News - Tories ‘to simplify business tax’ October 31, 2007
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The Conservatives have outlined plans to make the tax system simpler for small businesses.
Shadow Chancellor George Osborne said VAT, income tax and National Insurance were too complex and create too much paperwork for businesses.
The Tories have asked accountancy firm Grant Thornton to look at aligning the administration of NI and income tax.
But he was accused by the government of offering an unfunded “wish list of tax cuts” to the party’s right-wing.
‘Needless complexity’
Mr Osborne told an audience of businesspeople in London the Conservatives would try to reduce the tax burden on small businesses, in return for them encouraging more flexible working.
Raising NI and income tax contributions using different systems, and over different periods, was causing “needless complexity and administrative difficulties”, he said.
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 Streamlining the Byzantine intricacies of VAT administration will make a real difference to small businesses all over the country  George Osborne
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The Conservatives are looking at aligning the charge period to ease the “regulatory burden”.
Grant Thornton will also review the documentation, information and administration required for VAT.
“Streamlining the Byzantine intricacies of VAT administration will make a real difference to small businesses all over the country,” he said.
‘Come clean’
He also questioned the value of tax relief on investment announced in the last Budget, saying some companies would not be eligible, while others would need to hire expensive tax advisers to make claims.
“The Conservative Party will continue to oppose the chancellor’s latest tax rise for small businesses. We are fighting this measure every step of the way in Parliament,” he said.
But Chief Secretary to the Treasury Stephen Timms said Mr Osborne should “come clean” about his plans and spell out how he plans to pay for his pledges.
He added: “After caving in on grammar schools, David Cameron and George Osborne are now promising the Tory right a wish-list of tax cuts - without any idea how to fund them.
“If they ever got the chance to implement these uncosted, up-front tax pledges, the result would be a return to boom and bust in our economy.”
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News - Rat warning over drunken youths October 30, 2007
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Drunken youths could turn city streets into rat-ridden disaster areas, the Keep Britain Tidy campaign has warned.
New figures from the campaign suggest 86% of local authorities are spending record amounts on cleaning-up.
But the group says complaints about litter have risen and that the rat population has risen by 24% since 2001.
It wants businesses which benefit from the booming night-time economy to help pay for the clean up, saying their drunken customers fuel the problem.
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 Our night-time economy is based mostly on alcohol consumption and if we are not careful, our rubbish-strewn towns will become no-go areas during day time  Keep Britain Tidy
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“Late night licences have brought a massive injection of cash into our towns and cities,” said Alan Woods, Keep Britain Tidy chief executive.
“But the simple fact is many councils cannot cope with the rubbish revellers leave behind.”
The group said fast food litter had risen 50% in the last three years, that 30% of our streets had problems with bottles, cans and glasses and that 39% of councils employed fewer than 20 full-time cleaners.
Mr Woods added: “Our night-time economy is based mostly on alcohol consumption and if we are not careful, our rubbish-strewn towns will become no-go areas during day time.”
Industry anger
Keep Britain Tidy wants businesses that benefit from longer opening hours to pay for extra street cleaning which they do in cities such as Washington, New York and Philadelphia.
The group is launching a poster campaign aimed at young people.
But Adrian Herdman, president of the National Federation of Fish Friers, said his members could not agree to pay more for the streets to be cleaned or follow a new government directive to clean up litter up to 300m away from their shops.
“They should make the people who drop the litter responsible for it. This couldn’t be any closer to the nanny state.
“To be expected to [contribute to cleaning] is nonsensical. Our staff would have to go onto the public highway and there is no way we can have insurance to do that.”
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News - Encounters with intelligence October 29, 2007
Posted by in : Terrorism insurance , add a commentRead source of it on the http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/3472389.stm site
Alistair Cooke recounts how he was mistaken for a spy during World War II, in this Letter from America first broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on Friday, 6 February, 2004.
Intelligence, intelligence. There must be four or five inquiries underway.
The president has ordered a special commission, Mr Blair wants an inquiry, all to know if the intelligence that justified the March invasion was well-meant, accurate, faked or all wrong.
Until, I’d say, the Second World War, the dictionary definition would cover most people’s understanding: “intellect, understanding, sagacity”.
