Saturday 22 May 2010

Benefits for all! Except the proles.

There is much bleating in the House of Sheep about their expenses. Now, I know a thing or two about expenses. Nobody gives me any. If I want to claim back a proportion (not all) of money spent in the course of running my business, I have to have a receipt. No receipt, no tax relief.

I also have to keep those receipts for at least five years in case the Government want to check up on me. I am not allowed to check up on them, even though I give them money and they give me none. If I owe them money, I have to pay it right now or face prosecution. If they owe me money, they might or might not pay it at a time when they feel like it and there is nothing I can do about it.

When I have a receipt, I cannot claim the amount on the receipt. Only the tax portion. Nothing, not one thing, is repayable in full, ever.

I cannot claim a single penny of the cost of travelling to the lab because that's my place of work. I rent it, I pay the rent, it's mine. Therefore I can't reclaim anything for going there and back. If I have to go from there to somewhere else, I can reclaim the tax on the cost but not the cost itself.

If someone else paid the rent and I did some work there, I could be a visiting worker and reclaim the tax portion of the travel costs. Not the whole cost.

Our MPs don't like having these same rules applied to them. Even now, even with the scandal still burning in the public mind, even with MPs in court on charges of fiddling their employer, they still believe they are Entitled. More to the point, some of them think they are still Entitled when they've been jackbooted out of Parliament altogether.

Entitled to reclaim the cost of a taxi before 11 pm, when public transport is available. That same public transport they claim is wonderful and must be protected from cuts, but it's for the proles not the elite. That same taxi that nobody could claim on any real business expense form because they had access to public transport.

They are not talking about reclaiming the tax on essential business expenditure, which is what the rest of us are allowed. They want it all. They don't want to bother with the rreceipts that get the rest of us a portion of that expenditure back, they want it all repaid with no proof they've spent it.

Now they want their party politics funded from the public purse too.

Oh, they learned something from that expenses scandal all right. They learned that they can behave like Mafia dons and still get voted back into office.

There's only one way to get rid of a Mafia don. If those MPs want that lifestyle, they have to accept all of it, not just the good parts.

4 comments:

TheFatBigot said...

Many many years ago I lectured law and organised the annual mooting competition in which students argue technical points of law as though they were in court. To add a bit of spice to the competition I invited judges or QCs to judge the semi-finals and a Law Lord to judge the final.

None of them asked for a penny piece towards their transport to the college. Under the regulations in place at the time the Law Lords had the right to demand a chauffeur driven car at public expense. They never did, they took the tube or the bus or paid for a taxi themselves.

The college always offered a taxi to collect them from the House of Lords and take them home afterwards (the final was followed by a dinner so it was late by the time the event finished). On each occasion the answer was that the taxi would be accepted only for the journey home after dinner and only if the dinner finished after 11pm.

No money-grubbing, no lining of pockets, no seeking of special favours. It was second nature to these chaps because they knew their positions required them to make time for such events, it was part of their job.

penniless MPs on £65K plus expenses and fiddles said...

You can see why Labour managed to torch the economy with MPs' like Jim Sheridan in power.
Bleating about having to pay some expenses up front before being re imbursed ( like everybody eles does by the way ).
This guy was on £65K a year plus expenses for years yet didn't manage to save a couple of grand for emergencies.
WTF do these people do with all their money ? I just can't figure it out. They could probably get an overdraft and just charge us for that . Or throw it on the card and charge us the interest. Mind boggles at their incompetence really.

JohnRS said...

Penniless,

You're missing the point, from where they stand why in the world would any of them want to spend any of their money at all when they know perfectly well they can spend yours...on anything that takes their fancy...whenever they like....with no audit or receipt?

They STILL don't get it.

Anonymous said...

Should we be stupid enough to go down the road of state funding of parties, we can kiss what remains of democracy good-bye.

Now, parties thrive or die on public opinion (witness the Labour Party's debt). Should parties be funded via the national purse, what will will there be for them to court the public?

BTW, Leg-Iron, you might enjoy this!

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