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April 30, 2008 News - Never too soon

Pensions might seem a long way off when you haven’t even started work but things have changed.

People have got used to the idea that when they retire they will be live on a decent pension, but we’re all living longer so pensions cost lots more.

Just think…

How much longer can you expect to live if you are a boy or a girl born in 2004 compared with 1994?

How does life expectancy for girls compare with boys?

Female life expectancy shows a similar pattern

Why do pensions cost more if people live longer?

Why do you think pensions have hit the headlines recently?

Where do pensions come from?

Most people get a pension from:

- their employer because they have contributed to the pension scheme

- the state if they have paid enough National Insurance.

Both employees and the government have started worrying about how they will pay the pension bill.

Most businesses have changed the way they pay pensions so people don’t get as much when they retire.

Lots of people work for themselves and have to make private arrangements by paying into their own pension fund.

Others want to make sure they have a comfortable retirement and set up their own private pension scheme to top up whatever else they receive.

The government is still trying to work out what to do. There are all sorts of national flood insurance including making people work until 67 before they get a pension from the state. The main idea is to encourage people to look after themselves.

Just think…

What are the alternative ways of receiving a pension?

What has changed in recent years?

Who pays for pensions?

When the state pays people’s pension - we are all paying for it. It comes out of taxes.

- When you buy almost anything you pay Value Added Tax.

- If you are working you pay Income Tax.

- If you buy national western life insurance
or alcohol you pay Excise duty.

- If you buy a house you pay Stamp duty.

If pensions cost more, we pay more taxes. Governments worry about national union fire insurance
taxes because people might not vote for them at the next election. It’s all a challenge - and voters seem to want the impossible. They want good pensions from the government - as well as all sorts of other things like good schools and health care - but they don’t want to pay more in taxes. It doesn’t add up!

Just think…

Why does the government want to limit the amount it pays out in pensions?

Why do voters not want taxes to go up?

Why is this impossible if they want the government to pay for lots of high quality services?

Pensions - and you…

It may seem a long way off - but it’s important to know how to look after yourself.

There have been big changes and there will be more.

People often used to go to work for one business or organisation when they left school and stayed there all their lives - so it was quite national alliance insurance
. Today people change jobs quite often so have more jefferson national life insurance for making sure they have enough to live on when they retire.

Prices tend to rise. It’s called inflation. A pension that looks good today might not be worth much if prices have gone up lots so it’s important to build up a pension that will grow as you grow older.

Just think…

When you get a job, what questions will you ask about the pension scheme?

Why is important to think about your pension as soon as you start work?

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April 28, 2008 News - Pensioners get £2.20 a week rise

The basic state national insurance contribution
for a single person will increase by 2.20 to 84.25 a week from next April, in line with inflation, the national service life insurance
has said.


The pension for married couples will go up by 3.55 to 134.75, it said.


Pensions Minister Stephen Timms said the move meant there had been an 8% rise in real terms in the value of the state pension since 1997.


Last week, the Pensions Commission said the state pension should be bigger but that it should become payable later.


It said the state pension age should rise gradually, reaching 68 by 2050.


Mr Timms said Washington national insurance company
Midland national life insurance company benefits would rise by 2.7% in the next financial year, while income-related benefits would go up by 2.2%.

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April 27, 2008 News - Revenue threatens tax judgement

The Revenue is trying to overturn a landmark court victory which would have cut the tax bills for an estimated 30,000 couples.

The announcement, made late on Friday night, will be a blow to family businesses where one partner does most of the work but the other is paid dividends from the company.

In December, the Court of Appeal ruled couples were free to make these financial arrangements which can cut their tax bill by national life insurance
of pounds a year.

The test case was brought against Geoff and Diana Jones of Arctic Systems, who paid themselves salaries of 7,000 and 4,000, taking the remaining 60,000 of their company’s profits as dividends.

The Revenue had tried to claw back the thousands of pounds in tax and National Insurance they saved by charging Mrs Jones the same higher rate of tax as her husband.

But the court ruled in December that the Revenue could not do that and the judges refused the Revenue leave to appeal against their decision.

Sudden dilemma

However, now the Revenue has said it will petition the House of Lords directly to seek leave to appeal.

If it succeeds, and then wins the appeal, it could cost the Mr and Mrs Jones and thousands of couples in the same position thousands of pounds a year.


