Right, you need to make your mind up, can people be educated as they like or do they all have to be educated the same way?

It's not the actual private education people are protective of, it's the freedom to have the choice.

Cobblers, its the chance to set off the fees against tax that they like. End this little perk by stopping their charity status and see how many survive.

Ah, so it's not about the kids education. It's about the money.

Well that was probably a bad example given the state run nursery school my wife works for also has to use Biffa. That is refuse collection was privatised. The school has to pay for it and she is forever battling duff invoices etc.



How naive are you and Dally? You don't expect to pay less tax (local or otherwise) when a service once provided by the LA (or central govt) is now provided by a private company do you? Lowering taxes has never been what privatisation was about.

You have to pay twice. Obviously.

Lol. Got bored of the other accounts did you?

Wait for the lecture on opinion polls...

I didn't naively call for a tax reduction, I suggested business rates should be scrapped but other taxes increased to compensate.

Business rates should be revised but there's no reason they should be scrapped. Although I would favour the scrapping if it was replaced with Land Value Taxation. At least that way, those companies involved in land banking or simply sitting on empty or derelict plots, would have to pay their fair share of tax. Hopefully that would reduce the burden on active businesses

One of our neighbouring businesses cancelled their contract with Biffa in favour of some other shyster, a few weeks later Biffa came along, and while I watched them out of the window they took their wheelie bin AND our wheelie bin away, they were so quick that I couldn't get out fast enough to stop them.

I rang the Biffa Leeds office up to tell them to get onto their driver and bring our bin back, the plonker on the line thought that we'd had it stolen, maybe because I told him that Biffa had just stolen our bin, so he told me that the only way to get a replacement would be to ring the police and get a crime number, then they'd send another bin around - so I rang our local police and asked for a crime number for a crime that hadn't happened at all and the person in the police station kept asking "But why would anyone steal a wheelie bin ?" I did try to explain that I knew who had stolen it and when I told him it was the company who supplied it to us in the first place he hung up.

I stopped paying for the "service" and sent back their invoices every month with "Give us our bin back" written in red ink on them, we never resolved it before we closed that business

Still about a month to go and things are becoming even more tiresome - I'm wondering how I'm going to be able to put up with another 4 weeks of this childish rubbish.

However, I'd just like to pay huge thanks to the leader of the Greens, Natalie Bennett - Has a leader of a political party ever provided so many unintentional laughs during an election campaign before?

I know there is a lot of good intention about the Greens, but they really are a bunch of crackpots, who are away with the fairies, and in Bennett they have a leader who is truly on another planet.

Interviewing her must be an absolute dream for any TV or radio show producers because she is absolute gold - Any interviewer just has to say the magic words '....and how are you going to pay for that?' to any of her bonkers policies and, bingo, the stuttering and general know-nothingness begins and you suddenly have political gold.

Keep it up Ms Bennett, you might make this election almost bearable.

Not too dissimilar to Farage then.

Leaving the EU and reducing foreign aid, with UKIP as the catalyst appear to be all we need to produce the magic money tree

The none dom thing is truly bonkers - how is this going to be administered. How are they going estimate how much tax a Russian billionaire should pay? HMRC will have no juristriction to investigate earnings in a foreign country. Whilst not ideal better to at least get the 60k plus tax on any UK earnings and the huge spend these people get through here than nothing. Better to concentrate on getting companies to pay tax on UK earned perofits

Zac Goldsmith, born, bred, educated in the UK was elligible for non-dom status, inherited (along with about £200,000,000) from his father. He voluntarily relinquished non-dom status, as did Lord Noon because they both knew it was inequitable. The "flight of money" threat is simply another scare tactic, similar to the one we faced when cracking down on spiv bankers and traders.

As soon as any individual or company states "I/we pay all UK taxes that are due", you simply know that they have some serious dosh to hide from the taxman.

In 2008 the Institute of Directors predicted flight from the UK when Labour first proposed the non-dom levy:



The sky didn't fall in then and it's doubtful it will now

Looks like the tories are getting increasing desperate and more personal.

Michael Fallon now says that [url=http://www.itv.com/news/update/2015-04-09/tories-miliband-will-stab-the-uk-in-the-back-to-be-pm/Miliband would stab the UK in the back, just like he stabbed his brother in the back[/url

He conveniently forgets that Ed and David Miliband ran in an open leadership campaign and Ed won by the rules that were clear and transparent from the start. He also seems oblivious that whether or not Labour manage to achieve power with the help of the SNP, there isn't a snowball's chance of Trident being scrapped, unless the tories and every other party voted against it and that ain't going to happen

They're going to try to do to Miliband what they did to Kinnock. Cameron will let his gang of school bullies do the dirty work while he tries to appear above it all. Hopefully it will backfire, the "people" are apparantly sick of this type of politics, but that's something I find hard to believe unfortuntely.

The UK is the only country in the world to have this non-dom status and it needs to be scrapped because if you are rich enough such that even by paying £50K levy you are better off than paying tax on your income then this is as clear an example as you could imagine of "one law for the rich". Scare stories about lost revenue are just that as it is expected to raise about £1bn not lose HMRC money.

I will give you an example as to why it is wrong to persist with it. I work for a US company and they have a share scheme and the share account is held in the USA. I am taxed by HMRC with regards to this scheme (not the US IRS) because like any [uUK resident[/u I am liable to pay tax on my income [iwherever it is earned in the world[/i.

However as non-doms only have to pay income tax on their UK income then if a non-dom was in this share scheme alongside me, they could legally leave it undeclared and pay no UK tax on any income derived from it. Yet they could be living and working in the UK permanently.

I defy you to rationalise this as an equitable state of affairs.

Take away that non-dom status and any such failure to declare would become illegal. I am sure some would try it but most people are honest and would declare rather than face the prospect of being arrested. They don't glibly decide to break laws.

There are also tax treaties in place so you are not taxed twice if you take up residence in another country for an extended period and it all works very well. So there is no reason to persist with the archaic privilege.

Arguing against scrapping it is arguing for the rich and no one else to retain a privilege that allows them to avoid tax. This is why the Tories are in such a flat spin about it.

Michael Fallon may have spoken the words but there's no doubt that Lynton Crosby wrote the script. Crosby may have been successful in getting Abbott elected in Australia using similar tactics but I think he and the tories may have seriously underestimated the British electorate and their intolerance of bullies.

On the lunchtime Daily Politics, Phillip Hammond was repeatedly asked to endorse Fallon's "backstabber" remarks, he continued to evade the question. Tim Montgomerie, a known rabid tory, has also criticised the personal nature of the attack on Miliband

I am not saying that people will do runners but how are you going verify the figures somebody like Abromovich is going to submit its impossible.

I would imagine in Rothschild's case the vast majority of his income will be Uk based in the form of salary dividends and rental income so no real loss to him

I never mentioned Rothschild.

Here's another one for you - Lord Rothermere: Proprietor of the Daily and Sunday Wails. Born in the UK, educated in the UK, lives in the UK. Claims non-dom status on his family's French heritage. The question anyone should ask is WHY?

As for Abromovitch, it is quite possible we have a tax treaty with Russia, there are plenty of them. To use the excuse that we may not be able to audit some individuals, so we shouldn't abolish non-dom status is weak in the extreme

Ed M was very weasly with his words. Any changes are likely to be tinkering and probably include removing taking your father's domicile even if you are born here. There are a lot of wealthy people, especially those whose families have come from Asia who can currently claim the status.

There will be plenty of Bullingdon references to even it up.

Still a daft topic to go negative on. Voters often say that they dont want nuclear arms, but dont seem to vote in favour of disarmers. Its a topic they'd rather everyone just kept quiet about.

Looks like Lynton Crosby's tactics are really paying off. For the very first time Ed Miliband has jumped above David Camoron in Party Leader Approval Ratings

Things really must be getting desperate when the Torygraph's Chief Political Correspondent resorts to writing [url=http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/ed-miliband/11526188/Ed-Miliband-was-dating-senior-BBC-economics-journalist-Stephanie-Flanders-when-he-was-at-the-Treasury.htmlthis sort of crap[/url. Is that really what he aspired to in journalist school?

It gets worse: [url=http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/11525052/Samantha-Cameron-is-twice-as-popular-as-other-leaders-wives-says-poll.htmlSamantha Cameron is more popular than other leaders' wives[/url. The Torygraph seems to be turning into some sort of braodsheet Hello magazine.

Same author BTW

[url=http://news.sky.com/story/1461837/tory-dossier-urges-attacks-on-ed-milibandIt's official[/url