somewhat. Yeah, he employs quite a few people (who would otherwise be employed by others probably, without getting too 'Marx made simple' about it) but is his contribution to UK any greater than say, er a teacher? All this thread curfuffle started with someone enquiring about a grant for a liveaboard boat and people got very upset about that, particularly if the person concerned is going to leave the country. Well, if he actually needs state funding then having him freely export himself out of the welfare system seems like a very cost effective thing to do, long term. So a business decision might be to pay the grant and hey presto, massive savings all round. The social decision might be a tad more complicated.
Of course, it would be appropriate to talk about fantastically huge 'grants' (i.e. public money) paid to already very wealthy people and businesses to run things, like say trains, with a formula that almost guarantees they'll lose no money. No infrastructure (goverment pays for that), growing demand (government policy on road transport sorts that) and a complete geographic monopoly - which in todays parlance is called a 'franchise'. Because of these absurdly unfree market conditions, it is possible to travel from Euston to London in some squalor, at a cost not dissimilar from the parent company's airline fare to Los Angeles, which is of course also subsidised via duty free fuel. Like the grant paid to fix up a liveaboard boat, or a teacher's roof insulation, we pay for that too.

 

[Sammo]

Re: Bob a Job

Just laughed my way way through your post,
and will never look on schoolteachers in the same light again.
I concede. When it comes to rants you are indeed the master.

…….

 

[tcm]

Grauniomics - \"bully\" responds

Hah! Winning an argument might seem like bullying, but I actually responded to bob with probably less venom than he used. Anyway...

At least until recently if not at the moment at least one virgin company was quoted on the stock market. Many others are uk-based businesses, and altho none of this is a total gtee of financial rectitude, it is by no means a doddle to rip huge qtys of cash out of such a company trading onshore in the uk and whip it off to some taxfreeneverland, despite what the (now slightly more tabloidy) grauniad might have one believe.

The idea that if people didn't work for branson/murdoch businesses then all those people would immediately work for someone else is indeed a fabulous bit of Grauniomics. It solves at a stroke all those silly problems of unemployment back in the seventies, and takes utterly for granted what happened in the eighties. What on earth was the problem, eh? Just look in the paper and get another job! No prob! But it *was* a problem getting a job, for millions, regardles of qualifications.

But anyway, moving along as you did....

In the uk at least, increasing public expenditure is everso gently expanded and expanded with a series of little justifications one on top of the other. Just as you have done.

Yep, valid to have free schooling, Yep, valid to have health care, yep valid to have other things too. Then, eventually... not too far a leap to have it valid for people to export themselves and get paid for that too. Which was precisely the argument forwarded by the tories last time around that people could virtually-export themselves from the NHS and save evryone a few quid. Altho the net effect is that private health is publicly funded, sort-of.

It's very similar here. On the one hand it seems sensible that people (physically) export themselves out of a welfare system which most definitely costs money and hence would reduce the cost to the state with a one-off grant. Pay him for the boat fixing and he'll clear off. Brilliant.

If that passes, then it's a much shorter step to offer persistent burglars a similar one-off deal whereby instead of continuing their current career choice, the State offers them a one-off payment of say £100k (cheap, really) to stop burglaring for ever. It sounds ok but of course can also be seen as massive state incentive for being a burglar, and it would make sense to immediately become one. On a much smaller scale, but with the same principle, increased diasability payments has led to the number of disabled-and-unable-to-work increasing from 100thousand people in uk in 1980 to around 2million today: the state made it atrcative to be disabled or at least to appear as such.

Likewise it would make sense to immediately become a world sailor if there's free decking.

You also make the leap that NOT applying a tax where one might possibly get away with it is "subsidising". Like airline fuel. Cept of course that anyone who wanted to stay in business would immediately refuel elsewhere. Regulation together with tax can do the same, hence almost no uk merchant fleet, and not too many big uk road transport companies and so on. There is a "competition" element in taxation - it's not the case in a real capitalist system that the money all really belongs to the state and not paying tax is "getting away with it" or that slightly-less-taxed-things are "subsidised".