There is in my dictionary a final sub-definition of intelligence and it meets our case: “the gathering of information secretly, usually on behalf of some government agency”.
Ahah - a very ancient word revived. I recall, in Shakespeare “intelligence, sirs”.
Look that up and you get the short English definition of the CIA and the
FBI: “a secret agent, a spy”.
Secret agent is not quite right for the FBI men who regularly announce themselves as agents in an investigation, but exactly right about the CIA - Central Intelligence Agency.
Nobody goes around in the CIA with an identification card and indeed they’re almost always known to society, even to the wife, as a businessman, an insurance agent, some respectable profession actually worked at or assumed as a cover.
The CIA was not invented until 1947. It was a vague sort of service and was infested, in Washington especially, by amateur cloak-and-dagger people and gossipy socialites who could barely wait to hint that they were working quietly for - well, you know who.
In 1947 one Allan Dulles, the brother of a coming secretary of state, organised a really professional spy organisation - the Central Intelligence Agency - to co-ordinate foreign intelligence dangerous to United States’ security.
The public knew who was the appointed head of it but that was about the end of public knowledge.
I don’t know how it is with the equivalent outfits in European countries, but the CIA to most folks has always carried a sinister air about it - inevitably when you reflect that the only time it comes into the news is when some project, some operation, like the Bay of Pigs invasion, has gone sour or a CIA man has been caught as a Russian agent.
This sinister reputation is popularly redeemed mainly by the nick-of-time rescue of James Bond. And 007 is saved again for yet another lethal encounter with Charles Gray and his pussy cat.
The FBI, on the other hand, has maintained a worthy reputation from the beginning.
Perhaps I shouldn’t say from the beginning because in 1908, when it was formed, it was probably unknown to the average citizen.
It was organised as the investigating arm of the Department of Justice with practically no police powers.
I ought to say at once that the United States, unlike many countries, has no national police force - that rests entirely with each state which, remember, has its own education system, banking laws, each has its own criminal code.
In the making of the Constitution in the late 18th Century James Madison succeeded in convincing the founding fathers that the best way to prevent a dictator or the national government taking over the country was to give the states great governmental powers.
Not until the 1920s did a famous attorney general persuade Congress to give the FBI powers of investigation that would in time make it a clearing house and central consulting agency for crime all over the country.
The provocation for giving the FBI unprecedented authority was the crime wave that flowed alongside the oceans of illegal liquor and the bootleggers that bought and sold them.
There was a time in the mid-20s when, as an example, the notorious Al Capone practically owned the government of Chicago.
After every murder of a rival gangster he would stage an elaborate funeral procession for his “friend” and appear at it without shame or fear since he’d already paid off witnesses, law makers, police, prosecutors, even judges at the coming trial.
When Roosevelt repealed prohibition and the big gangsters turned to other rackets many of their hacks turned to bank robberies, and that’s when the FBI was given for the first time the right to investigate any crime that involved crossing a state line.
It had been the custom for two or three men to rob a bank and then quickly drive across the state border and have a relaxed supper at a hideaway in a state near or far.
But now the FBI, once let loose, for the first time armed and licensed to kill, went off on a national chase.
They became national heroes, known as the G-Men, the gang busters, and in no time spawned radio serials and made the gangster film as classic a film as the Western.
The headquarters of the FBI in Washington expanded into an unmatched exhibition hall and forensic laboratory of crime.
Until very recently it was one of Washington’s compulsory tourist attractions, showing innumerable methods of detection, inviting visitors to add their own fingerprints to the original stock of six million, and take a tour of the forensic laboratory to goggle at physicists and biologists and chemists scraping soil from boots, threads of hair, bits of grass, and spectro-chemists examining life-threatening letters to the president. The usual catch is over a thousand a month.
Today the FBI have become the first government agency to recruit agents for any crime that might have been plotted in, or initiated in anyway outside the state it was committed in. For over 20 years it’s had a working anti-terrorist squad.
I think few people remarked on the speed with which the bureau came to identify and learn the life stories of 16 of the 19 suicides who shattered the Twin Towers and the Pentagon.
