Sofa Cushions

Sofa cushions are pretty awesome. That’s just a fact. They support our bums in the evenings, when the ravages of the day have rendered our legs incapable of holding us up any more.

The undersides of sofa cushions are pretty marvellous too; when we’re hunting around for change, it is almost guaranteed that we’ll be able to find enough for a Cornetto beneath their foam filled form. We may also find pizza crusts, long lost toys, a map describing how to get to Middle Earth and SEVEN different kinds of fluff.

But the marvellous underside of sofa cushions are not so marvellous for everyone. First off, there’s people like me, whose sofa cushions are completely integrated. Fixed in place. Non removable. Sure, they’re comfy, but when I hear the tinkling melody of an ice cream van outside I know that I can’t rely on my sofa to yield sufficient change to make visiting it worthwhile.

What's under there? Fuck knows, but I can't get at it.

More seriously, there are many, many people whose sofa cushions are removable, but who know damn well that there’s no point looking underneath them for Cornetto funds. They know there’s no money there because they already looked. They looked down the back of the sofa when they were trying to find the money to buy a loaf of bread, or some milk, or a pair of shoes for their toddler.

Poor people. People living in poverty. People who the government don’t think exist. The sort of people who we’re currently seeing on a programme called Skint on Channel 4.

I’ve been told that Skint has given rise to some pretty unpleasant commentary on Twitter and other social media. You know the sort of thing: “get off your arse and get a job”, “these people just don’t try hard enough”, “my taxes are paying for their fags, booze and flat screen TV. Cunts.”

Sentiments which are such excellent examples of compassion for other human beings it can’t help but warm the coldest depths of my cynical soul.

To the people who say things like that, I have a question for you: do you feel lucky?

I ask this, not because I’m about to go all Clint Eastwood on people, but because I don’t understand how people can feel comfortable being so self righteous about someone they see on TV and know very little about.

Were you born in the UK? Yes? Then you’re lucky.

Born in the south of the UK? Lucky.

Born to parents who have had an education and gone to work? Lucky.

Had access to family and peers who, in times of desperate need, you could turn to and ask for help? Lucky.

Got an inheritance which acts as a safety net? Lucky.

Never fallen seriously ill or had a significant injury? Lucky.

Any or all of the above, as well as countless other possibilities, may put you in a far better position to succeed than the people who drive you to spout angry words on the internet.

How many months’ salary are you from needing to dip into your savings to pay the mortgage? How many additional months until your savings run out? How many failed job interviews away from needing to think about downsizing to a smaller car?

Unless you are extremely privileged it’s likely that your personal safety net is not as robust as you might like it to be. I know mine isn’t.

Are you really so sure that you’re far enough removed from poverty to be so superior about people who are actually dealing with it?

Many of us are only one big change away from delving into the marvellous underside of sofa cushions to scrape together the small change for life’s essentials, some of us should try a little harder to remember that.

Tax

So, readers, are we all a bit stroppy with Jimmy Carr?

I don’t think I am, but let’s see where this ends up.

Funny thing, isn’t it, tax? Does a pretty fantastic job of dividing opinion. For a long time I’ve held a pretty simplistic view of taxation. Actually, that’s a lie. It was a naïve view.

I thought that people worked, they paid tax at the appropriate level and there was nothing they could do to influence that payment one way or the other (discussions with HMRC excepted, as seen in this post by @glosswitch). That’s how taxation worked for me, surely it was how it worked for everyone else?

No.

My current understanding is that taxation is only that simple if you are an employee of a company, and your tax is taken directly from your pay packet via the PAYE system.

The moment you step out of that system, the chances are you’re not going to pay tax in the same way as the majority of people. PAYE no longer applies to you.

Once PAYE no longer applies to you, you may have options. Many, many options. How you organise your taxation is filled with choice. The fiscal equivalent of a visit to a Subway sandwich shop.

(A brief aside to illustrate the above, in case anyone hasn’t been to Subway. The first time I went to a Subway I was a student. I was a bit hungover. I was used to sandwich shops having a list of six sandwiches which you chose from. I walked in and looked up at the bewildering array of options on display. SIX types of bread! Roughly one MILLION filling combinations! TWELVE distinct sauces! My brain surveyed all of this and shut down. I turned around and left.)

Among those options are things called loopholes. A loophole is where the people who make up the rules aren’t sufficiently careful or clever and leave an ambiguity. This ambiguity is tracked down by clever accountant types who can then advise their clients of ways to reduce the amount of tax they’re paying.

This is legal.

This is what Jimmy Carr did.

Legally reduced the amount of tax he was paying.

The conversation (as described on Twitter by Jimmy) with his accountant went like this:

Accountant: “Would you like to pay less tax? It’s legal.”

Jimmy Carr: “Yes.”

Be honest. If someone put that question to you, you’d say yes too, right? I didn’t notice too many people falling over themselves to continue paying 22% income tax when the level was reduced to 20%. But maybe that’s different.

Maybe, because us PAYEers just do as we’re told and have no choice we are spared the task of having to make a moral judgement when it comes to our tax affairs.

The people who are angry about what Jimmy Carr has done (and, let’s be super clear here, I’m only using his name because it’s out there. I’m sure lots of other people are up to similar tax trickery) are, I think, angry that he’s not contributing to society in the same way as they are.

Which sort of brings me back to how I feel about taxation now, which is this: I pay tax because I have to. But also because I believe in it as a mechanism to provide support to people who might otherwise end up in really unpleasant circumstances. People who need help in any number of ways. People who are worse off than I am. I pay tax because one day I may need that support myself, and I’d like to know that it will still be there for me, or for Cam or for any number of other people who I care about.

So I'm not stroppy with Jimmy Carr and countless others for looking after themselves and taking legal steps to reduce their tax.

I am stroppy that we're all part of a system which holds personal wealth as the principal indicator of worth, which in turn encourages us all to think that the best thing to do is pay as little tax as possible. In a world where cash is king, how can we expect people to be selfless and voluntarily give it away?


I don't have any answers, but I do know that I'm not convinced that the scapegoating of one particular person is a good thing. Maybe if it leads to a more open discussion about tax avoidance in general. But it won't.


What say you? Are you squirrelling away untold fortunes in Cayman Islands based accounts? Do you not have two pennies to rub together because you gave your last ones to charity? Will our Conservative overlords be made to divulge details of their own tax affairs?

Sorry, that’s a bit long and not that interesting, isn’t it? Still, you’re all at Britmums Live anyway, not reading this :-)