I preferred your earlier ideas, where public spending concentrated more on physical stuff like roads or rail or nice town centres or even public-funded harbours as in France. Although that fabulous example of publiclly-funded excellence isn't proving too wonderful for everyone either in the light of pre-xmas riots. Another discussion for another time.

I remain unconvinced of your argument for public funding of the original posters new deck.

Ok - how about if the state actually did the work - that should be ok, no? And how about then he has a bit of a problem with the deck so has to come back, and sue the state with legal aid assistance for the crap job they did which caused more problems or injury? And so on.

Alternatively, where - if anywhere - would you draw the line?

 

[ShipsWoofy]

Re: Grauniomics - \"bully\" responds

And

What would stop him finishing the boat, selling it on and buying another wreck to renovate and do up? What a great business plan, zero risk.

There was a tramp living on a tiny little saily boat in Pwllheli harbour for a few years. Gwynned council paid his harbour dues as this was his home. I think he may have had mental problems so could not work so was probably on incapacity benefit.

I have no problem, or had no problem with this as it was a great deal cheaper than putting him in rented accommodation. I did have a problem with the fact in winter he seemed to move into the gents toilet at the harbour masters and you would near gag at the smell as you opened the door. What annoyed me the most was the fact he had full access to the shower in there but it did not seem to register.

The problem with anything like this, I don't know if it is just a uk thing, but you (the council, SS, state) invite copy cat behaviour. Hey I could live on my boat, bills paid, benefits and no tax at all. It is a Pandora's box.

Back to our entrepreneur, say he makes it to Oz on his fabulous yacht with all mod cons (if the council get involved they will have to make it livable and up to full regs.). Sails around for a few years and then comes back after selling the boat. He will arrive at Heathrow with nothing but his clothes and wad of Oz dollars.

Unless they do the work tcm style payoff and expel him (can you expel a subject), there is no money to be saved. I need to refurbish my heads and aft cabins, as these are essential living area's I think I might look toward a grant.

Tcm, did you ever find the correct forms in the end?

 

[ShipsWoofy]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
...and stop parking in the disabled spaces at the supermarket to save you walking the extra few metres to the door you overweight self righteous smug bast@rds

[/ QUOTE ]
Will do, but only when the disabled folk stop parking in the "abled" spaces.

[/ QUOTE ]

Did you forget to add a smiley face to you remark?

 

[ladyahab]

what a great advert for other scousers maybe they should just nick a better boat next time.

 

[tcm]

smilies

Not at all sure stingo does smilies in his text,and quite few people don't, praps cos the "emoticons" are a bit naff and/or they praps show an inability to express oneself without pictures. To check if this applies to you, see if you can explain what a spiral staircase is like to someone but WITHOUT using any arm/hand movements.

Anyway, I liked the way it was deliverd deadpan. Also, Stingo is from seth efrica and either looks like a boxer, and praps actually was a boxer. And so altho he also smiles a lot, if he wanted the entire carpark cleared, say cos he had a load of other seth efricans coming round too (eg lions, cheetahs gorillas etc) I bet you'd move. So would the disabled people too, even quicker, probly.

 

[bobfrost]

Re: Stop bullying teecha

[ QUOTE ]
All this thread curfuffle started with someone enquiring about a grant for a liveaboard boat and people got very upset about that, particularly if the person concerned is going to leave the country. Well, if he actually needs state funding then having him freely export himself out of the welfare system seems like a very cost effective thing to do, long term. So a business decision might be to pay the grant and hey presto, massive savings all round. /quote]

Bloody hell TCM.....you must be telepathic! Guess what the government has just proposed. Doing up our scouse friends boat is working out cheap! From the Times website today:-



The Times January 13, 2006

Asylum-seekers to be asked: will you leave for £3,000?
By Richard Ford, Home Correspondent


ASYLUM-SEEKERS and illegal immigrants are to be offered a £3,000 bounty to leave Britain voluntarily as part of the Government’s efforts to increase the number who are returning home.