There was a time when the FBI acquired an unpleasant, predatory reputation, during Senator McCarthy’s manhunt for Communists in the government.
That ended when McCarthy went too far in humiliating the army by implying that it was riddled with Communists.
The Senate censured him - a very rare punishment - and he relapsed into his alcoholism and died.
My own contacts with the FBI have been few and far between. In the late summer of 1968 a young man who looked like Jimmy Stewart knocked on the door of the Long Island retreat and wanted me to recite my version of the scene in the Los Angeles hotel pantry where I’d seen Bobby Kennedy assassinated.
I had one, I suppose you’d call it, “encounter” - the right word, one that I cherished as a delightful encounter.
In 1943 when America was well in war I went off on a one-man tour of the country to report on what the war had done to every sort of trade and specialty, from concentrating orange juice for British children, making parachutes out of long-staple cotton in Arizona, to the secrecy of the Navy’s sudden marine net in San Francisco to tattooing parlours in San Diego.
For this tour, need I say, I had to be provided with a pack of credentials, a State Department, Department of Agriculture … on and on - including an FBI clearance for many wartime agencies, especially the army, navy, marines, so on.
It was spring and I was on a day-long train ride across Texas on my way to look at an airforce base at the western edge of the state.
I found myself seated next to a buxom, middle-aged matron, well dressed.
After a little small talk I told her what I was up to and opened up a map and pointed to assignments just done with - Fort Riley, Kansas - the last cavalry base, now down to Miami to watch the airforce take over the big Miami hotels and now coming west to an airforce base.
She listened to all this with a deeply understanding smile, as if she’d just been introduced to some obscure mathematical problem.
I told her the name of the tiny town where I was getting off, one of those western names like Low Hills or Odessa.
We had lunch together and afterwards the lady went off for a long stretch, I assumed to the bathroom.
I later discovered I was wrong - she’d gone to the conductor to urge him to use whatever means he had to get in touch with the police, the FBI maybe, in Low Hills.
Well eventually we slowed down and stopped at Low Hills - there was no station, just a telegraph shack and the town name.
I got off and there to stop my exit and greet me, as arranged, was the base commander - a colonel, his aide - a major, and the FBI man.
We stood and waited for the chauffeur and the train swiftly pulled away.
And there on the train’s observation platform, a tiny figure now, but still the smiling buxom matron.
And the train slid into the horizon bearing one proud American who had just performed a patriotic act: she had spotted and turned in a spy!
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News - Schroeder holds firm on reforms October 28, 2007
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German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder has promised to continue with unpopular welfare reforms that have prompted huge protests across Germany.
The chancellor said the labour market reforms would be introduced “according to plan and without any changes”.
The new measures, due to take effect on 1 January 2005, would lower long-term unemployment benefits.
Over the past two weeks, thousands of people across the country have taken to the streets in protest.
On Monday, police said more than 20,000 protested in Leipzig in eastern Germany and 15,000 in Berlin.
The government made concessions last week on the timing of the first payments, but has insisted there would be no more fine-tuning of the “Hartz IV” legislation.
Long-term unemployment benefits are to be reduced to the level of social welfare payments, meaning a large cut in income for many families.
Savings
The government says the changes are necessary to revive competitiveness in the German economy.
Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, Mr Schroeder said it was “the biggest social reform in the history of the Federal Republic”.
“Of course people are worried about it, but we are firmly convinced that in the end, people will understand that it is important and necessary for Germany’s future
stability,” he said.
As part of the reform package, the unemployed would be required to use family savings and life insurance policies to support themselves.
The government has rejected comparisons between the recent protests and demonstrations in the former East Germany in 1989 that helped to bring down the Berlin Wall.
Unemployment in eastern Germany is 18.5%, twice the level of that in many western German regions.
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News - Insurer warns on second pension October 27, 2007
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The Prudential insurance company is telling many of its personal pension customers to opt back into the state second pension (S2P).
Its advice will go out in a letter to 440,000 customers on Monday.
The Prudential says the amount of money the government contributes to those who are opted out is not big enough to offset the potential risks.
This is the first time the Pru has made this recommendation for all its opted-out customers.
In past years, the Pru has focused its advice more narrowly.