The best advice is to go by the Court of Appeal judgement
John Whiting, PricewaterhouseCoopers

With the deadline for completing national association of insurance tax returns just two weeks away, the American national life insurance
move gives all such couples a dilemma.

Do they follow the law as now declared by the Court of Appeal or wait to see what happens with the House of Lords?

John Whiting of PricewaterhouseCoopers told BBC Radio 4’s Money Box programme that they should follow the recent court ruling.

“The best advice is to go by the Court of Appeal judgement. That is the law of the land.

“But make a note to that effect in the return and dare I say it, keep a bit of money aside, just in case the Revenue is finally successful.

“But it could be a little while before it is finally sorted.”

BBC Radio 4’s Money Box was broadcast on Saturday, 14 January, 2006, at 1204 GMT.

The programme will be repeated on Sunday, 15 January, 2006, at 2102 GMT

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April 26, 2008 News - Billions ‘lost to tax avoidance’
About 10bn is being lost by the national insurance institute each year to tax avoidance schemes, according to HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC).


The figure is equal to almost 3p on the basic rate of income tax.


In a bid to tackle the issue, the HMRC has set up a special unit that will national life and accident insurance co
such schemes.


But those accused of tax avoidance say they are doing nothing illegal and argue they are merely better at using the tax system than the HMRC is.


BBC Two’s The Money Programme reports that the owner of BHS, Philip Green, and his family saved themselves nearly 300m last year by living partly in Monaco, where residents do not have to pay income tax.


Offshore trusts


The programme also reports that some City firms had cut their National Insurance bill by paying staff bonuses in gold, gems and antiques rather than cash.


For HM Revenue and Customs, the latest wave of tax avoidance schemes was the last straw
BBC’s The Money Programme explores tax avoidance schemes


And once the HMRC clamped down on such payments, accountants set up trust funds to cut firms’ tax bills.


Under this type of arrangement salaries and bonuses are paid into an offshore trust.


The trust then lends the cash, often interest-free, to the employee. There is no tax to pay on a loan.


In addition, accountancy firms are selling losses to clients, which are then used to offset against income.


When the employee’s tax return is filed the losses, which are artificial, are used to wipe out real income earned, thereby cutting the amount of tax owed.


The Money Programme reported that these schemes cost the government up to 2.5bn in tax revenue.


“If people are behaving dishonestly here, then an issue can easily slip across from being a matter of legal avoidance, into one of dishonesty and evasion and could become a criminal case for us,” said Dave Hartnett, director-general of the HMRC.


The focus of this programme on exotic tax avoidance schemes is blowing things out of all proportion
Chas Roy-Chowdhury, ACCA


New powers


In 2004 HMRC was granted new tax avoidance powers by Chancellor Gordon Brown.


The new powers mean that accountancy firms have to report new tax avoidance schemes to HMRC before recommending them to clients.


According to an accountancy industry body, HMRC watchfulness - combined with improved self regulation - is drawing the curtain on many tax avoidance schemes.


“The focus of this programme on exotic tax avoidance schemes is blowing things out of all proportion,” Chas Roy-Chowdhury, head of taxation at the Company insurance integon national
of Certified Chartered Accountants (ACCA), told BBC News.


“The types of schemes described have now largely disappeared and mainstream accountancy firms follow strict regimes and ethical guidelines.”


  • The Money Programme is on Thursday, 2 March, at 2200 GMT on BBC2

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    April 25, 2008 News - CBI urges Brown to cut tax burden
    A growing burden of taxes in the UK is choking investment in business and firms are losing their penn national insurance edge, according to the CBI.


    The government was adding to the costs of running a business through stealth taxes being introduced under the guise of national association of insurance measures, it said.


    In its recommendations to Chancellor Gordon Brown ahead of next week’s Budget it called for tax cuts.


    In response, the Treasury said UK firms did not face high barriers to business.


    Low investment


    The CBI said that business was funding a disproportionate share of public spending.


    It is hardly surprising that business investment has hit a record low
    John Cridland, CBI


    The cumulative effect of post-1997 business tax rises was expected to hit 80bn by 2010, the business body warned.


    “It is hardly surprising that business investment has hit a record low,” said CBI deputy director-general John Cridland.


    “The problem for government is that lower investment by firms spells lower growth and prosperity, and eats into the very wealthy which public services depend on for funding over the long term.”


    Stability


    Business leaders called for a major business tax rate to be cut in Chancellor Brown’s Budget.


