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Around 700,000 people turning 65 next year will be hit the hardest The tax will take 3.5billion from more than 4.4million pensioners Senior Tories say the move is the Chancellor's biggest blunder

By Tim Shipman and James Coney

PUBLISHED: 17:52 EST, 22 March 2012 | UPDATED: 19:20 EST, 22 March 2012

The full extent of George Osbornes stealth tax raid on pensioners was laid bare yesterday.

Around 700,000 people turning 65 next year will be hit the hardest losing 323 annually with the end of age-related income allowances.

In all, the granny tax will take 3.5billion from the pockets of more than 4.4million pensioners. Senior Tories have denounced it privately as the Chancellors biggest blunder.

Burden: Around 700,000 people turning 65 next year will be hit the hardest - losing 323 annually with the end of age-related income allowances

The new rules are so arbitrary that some OAPs will lose far more than others born a day before them.

Ros Altmann of Saga said: Middle-class pensioners are outraged. My inbox is full of angry emails from those who did save for their future but are now hit.

The message of this Budget is, dont bother to save for the future and if youre too old to work any more you dont count.

See the article here:
Granny tax backlash: Fury as full scale of Chancellor's raid on pensioners emerges

Australia's tax legislation is, according to urban legend, the longest piece of legislation in the world. One of our law professors reportedly has an entire room devoted to books of Australia's extensive tax law. Part of the story is that Australia has several tax Acts.

Best of all, 'if Australia keeps making new laws at the current rate, there will be 830 billion pages of tax legislation by the turn of the next century,' said Robin Speed from the Rule of Law Association in the Sydney Morning Herald. In 2006, 4100 pages were taken out of the tax legislation to 'improve readability'. What a relief!

Then there is the 10,000 rulings a year the Australian Taxation Office issues (based on the average between 2000-08). Each of them can have the same weight as an Australian High Court decision.

What does this mean for you? 'Australians pay at least 125 different taxes each year,' your Treasury says on its website. '...there could be as many as 160 different state taxes and 259 taxes nationally.' Then, on top of that, there are local government rates.

Our favourite taxes are the Wine Equalisation Tax (WET), which is 29% of wholesale sales. And the superannuation funds tax - yes, you pay taxes on money the government forces you to save in Australia.

But all this is simply not enough. And so the Mineral Resources Rent Tax is following in the footsteps of the existing Petroleum Resource Rent Tax. And the Carbon Tax is following in the footsteps of the failed European emissions trading scheme debacle.

Perhaps that law school professor will need a second room to house this ever-growing pile of legislation.

Why do you, as an investor, need to worry about this kind of politicking? Well, tax is theft. With the threat of violence thrown in for good measure. There is simply no way of getting around that basic truth, as uncomfortable as it might make you feel.

First, to the claim that taxes are a violent threat. If you don't pay taxes - and don't cooperate with the consequences of refusing to pay them - the police will happily lock you away. And if you refuse to be locked away, the police will use force to make sure you are.

But why is tax theft? Well, if you get together a group of friends and they democratically vote to take away your money, that's theft. But if a slightly larger group known as the Australian electorate and their representatives try it, it apparently isn't theft any longer.

Original post:
Australian Tax: Running Government at a Profit

But at a time when public sector budgets are being slashed, it can be difficult to defend the costs of freedom of information.

Ken Thornber, leader of Hampshire County Council, said: "We spent 365,000 in 2010 answering freedom of information requests. What else could I do with that money? More social workers, more school inspectors, more spent on road maintenance."

Although the majority of requests are borne of genuine concerns, a small but significant number are vexatious or frivolous, often cited by FOI's critics as an example of wasted resources.

Thornber added: "We were asked how many drawing pins the council owns, and how many of those are presently installed in pinboards. Others have asked how much we have spent on biscuits for council meetings or on bottled water in a year.

"It's a waste of staff time to answer these questions, and every response has to be researched, written and checked by a senior officer before it goes out. We need some mechanism of deterring frivolous requests - such as a 25 charge."

A 2010 survey of local government by UCL's Constitution Unit estimated the cost of FOI at 31.6m, and that civil servants spent 1.2m hours responding to nearly 200,000 requests.

Central government received 27,294 requests during the same period. If every request costs an average of 293 and takes 7.5 hours to process - figures calculated by Frontier Economics - the total spend across central government would total 7.9m, and take an estimated 200,000 hours.

It is this money - and time - that could be put to better use, claim many in the public sector, especially when frontline services are being cut back while 270,000 jobs have been lost over the past year.

Nevertheless, it is important to keep these figures in context.

In the NHS, one recent estimate put costs at 30m, roughly equivalent to the NHS annual spend on chaplaincy.

Original post:
What price freedom (of information)?