Last year it recommended opting back only to men more than 60 years old and women aged over 54.
But now Tom Boardman, the Pru’s director of policy development says the firm strongly believed that most people should contract back.
“It is important that individuals are incentivised for the risks being taken by opting out of the State Second pension,” he said.
“Our view is that the rebate levels for the 2005/06 and 2006/07 tax years will not provide sufficient incentive for the majority of our customers to remain contracted out.”
Second pension problems
The ability of some individuals to opt out of the S2P (then known as SERPS) was introduced by the Conservative government in 1988.
It extended an option which had been available to occupational pension schemes and their members since 1978.
In return for relinquishing any claim to a second - earnings-related - state pension, individuals would be compensated by paying lower National Insurance contributions.
This rebate would be paid directly into their alternative personal pension plans, such as those sold by the Pru.
Different advice
The idea was that people would be better off in the long term if they relied on their own pension savings, based on the return from investments, rather than on some of the benefits provided by the state.
Now, however, the tide of opinion is strongly against contracting out of the S2P.
In August the Financial Services Authority (FSA) said many of the 3 million people who are currently opted out of the S2P were likely be worse off as a result.
Last year the Norwich Union advised 253,000 contracted out savers to opt back in, and was disappointed when only about 40,000 decided to do so.
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News - Pensioners hold rallies across UK October 26, 2007
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Hundreds of pensioners have taken part in rallies protesting at the level of the state pension, organisers say.
The events in Edinburgh, Newcastle, Nottingham, Manchester and Birmingham called for the basic pension to be raised from 84.25 to 114 a week.
Organisers - the National Pensioners Convention (NPC) - hope that their Pensions Action Week will highlight shortfalls in recent pension plans.
A protest bus also toured London handing out leaflets.
‘Upbeat and confident’
A spokesman said hundreds of people attended the rallies in England, which were held indoors.
“The mood seemed to be pretty angry over the government’s lack of action over addressing the problems of the state pension,” he said.
He added increases to electricity and water bill and council tax rises mean a 2.20 rise in the state pension due in April was not enough.
But he also said the general mood was “upbeat and confident” pensioners could persuade the government to raise pension further.
The NPC wants all men and women to be paid a full state pension from April of this year based on residency and not on their National Insurance contributions, and without taking other savings into account.
As part of its campaign, the NPC has printed 85,000 postcards to be sent to Work and Pensions Secretary John Hutton.
Saturday’s campaigns included speeches from union leaders, MPs and NPC bosses.
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 The government must realise that the basic state pension is totally inadequate  Joe Harris
NPC general secretary |
Other events planned for this week include a protest at TUC headquarters in London on 18 March, the same day as the government marks its own National Pensions Day.
NPC general secretary Joe Harris said: “The government must realise that the basic state pension is totally inadequate and millions of older people, many of them women, are struggling to cope with rising bills and the cost of living.”
A Department of Work and Pensions spokeswoman said: “We have made clear that any reform of our pensions system has to be affordable, sustainable, fair, simple and promote personal responsibility.
“We’re currently looking at the proposals put forward by Lord Turner and the Pensions Commission report.
“We’re having a full and active debate with business, industry and members of the public in order to achieve the best change which will provide security in retirement for future generations.”
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Teens Need To See Their Doctors More Often October 24, 2007
Posted by in : National Insurance , add a commentScience Daily — Despite recommendations for annual preventive exams for adolescents, only 10 percent of teens have enough visits within 12 months to receive the recommended three shots needed for HPV vaccine. Ideally the three shots are delivered within six months, and only 1 percent of teens see their physicians that often.
“In order to be best protected against HPV, teens need all three shots before they are exposed to the virus,” said Cynthia Rand, M.D., M.P.H., assistant professor of Pediatrics at the University of Rochester Medical Center, and author of a study in Pediatrics today about adolescents’ need for more doctor visits to receive the HPV vaccine. “Even if we stretch the shots out over 24 months instead of six and include check-up and sick visit as opportunities to vaccinate, only about a third of girls and a fifth of boys are seeing their doctors enough to receive all the shots.” This implies a high percentage of additional visits to primary care physicians are needed.
