More golden oldies - Blood from stones
Trying to get a correction out of our two right-wing broadsheet newspapers, the Times and Telegraph, is almost impossible. Unlike The Guardian neither have a corrections column so you are really at the mercy of the Editor.There have been three occasions over the past 12 months where they have made blatant mistakes (all funnily enough favouring the Conservative Party's position) on issues of tax, and not once has it been possible to get a correction.
In the Times their Business Editor, Patience Wheatcroft took an IFS's report on taxation, and just added on more Council Tax, despite the report expressly stating the opposite. The IFS says she is in error, she admits it, but told me that "there was little point in going back to it". In the Telegraph Boris Johnson took someone's tax bill, and quadrupled it, then wrote that he found it scandalous. His assistant said he still believes the figures he quoted. Last Summer also in the Telegraph we had an article based on an Accountant's report that pretended the average household paid Stamp Duty every year, without the corresponding articles about how rich people must be if they did that. The Editor said he would see that the author of the piece responded to me, but 12 months on it's looking unlikely.
The most miserable thing about these mistakes were that anyone who has a passing acquaintance with our country's economy and public finances would know they were writing rubbish. A depressing example of this can be found on the 'Taxpayer's Alliance' website. In a post titled "How little of £100 you keep" it quotes a tax-minimisation website, saying this:
Of the GBP100 earned, GBP64.31 will have been paid to the government in tax. At the end of the day, all you will have to show for it is GBP35.69 in goods and services. A higher-rate taxpayer will retain a miserly GBP21.69.Oh, and we haven't even taken into consideration the host of taxes on business, employers national insurance contributions, airport taxes, capital gains tax ... and then there's stamp duty, where you hand over thousands just because you decide to move house! Somebody is taking us for a ride.
These people are meant to be experts on tax. They must know that the average rate of tax on a basic rate taxpayer is not 64%. They must know on a higher rate taxpayer it is not 79%. They must know it is particularly not this and then 'the host of other taxes...'. I say they must know because they (naturally) are fond of 'Tax Freedom Day' which doesn't fall in the Autumn. But perhaps they just don't understand what it means?
posted by Matthew @ 8/23/2005 03:08:00 PM
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