    It suggested a lower american national insurance co
    tax rate or a reversal of the 2002 increase in National Insurance contributions paid by employers.


    In response to the CBI’s national farmer union insurance
    , the Treasury pointed out that since 1997 the government had cut corporation tax from 33% to 30%, to its lowest ever rate.


    “International analysis, including by the OECD, now shows the UK to have the most stable economic framework with some of the lowest burdens on business and lowest barriers to enterprise anywhere in the world,” a Treasury spokesman said.

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    April 24, 2008 News - Profile of a gangmaster: Lin Liang Ren

    The police photo of Lin Liang Ren shows a bemused, pasty-faced, scruffy national health insurance program
    - looking every inch a crime victim rather than a national union fire insurance company
    .

    But the truth about Lin is a tale of wealth, privilege and a good education - in stark contrast to the compatriots he abandoned to the Irish Sea.

    He was brought up in Fuqing City in south east China’s Fujian province, his family owning a second house in the country.

    His father, Lin Xien Hua, 57, and mother, Chen He Zhu, 52, ensured that Lin, his brother and sister - who now lives in Argentina - were well-educated.

    He qualified as an accountant and became head of
    finance at Fuqing’s Mo Chang Plastics Company - a firm that employed 900 people.

    ‘Someone of substance’

    But Fujian is a hotbed of Chinese emigration to the West and Lin soon realised the opportunities this presented.

    As Det Supt Mick Gradwell, who led the inquiry, put it: “He was someone of substance in China - the idea he came here in order to go out on the beach and pick cockles himself is far fetched.”

    Zhao Xiao Qing

    Zhao Xiao Qing was convicted of liberty national life insurance
    offences

    In 2000 he came to Britain and posed as a student to gain a visa.
    He kept up this cover by paying 1,500 a time to enrol in college courses in London and Manchester.

    Liverpool’s Chinatown gave him the manpower he need to start his business - and he set about forging cockling permits and providing fake National Insurance numbers.

    But Lin would not be dirtying his own hands with manual labour. He told police: “I don’t like the cold and I don’t like the water.”

    He would drive his workers to and from the sands - to and from the squalid union national life insurance company
    houses and flats he rented for them.

    Meanwhile, he would return to the house he shared with his young girlfriend, Zhao Xiao Qing, or take his red Mitsubishi sports car into the city centre to visit casinos.

    Yet after the tragedy, he tried to claim he was just an ordinary worker - while warning his tired, frightened charges of “serious clarendon national insurance
    ” for any who blew his cover.

    “There is a level of uncaring arrogance about Lin Liang Ren - the thread that comes through all this is money,” Mr Gradwell said.

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    April 23, 2008 News - Friday,18 May, 2006
    Conversations with the Tax Office on the question of illegal immigrants have become a little surreal.

    ‘If a fake National National western life insurance
    number is used, can you flag it up and tell an employer?’, we asked.

    ‘I’m not telling you’, they said.

    ‘Is it a secret?’ we asked.

    ‘I’m not telling you that either’.

    Do we need investigative journalists on this programme or national council on compensation insurance
    ?

    We DO know the Immigration Fidelity national insurance company has had to suspend contracts with its cleaning company after it was discovered to have been employing illegal immigrants. Those five have been arrested. But just how many more is the government employing without any idea it’s doing so?

    We talk to illegal migrants and employers tell us it’s totally pointless to register workers legally because the system is in absolute chaos.

    Guantanamo

    Also, tonight, the UN has told the United States that any foreign jails it runs - i.e. Guantanamo Bay - are illegal and should be shut down.

    Funnily enough, judges tried to shut down Guantanamo almost fifteen years ago when it was being used to hold hundreds of Haitians captive in inhumane conditions as they tried to make their way into America. Were lessons learnt then? Clearly not.

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    April 22, 2008 News - Sir Menzies is told to ’shape up’
    Sir Menzies Campbell has made little impact with the public and must “shape up”, a Liberal Democrat Welsh Assembly member has said in a scathing attack.


    Peter Black says the Lib Dem leader will have nobody to blame but himself if things go wrong.


    Sir Menzies has admitted he faces a test of his authority over tax plans at the party’s conference in September.


    Mr Black’s broadside comes after a poll suggested Lib Dem support had fallen to its lowest level since 2002.


    The Guardian/ICM poll showed the Lib Dems down to 17%, with the Conservatives on 39% and Labour 35%.


