Saturday, November 17, 2012

A message from Danny Alexander, my new bestest friend...

Danny wrote to me the other day, telling me that he was cutting my taxes (I pay tax and earn less than £100,000 per annum), a point that I was quite pleased about, especially given that I haven't had a pay rise for three years (I'm a civil servant, and neither Labour or the Coalition approve of such things).

Indeed, the enhancements to the personal allowance have made up for some of the real terms loss in my pay. Unlike some of my colleagues, I can be reasonably sanguine about my relative loss of income, as I don't have a mortgage, children, a drug habit, or any of the other expenses that most people have. And, yes, I appreciate how lucky I am in that sense, especially compared to those that do have children and mortgages (I'm not aware that any of my colleagues have a drug habit, unless you include smoking, by the way).

And, of course, Danny's investment in additional compliance resources within HM Revenue & Customs has created the opportunity for me to gain a promotion, thus making up for the rest of my real terms loss.

So, whilst I probably won't be sending young Mr Alexander a Christmas card, I may well raise a glass to him at an appropriate moment. And I'll be signing up to his campaign for fairer tax too. I strongly commend it to you...

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