However, the introduction of this and other adolescent vaccines over the past few years presents health care providers with a new opportunity to offer preventive medicine. Adolescents as a whole do not see their physicians often enough to receive routine care and safety messages that are incredibly important for that age group.
“The HPV vaccine, along with the others, could be a draw to get these teenagers in and then we’d have more chances to talk to them,” Rand said. “We could counsel teens more on alcohol and tobacco use, safety and mental health issues, diet and exercise.
“We need parents and physicians to realize that even though these children can be very independent at this age, they still need you to encourage them to see their doctors for important preventive care even beyond the new vaccines.”
Rand’s study showed that the adolescents who are male, black, Hispanic, uninsured and poor are the most at risk for not seeing their physicians often enough to receive the vaccine. But even teens outside those categories aren’t getting to the doctor enough. According to the study’s analysis of 2,900 11 to 21 year olds’ primary care visits to pediatricians, family physicians, obstetrician/gynecologists and internists in 2002-2003, more than 50 percent of both teens who had insurance and who are not poor needed two or more visits to complete the series of HPV shots.
The national Medical Expenditure Panel Survey from which the data was pulled predates the recommendations for the HPV vaccine as well as two other recent additions to the immunization schedule for adolescents. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention funded this study.
HPV, adolescent vaccines background
HPV or the human papillomavirus is the most common sexually transmitted infection in the United States. Two of the four strains the new HPV vaccine, Gardasil®, manufactured by Merck & Co., Inc., protect against cause 70 percent of cervical cancers (the other two protect against 90 percent of genital warts). The vaccine was recommended earlier this year by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices and the American Academy of Pediatrics for girls 11 and 12 and those 13 to 26 who had not yet received the vaccine. Studies are ongoing to determine whether the vaccine is effective for boys, and it is expected the vaccine will be recommended for adolescent boys in coming years.
In addition to the HPV vaccine, two other vaccines have been added to the immunization schedule for adolescents: Tdap to protect against tetanus, diphtheria and pertussis (whooping cough) and meningococcal vaccine for viral meningitis, in addition to a new recommendation for a varicella (chicken pox) booster. Each of these vaccines are given in a single shot each and don’t require subsequent visits.
A team of scientists, not including Rand, at the University of Rochester Medical Center played a role in the creation of the HPV vaccine and the University is receiving royalties for its contributions.
Note: This story has been adapted from a news release issued by University of Rochester Medical Center. (more̷ 
News - Car crime hits ‘one in three’ October 23, 2007
Posted by in : Crime insurance , add a commentThe North West of England has the highest level of night car crime in the UK, according to a new survey.
Almost one in three drivers questioned said their vehicles had been stolen or vandalised during the night, compared to just one in 10 in Wales.
The UK average was one in five, the survey carried out for Sainsbury’s Bank found.
The North West rated alongside the West Midlands and Yorkshire and Humberside as the worse areas for car crime at any time of the day or night.
It also has one of the highest levels of drivers experiencing “road rage”, at one in six (17%).
Researchers Taylor Nelson Sofres based their findings on the responses of 1,284 motorists across the country in April.
They were also asked what precautions, if any, they routinely took to prevent crime.
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MOTORISTS HIT BY CAR CRIME AT NIGHT
Yorkshire & Humberside 23%
West Midlands 16%
East Anglia 20%
Greater London 16%
South East 17%
Scotland 16%
North West 29%
North East 24%
East Midlands 19%
Wales 11%
South West 20%
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As many as 29% said they avoided certain areas during the daytime, and at night this rose to 39%.
Gail Quinn, Head of Business Development for Sainsbury’s Bank, urged motorists to review their vehicle security.
“By taking a few simple precautions such as not leaving valuables in your vehicle or even just making sure that you lock the car when you are not using it or when you pay for petrol at a filling station, you can greatly reduce the chances of becoming a victim of car crime,” she said.
A survey last week found the North West was the UK’s motor insurance black spot.
High crime rates, traffic congestion and a proliferation of expensive cars were blamed for motorists paying, on average, 23% more than the rest of the country in premiums.
Researchers for Tesco Motor Insurance admit they were surprised to see the region beat London into second place.
The figures show the annual yearly premium in the North West is 535.39, while in Greater London it is 518.34.
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News - Profile: Salvador Allende October 22, 2007
Posted by in : National Insurance , add a commentChile’s Salvador Allende died in a United States-backed coup on 11 September 1973 - three years earlier he had become Latin America’s first democratically-elected Marxist president.
The Chilean poet Pablo Neruda described him as an “immortal corpse”, while one of the foreign musicians who travelled to Santiago for a concert commemorating the 30th anniversary of his death titled a performance “Salvador Allende, Son of God”.
But Mr Allende has his critics.
Economists say the 1970-1973 Allende experiment - which saw the nationalisation of the banking and copper industry - was nothing short of a disaster.
Strikes held by shop keepers, students and professionals in protest at the forced redistribution of wealth to workers and peasants, meant Allende was under siege from even his own supporters.
Fourth attempt
Salvador Allende was born in 1908 in the central port town of Valparaiso - his father was a lawyer.
Expelled from university for political activities, Allende later returned and graduated in medicine in 1932.
A year later he helped found the Chilean Socialist Party.
Allende supporters have marked his 1970 victory
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He was appointed Minister of Health in 1939 during which time he introduced accident and health insurance cover and benefits for working women.
In 1970 he became president on his fourth attempt.
Pursuing a leftist agenda, Allende established diplomatic relations with Cuba and moved closer to China, North Korea and North Vietnam.
Suicide claim
But as inflation spiralled out of control the chasm between the left and right in Chile widened.
In 1973, the army led by Augusto Pinochet attacked the presidential palace.
When soldiers reached Allende he was already dead.
His doctor believed he committed suicide and his family have never disputed it.
His body lay in an unmarked grave until 1990 when he was formally buried in a ceremony at which there were calls for national reconciliation.
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News - Brown delays the pain October 14, 2007
Posted by in : National Insurance , add a commentThis was the Chancellor’s final performance before the election and he was even more of a conjurer than normal.
Despite large and growing deficits he managed to give money away to children, council tax critics and motorists.
He aimed to prevent a pre-election backlash from the elderly by finding 1bn to subsidise council taxes and ward off the fuel lobby by delaying this year’s increases in fuel duty and Vehicle Excise Duty. Along with the cash gifts to children through the Child Trust Fund, these will create a feel-good factor for voters.
Savers have also some reason to celebrate. The government is considering extending the 7,000 tax-free Individual Savings Account (Isa) limit until 2009.
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PRE-BUDGET REPORT IN FULL
Pre-Budget Report in full (1.76MB)
Most computers will open PDF documents automatically, but you may need to download Adobe Acrobat Reader.
Download the reader here
Report chapter-by-chapter and associated documents
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This will be a real crowd-pleaser for the financial services industry and millions of modest investors.
There were no headline tax increases, other than a draconian crackdown on certain tax-avoidance schemes.
The government have promised that any arrangements which prevent employees and employers paying the “proper amount of tax and national insurance” will be stopped with immediate effect.
Initially this looks like a narrow focus on City bonus schemes, but it is worded very loosely and will worry many honest employers.
The problem is that people may not know if their arrangements fall foul of this new rule.
For example, paying a lower salary and, instead, putting money into an employee’s pension, saves tax and NI. Currently we believe the government thinks this is acceptable.
However, the possibility that in the future a government might consider that these employees might not be paying the correct tax and NI.
We will need assurances that this radical new power will be used exceptionally and only for artificial and contrived schemes where nobody can be in any doubt that they are engaged in artificial tax avoidance.
Tax review
Small businesses will be relieved to note that the government is to consult on a fairer and more coherent tax system.
There were concerns that it would introduce reforms without consultation that would radically affect our smallest businesses.
However, the consultation does not cover the highly controversial husband and wife tax (section 660a) or the much-criticised IR35 provisions.
These are also areas that need reform, so they are fair, simple and appropriate.
Because this is a pre-election pre-Budget, the key issue of how to fund the growing deficit was completely avoided.
If he is to sustain the same levels of government bureaucracy and service delivery in the next parliament, taxes will have to rise. The most likely candidates are NI and VAT.
In summary, the pain has been deferred until after the election.
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