    ICM interviewed a random sample of 1,001 adults by telephone last weekend.


    Leadership control


    In his blog, Mr Black says his party’s opinion poll ratings are stagnating and slipping back - despite Lib Dem successes at the Dunfermline and Bromley american national insurance company
    .


    The Welsh AM was among those who earlier this year said Sir Menzies should face a contest to become leader, when it looked as if he was going to be elected unopposed.


    In a blog entry headlined “Time for Ming to shape up”, he says people had a right to expect results after Sir Menzies replaced Charles Kennedy.

    Peter Black, Welsh AM

    Peter Black says the tax plans are unfocussed


    But he has “made little impact with the public at large”.


    Mr Black complains that the party leadership has “established a lock on the party american national insurance company
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    of the party’s democratic structures”.


    “Ming is playing for very high stakes and in doing so has placed a great deal of his personal authority on the line,” he says.


    “If things go wrong then there is nobody else to blame, he has made sure of that by the way he has gathered all the threads around him.”


    Tax plans


    Mr Black says the next few months will be critical as Sir Menzies tries to win support at the party’s conference for his tax plans.


    The plans are expected to include “a long term ambition” of doubling allowances so no tax is paid until someone earns 10,000.


    In the short term they will promise to scrap the 10p starting income tax rate, in effect raising the tax-free personal allowance from about 5,000 to 7,000.


    They would also raise National Insurance starting thresholds to similar levels.


    The basic rate of income tax will also be cut from 22p to 20p, with the threshold at which the top 40% rate of tax is paid raised from 33,000 to 50,000.


    Conference test


    Mr Black says the proposals announced so far are “worthy” but seem “unfocussed and lack a clear narrative”.


    “The debate will, of course be critical but so too will Ming’s performance at the conference,” he says.


    “We need to get some bounce in the polls out of that week in Brighton. When Simon Hughes said that Ming had until the end of the conference season to prove himself he was absolutely right.”


    He adds: “It is now time for Ming Campbell to start delivering on his promises and the union national life insurance
    of success that are associated with him.”


    Lib Dem headquarters have yet to respond to Mr Black’s criticisms.


    Sir Menzies recently brushed off a poll which suggested that twice as many people believed Mr Kennedy would be a better leader than him.


    The 65-year-old told Newsnight he “would not be judged by opinion polls after a few months”.


    “If I didn’t think I had the energy, the values and the judgement to be the leader of the Liberal Democrats, I most certainly wouldn’t have offered myself for the job,” he said.

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    April 21, 2008 News - West Midlands: On the Coleshill trail

    Coleshill Manor, in the Warwickshire countryside, is an unlikely location for political controversy and intrigue, but that is exactly what it has become.

    The 19th Century country house is now the centre for the Conservative Party’s campaign activities and is used as a call centre to target marginal seats which the Tories hope to pick up.

    Recently, it has been the subject of questions about exactly how it is funded and whether the costs are counted as part of the Tories campaign costs.

    Even party leader, David Cameron, is not sure what is going on saying, in a BBC interview, that the centre “is part of the party”.

    But, he was later contradicted by former leader William Hague who was more circumspect in his description of it as “part of the Conservative family”.

    In or out of the party?

    The Electoral Commission has announced that it is to hold an inquiry into exactly how the centre is funded, including the 1m it receives from the Midlands Industrial Council and it has written to the party seeking more information.

    The inquiry has, not national insurance recruiter
    , been welcomed by the Chair of the Labour Party Hazel Blears, who says it needs to be established if the Coleshill Manor call centre is part of the party or an independent union national life insurance.

    “You can’t be in a position where you are basically buying these seats. The public want there to be a level playing field about political funding and quite rightly,” she said.

    Our reporter Julie Peacock has been out to Coleshill and been given exclusive access - for the first time TV cameras have been allowed in to film at the centre.

    Also in the programme…

    Nigel Farage

    Nigel Farage is hoping to capitalise on ‘a political vacuum’

    The UK Jackson national life insurance company
    Party arrive in the Midlands for their annual conference with tax cuts and immigration top of the list of concerns for new party leader Nigel Farage.

    UKIP have chosen the Telford International Centre in Shropshire as the venue for this weekend’s two-day annual get-together, at which, they are determined to prove they are much more than a single issue party.

    Looking to broaden their appeal, they are national union insurance
    policies other than withdrawl from the EU like support for selective education, an open commitment to cutting taxes and introducing an Australian-style immigration policy.