Newspaper publishers in Missouri could have to pay more to buy paper, ink and other supplies under a measure endorsed Wednesday by a House panel. On a 7-5 vote, the House Tax Reform Committee backed a proposal to eliminate sales tax exemptions on newspaper equipment in order to help fund state medical subsidies for people who are blind. The measure now goes to the full House. The House is debating a budget this week that would eliminate a $30 million program that provides medical care to about 2,800 blind people and instead set aside $6 million for a slimmed-down aid program. Some House members want to use the money saved from those program cuts to reduce cuts to the state's public colleges and universities. Other provisions of the Missouri law allow for tax emptions for materials used in manufacturing processes. Doug Crews, the executive director of the Missouri Press Association, took issue with Silvey's characterization of newspaper tax breaks as "corporate welfare," saying the newspaper industry is a type of manufacturing business. Hannibal Courier-Post Publisher David Stringer said newspaper publishers might choose to have their papers printed in other states, potentially eliminating printing jobs in Missouri. The Courier-Post, which prints its own papers each day as well as the Moberly Monitor-Index , MaconChronicle-Herald and Kirksville Daily-Express,, is located about a few miles across the state line from Quincy, Ill., where the local newspaper also has a printing press. "The economic impact on the industry would be real and it would be significant," Stringer told committee members. "The newspaper industry in Missouri employs thousands of people and the payroll is in the tens of millions of dollars. You're putting all that at risk." A financial estimate included with the legislation approved Wednesday projects that bill could generate up to $4.2 million of additional money for state aid to the blind. House Budget Committee Chairman Ryan Silvey, who sponsored the measure, said newspapers should give up their tax exemptions because some editorial boards have called on lawmakers to eliminate tax breaks as a way of balancing the budget. "The fact that they receive this corporate welfare while advocating for the end of it for others is a bit hypocritical," said Silvey, R-Kansas City. Silvey also said he does not think eliminating the tax exemptions would interfere with a newspaper's right to press freedom. "To say your medium is so unique that it needs a tax subsidy or it's infringement on First Amendment rights, I think is just illogical," he said. "It's not their right to have a sustainable business model." To calculate how much tax revenue the legislation could generate for aid to the blind, legislative analysts estimated the total annual revenue of the newspaper industry and estimated how much of the revenue is spent on newspaper supplies. The fiscal estimate projects that revenue for newspapers sold in the state totals between about $120 million $208 million each year. The estimate cites an annual report filed by the New York Times Co. for 2011 that said costs for "raw materials" and "other costs" are equal to 17 percent to 50 percent of the newspaper's revenue. Missouri lawmakers codified the sales tax exemption for newspaper supplies in 1998, two years after the state Supreme Court ruled that computers used for newspaper pagination could not be taxed because pagination is part of the manufacturing a newspaper.

Originally posted here:
Newspaper tax breaks to end?

Newspaper publishers in Missouri could have to pay more to buy paper, ink and other supplies under a measure endorsed Wednesday by a House panel.

On a 7-5 vote, the House Tax Reform Committee backed a proposal to eliminate sales tax exemptions on newspaper equipment in order to help fund state medical subsidies for people who are blind. The measure now goes to the full House.

The result is that newspaper companies would have to pay sales tax both on the supplies used to produce their paper and on the retail sale of the paper a double hit not applied to most manufacturers.

The House is debating a budget this week that would eliminate a $30 million program that provides medical care to about 2,800 blind people and instead set aside $6 million for a slimmed-down aid program. Some House members want to use the money saved from those program cuts to reduce cuts to the states public colleges and universities.

A financial estimate included with the newspaper legislation approved Wednesday projects that bill could generate up to $4.2 million of additional money for state aid to the blind.

House Budget Committee Chairman Ryan Silvey, who sponsored the measure, said newspapers should give up their tax exemptions because some editorial boards have called on lawmakers to eliminate tax breaks as a way of balancing the budget.

The fact that they receive this corporate welfare while advocating for the end of it for others is a bit hypocritical, said Silvey, R-Kansas City.

Silvey also said he does not think eliminating the tax exemptions would interfere with a newspapers right to press freedom.

To say your medium is so unique that it needs a tax subsidy or its infringement on First Amendment rights, I think is just illogical, he said. Its not their right to have a sustainable business model.

To calculate how much tax revenue the legislation could generate for aid to the blind, legislative analysts estimated the total annual revenue of the newspaper industry and estimated how much of the revenue is spent on newspaper supplies. The fiscal estimate projects that revenue for newspapers sold in the state totals between about $120 million $208 million each year. The estimate cites an annual report filed by the New York Times Co. for 2011 that said costs for raw materials and other costs are equal to 17 percent to 50 percent of the newspapers revenue.

Read more:
House panel backs end to newspaper tax breaks