The handouts will be paid to people who agree to leave the country in the next six months and could mean a family of four receiving £8,000 in cash plus a further £4,000 in job training and education.

It is the first time that asylum-seekers and illegal migrants have been offered cash to leave the country and could cost £6.2 million if the predicted 3,000 people take the offer. In addition the Government will pay their travel costs.

The move comes after the Home Office admitted that it has failed to meet the Prime Minister’s pledge that by the end of last year the number of asylum-seekers removed would be more than the number arriving each month.

A more attractive package for voluntary departures should ensure that the target is met and that overall removals increase during the next six months.

The scheme is to be advertised in immigration detention centres, asylum-seeker reporting centres and in a mailshot sent to 54,000 people receiving benefits and accommodation from the National Asylum Support Service.

Tony McNulty, the Immigration Minister, announced the revised package in a written statement to MPs yesterday.

Under the existing scheme asylum-seekers are offered £1,000 to help with education, retraining and setting up a business.

The Home Office is now to provide an extra £2,000 per person, which the asylum-seeker will be offered in cash. The scheme is to be piloted for six months until the end of June and is eligible only for those who claimed asylum before the end of December.

Mr McNulty said: “All those who leave the UK under this scheme will be offered an additional £2,000, which they can choose to take as either additional reintegration assistance or cash grants.”

Both the National Audit Officer and the Commons Public Accounts Committee have urged ministers to encourage more people to leave voluntarily because a forced removal costs £11,000 per person.

A Home Office spokesman said that those departing would not be given “wads of £20 notes” as they left the country.Cash would be paid in instalments over the next 12 months in a scheme administered by the International Office of Migration, he said.

The spokesman added that most people who left under the scheme tended to be single males. Of the 2,783 who left voluntarily under the scheme in 2004-05, only 244 were under 18.

Last year Sir John Gieve, the outgoing Permanent Secretary at the Home Office, warned MPs that increasing the payment might encourage people to come to Britain. He said: “If the worst thing that is going to happen to you if you come and claim asylum when you are not due asylum in Britain is that someone gives you a few thousand pounds to send you home, that may not look like a very big downside.”

Damian Green, the Shadow Immigration Minister, said: “In the short term this might be a sensible move.” He added: “What is clearly driving it is that the Government has missed their target of removals for 2005 and say they will hit it by the end of February. They must be very worried they are going to miss it again.”

Maeve Sherlock, chief executive of the Refugee Council, said that she welcomed the move. “It will be cheaper, more humane and more efficient,” she said. “Enabling people to return home by giving them financial help to rebuild their lives has to be better than enforced removals that often involve men, women and children being snatched without warning, locked in detention centres and then flown out in handcuffs.”

COUNT THE COST

# In 2003-04 17,855 failed asylum applicants and dependents removed or left voluntarily

# £1.89 billion spent on immigration and nationality, of which £1.07 billion goes to the National Asylum Suppport Service

# £285 million pays for voluntary removals, detaining immigration offenders and immigration enforcement

# £308 million spent on supporting asylum-seekers awaiting removal

 

[Tisme]

Re: Stop bullying teecha

All very interesting but there is no evidence that the guy was living off the Welfare state. All we know is that he has bought himself a boat and is wanting to apply for a grant.

Just because he is a scouser doesn't necessarily mean that he is living on the dole.

 

[bobfrost]

Re: Stop bullying teecha

[ QUOTE ]

Just because he is a scouser doesn't necessarily mean that he is living on the dole.

[/ QUOTE ]

LOL. Brilliant. I love these scouser jokes. Can't wait to tell it myself. /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif