Thought Id start this one going because its rather dead on this board at the moment and I suppose all my usual muckers are either at the Stella tennis event watching Dim Tim (lose again) or at Henly Regatta eating cucumber sandwiches (they wish,...NOT).

Anyway please feel free to just talk to yourself blast away and let it go on any company or subject you wish. Just wish Id thought of this one before.

cheers GF.

Alex Belardinelli ‏@abelardinelli

On 4G auction shortfall IDS tells @BBCNews, "until the receipts come in, you don't count that money" - exact opposite of what Osborne did


LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL

this tory government is falling apart.

IDS gone to pieces since Grayling left him.

What is happening to a once great club?

GF - you can go too far! :-)

I seem to have been filled on a limit FTSE short @6,397 - I thought I'd cancelled it last night - the day is not going well so far!

Swap positions.

Yesterday I had a smile on my face.

Somebody has nicked it.

I had a motto, when you think it is going well, prepare for shots.

I must obey myself more often!

Ps. In the present market one can learn a little more each day.

The problem is remembering what you have learnt and then using that information appropriately.

Give a little whistle.

GF - don't be such an ass ...... if the law allows avoidance by the use of taking a certain course of action, then it is neither illegal nor even reprehensible .....

even writing a simple will is potentially or actually avoiding tax, and certainly taking out life policies and similar is ...... are you saying that that action is reprehensible?

i certainly have every intention of leaving my (grand)children as well-provided for as i can manage without taking "agressive action", always ensuring that i do not cripple my own standard of living in so doing ..... i'm only sorry that i cannot afford to give them the chance to be put through private education which, like it or not (and i don't care either way), tends to be to a higher standard that state ..... though the state schools in my grandchildrens area happen to be very good

3m
My wife got the same letter from Halifax and the 'salutation' says Dear Mrs ... I used to own a software company and a part of our business was direct mail. We used to send out 2m plus letters every month. The software generates the salutation from the details held on your account. If it cannot be sure it is correct then it uses a default salutation such as Dear Traveller, Dear valued customer. Have a look at the window address and see if there is anything odd.


I know of another company that was mailing high net worth customers of Nat West. They could not decide on a default salutation and forgot about it. The mailing went out with the salutation put in by the programmer for testing. It was "Dear filthy rich bastard".

I am afraid that there is no prospect of a cure for dyed in the wool lefties like GF. Where I live at the moment, most of the properties are more than or close to £2m value. These houses and flats are inhabited by mainly old people on fixed incomes. Many of them are cash poor and live on the state pension. The house was left to them in many cases or they bought it many years ago. They have no ability to pay a mansion tax. Are they supposed to sell their houses to pay the tax. Are they to be penalised because their house has turned out to be in a trendy area and has consequently rocketed in price. The houses were fairly cheap when they bought them.

Hays,

It sounds like many of the described are dying in fur coats.

Perhaps, they should be advised to dispose to use some form of "equity release" and turn the heating on.

The "Tax" regime could be modified by raising proportional level on disposal of the property at time of sale.


Ambivalent about it.

Well then Haystack can you tell us how we can stop these bar stewards sending us these dam e-mails. If, in the case that your wife was a client of the Halifax and they had used her correct name then she would probably have opened it up, to probably find that her account was empty minutes/hours later. I am sick of getting junk mail from Inland Revenue/ppi claims/and numerous other banks. As we probably all do, there must be a solution to this.

Fred
The whole point is that the many of the owners of expensive houses could not afford fur coats. Why should they have to sell or release equity to pay tax. In the end the equity release money could all be spent and then how do they pay the tax. An interesting point is that with equity release them maybe the equity release company would be liable for the mansion tax a the new owner.

3m
There are few things in life less important than getting a bit of extra mail. If you want to stop post then register with MPS, phone calls TPS. You can reasonably expect companies to contact their own customers via post and email. If you don't like then contact each one and ask them to stop. In practice I have found that most will comply.

Companies send out direct marketing items because it works. It is not really 'junk mail' as most of it is targeted. It is similar to TV advertising except the company knows more about the person receivng the message.

both (fos)fred and gf have failed to answer the question as to why it is fair that the proposed mansion tax will target almost exclusively those living in the south of england, where a house valued at an arbitrary £2.5m will be perhaps double that of one of similar footprint even in say harrogate

a buyer of a house at £2.01m will already pay 7% stamp duty, whereas ......
2011/2012 stamp duty rates
Up to £125,000 0%
£125,001 - £250,000 1%
£250,001 - £500,000 3%
£500,001 - £1,000,000 4%
£1,00,001 - £2,000,000 5%
over £2,000,000 7%

however, the seller may well have bought that £2.01m house for say £350k only 25 years ago ...... furthermore, somewhere down the line, there will also be a 40% CGT tax bill on this hypothetical £1.65m profit

not frightfully well stated i'm afraid, but i'm sure even the northerners among us will be able to understand, even though some may fail to see the inequity in such a targetted tax

taking that tax a step further, apart from who assesses the value of a house and how - much harder than one may think - perhaps it would be fairer, if there is an insistence on such a tax, that it is the footage that should be taxed and not the value ..... thus the burden would be spread across a far larger proportion of the populace

Fred
I would vote for no inheritance tax, no capital gains tax and no tax on interest earned.

they're easy to stop .... it's called "blocking"! ..... that way they get sent straight to junk even if you haven't bothered (very very stupid) to instal one of the security systems

Fred
I would also vote for the same flat rate for all tax payers instead of higher rates for higher earners.

Sorry cyners but I happen to think you should stand up on your own 2 feet in this world.

Ive given my lad £200 to buy books with in his first year at UNI and Ive told him to use it well as thats all hes getting.

He knows what my views are, hes a sensible lad and hel make the most of that money I know that.

As for que jumping on education and health, sorry I cant abide it.

Cyners you southereners get far higher wages than people in the north for the same job. Maybe this just evens things up, and dont forget call me dave and IDS think everyone should be more mobile so yes you can come and live in the shit hole thats known as west yorkshire or even worse parts of lancashire, rochdale for example.

Im sure their will be a job waiting.....................................NOT.

what you do with your money is (and should be) entirely up to you ...... however, if i pay my insurance contributions but choose to give my (grand)children the chance of a better education, why should i not do so? ....... if i pay my NHS contributions but also choose to pay for private health care, why should i not do so?

did i have a private education? ..... indeed i did, but assuredly did not take proper advantage of the opportunities offered

have a i created whatever wealth i now happen to have? ...... yes, pretty much, so why should i not pass that on if i so choose?