pap

I've never seen it, believe or not.

I am going to the Lake District on 21st December. Not on the coast. Will hopefully be alright when the asteroid hits

So if property valuation is such a problem, why not be pragmatic and set a flat, country-wide rate based on square footage? As Jim Davison and I like to say, something is better than nothing. I'd also add that a flat rate wouldn't be as susceptible to volatile market forces, and immediately kills your "we can't solve this problem because another problem exists" line of reasoning.

I'll consider it done when it is one of the summarised deals.

If these reports of it being done three days ago are accurate, would he be able to play against Man Utd?

Going to be a long hard season. Billy Sharp will get goals in this division, has been on fire in pre-season too. We have a lot of forward players and I'm not sure how regularly he's going to get a game. Shame really, because I really rate him.

You going to be happy when it is confirmed, Alps?

Sky Sports Radio is not bad if you just want transfers. Yes, they have commercials, but they are normally advertising things that are going to be on Sky and are roughly a million times less annoying than the ads on TalkSH!TE. TalkSH!TE is also sh!te.

Ta for this, just watched it. Before viewing, honestly thought Ramirez would be the end of our business. Perhaps today will be more exciting than I anticipated. More defenders, perchance?

I really should detest this rampant commercialism, but I find your brazenness endearing.

See the comments on the flat rate tax earlier. I'm not really a fan of squeezing the pips out of the rich. I think progressive tax systems are ultimately counterproductive, because they punish success and have tax accountants poring over our statute books to find ways out of it. thefunkygibbons' suggestion of 30% flat tax sounds about right. It's psychologically pleasing. It's not even a third of your income. Keep it simple and come down like a ton of bricks on anyone who avoids it. 30% of something is a crapload better than 45% of nothing, after all. Tons of other benefits too; particularly for business.

Might be a case of crossed wires here, so allow me to expand my point. Your link was all about income tax. The top 1% of your income tax earners will be paying the highest rate of tax. In the articles you posted - the top 1% specifically refers to the 308,000 people who were paying the now defunct 50% top rate of tax. So it is a specific number of people, but that's not really in contention. The threshold is £150K, not £300K. My mistake on that. My point is that there are people who earn as much or far more than the 308K referenced in your article, yet find ways of not paying it. One of the reasons I keep bringing land tax up. Pretty cut and dried way to establish wealth, isn't it?

That's fair enough, thefunkygibbons - didn't realise you were time-poor when you posted. As to your proposal, I'm all for transparency in taxation, and most people would be better off under your proposal (accountants excepted). True burden of taxation is probably close to 50% anyway. It's the indirect tax that is a killer.

Real "ten to two in the morning" stuff from QPR since they got mullered on the opening day of the season.

A week and a bit? Sign him up I say.

I actually think a low tax / high volume approach is the way forward.

Totally agree, as long as it doesn't make the tenant homeless. Some of the more aggressive slum landlords have had their entire portfolio paid for by you, I and anyone else that pays tax. Transfer the deeds back to the Government in drastic cases, I reckon.

Fine then. We pay slum landlords out of the entire tax budget. Happier? PAYE was just an example. But it's wasted money nonetheless.

Housing Benefit comes out of the governments coffers. The taxpayer fills those, therefore the taxpayer pays for Housing Benefit, some of which goes to slum landlords. In many cases, the only risk these people have taken is "yeah, you can have the house back if I can't afford the property".

Your definition of top 1% is those that are actually declaring income of more than 300K, Lord D. The super-rich represent a much larger group than them. I don't think that we need to take any more from those in your 1%. We need to suss out how to get revenue from the true set of the super-rich. And let's not pretend that no solutions are being offered up here. Land tax comes up again and again as an easy way to identify those that could shoulder more of the burden.

It's a big chunk of change, I'll not deny it. Still, those people are not the top 1% of earners. They are the top 1% of earners with transparent tax arrangements. My hat is off to them. What about the rest?

I didn't see a satisfactory answer to the question about where you find the bloody things.

I think I've only seen it once. I watched II and III last night back to back. Quite a contrast between the two. Much of the kitchen sink drama is dispensed with in III; the film is a lean 1:38 runner. Some bloody dreadful things in it, though. The mankini look that Apollo and Rocky adopted during the training montage couldn't seriously be rocked by a hetero male in this day and age.

Nice, but that's just income tax, Lord D. According to this paper, forecasted revenue for 2010-2011 was £588.6Bn. Income tax accounts for £157.6Bn of that. The income tax stat you're pumping (rich pay 27% of all income tax) up represents 7% of collected revenue.