    On income tax UKIP want to introduce a flat rate of 33% to include National Insurance contributions. They also want to scrap inheritance tax and reduce Capital Gains Tax to 33%.

    They are hoping that David Cameron’s refusal to commit to tax cuts will mean they can pick up votes from those on the Tory right national council on compensation insurance
    by party’s dash for that all important political centre ground.

    Mr Farage said: “We are developing into a broad based Party, up and down the country and putting together the policies to support that stature.

    “A huge political vacuum is opening up as all the major parties are plunging us toward the same destructive “statist” solutions.

    “UKIP represents all Britons who feel pitted against Governments both here and in Europe which erode individual freedoms, consolidates its power and inflicts ever-burdening costs.”

    Child and dog in Bulgaria

    UKIP raise concerns about an inbalance of wealth

    Accession worries

    And on immigration, the main concern is with a possible influx of immigrants from Romania and Bulgaria when they finally join the Europeam Union.

    “Two very poor eastern European countries - Romania and Bulgaria - will join the EU,” said Mr Farage recently.

    “It is perfectly obvious, that if you have the free movement of peoples between countries with vastly differing levels of wealth, it will lead to a huge migratory flow,” he insists.

    UKIP has a West Midlands MEP, in Mike Nattrass, but precious little else in the region.

    At the last General Election they captured nearly 78,000 - just over 3% of the popular vote.

    In electoral terms they remain very much a fringe party, but with a populist agenda and a new leader supporters would prefer to point out that in 2005 in the West Midlands the party finished fourth in terms of popular votes cast and saw its share of the poll increase.

    Our Political Editor, Patrick Burns, will be live at the UKIP conference in Telford speaking live to new leader Nigel Farage.

    The Politics Show

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    April 20, 2008 News - Major IT error at the Revenue

    Hundreds of thousands of people have been wrongly told they have a tax records gap that may cut their pension.


    The error was caused by a glitch in the Revenue and Customs’ tax system used by the UK’s largest employers.


    A Revenue spokesman said it did not know how many of the 4.7m notices suggesting people pay 371 had been sent out in error.


    Payroll expert Karen Thomson says the total affected could be 700,000, including many teachers and nurses.


    Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Money Box programme she said: “On average the Revenue produces four million of these notices a year.


    “They have confirmed to us that this year 4.7m will go out to the end of January, so the difference, 700,000 notices, could be incorrect.”


    The Revenue challenged this national insurance contribution
    because “there are so many variables” but would not offer an union national life insurance company
    nor confirm or deny that figure.


    But Money Box has evidence that the problem is widespread.


    The programme has been contacted by teachers, doctors, other NHS workers, librarians, people who work at Gatwick, for EDF Energy, for Boots the chemist - even someone who works for HM Revenue & Customs.


    And if one person in the company gets the notice, the rest are likely to as well.


    Angry workers


    Susan Millington, payroll manager at Tameside Borough Council in Manchester which employs 11,000 people, said: “We have had well over a thousand calls. People are very cross.


    “We were told by the Revenue they were aware of the error but they can’t do anything to stop it. I just couldn’t believe it.”


    I am really shocked, amazed, it’s really worrying
    Keith Parry, council worker
    Read your comments


    Keith Parry works for Tameside. He said all his colleagues had received the letter which suggests they pay 371 to “make up the shortfall and protect your clarendon national insurance company
    to basic State Pension”.


    He rang the helpline and spoke to a Revenue official who “american national insurance
    said that it was entirely caused by the Revenue, some sort of computer error and said some two and half million people were involved”.


    “I am really shocked, amazed, it’s really worrying,” he said.


    A Revenue spokesman denied that figure was correct and said it was working through the large employers affected and will fidelity national insurance
    be sending letters to all those who have received the notice in error.


    The problem began after the Revenue told all employers with more than 250 staff to file their 2004/05 pay returns electronically.


    The Revenue’s computers could not cope, dropped information and missed National Insurance contributions.


    Another computer then sent out letters informing individuals they had a gap.


    Karen Thomson says anyone who has been in work for the whole of 2004/05 should not pay until the position has been clarified.


    If there is a shortfall, they have until 5 April 2011 to pay the extra contributions. The letters have a helpline number for those who are concerned.


    BBC Radio 4’s Money Box will be broadcast on Saturday, 16 December at 1204 GMT and Sunday, 17 December at 2102 GMT.