Grombles

So thousands of British people have bank accounts in Switzerland - including a few wealthy Labour donors it would seem. Now Miliband is implying that these people are "dodgy" tax avoiders or worse. There was a time when people who held money and other valuables in overseas bank accounts and vaults probably did it so HMRC and other law enforcement authorities would have difficulty finding out what was there, who controlled it, and how it got there. One might assume that if this was their only reason, then they probably did have something to hide. Fair enough to call them 'dodgy'. Of course 'dodgy' people still use overseas bank accounts to hide their money and to evade or avoid tax. But Switzerland is no longer a sensible place to conceal your wealth and identity. Criminals and tax avoiders today would probably choose other jurisdictions. So why do thousands of law-abiding, honest and probably largely charitable people still have Swiss bank accounts? Well...

I got an email from Ed Miliband in reply to one I sent him about a job creating idea as an alternative to their impractical Mansion Tax. See  Entrepreneur's Credits . Buried within his bleat about 'fairness' and all the other popularist mantra about 'millionaires' needing their arses kicked, was a paragraph revealing how little they'd actually thought through their Mansion Tax promise: "We recognise that it is important that any mansion tax should be designed to overcome issues affecting those who may be capital rich but income poor. There are many ways in which this could be done, such as deferring the charge for some people, and our Treasury team is consulting on the best way to do this. We will ensure that the details are right so people would not be thrown out of their homes." "Deferring the charge"? So if you can't afford to pay the tax from income (that's a fine of £20,000 every year for owning a £2m house), when you sell...

My business banks with RBS. We're only still there after around 20 years because I suspect all banks are much the same and I don't fancy the turmoil of trying to change from one bunch of wankers to another, until this week, that is.... My history of banking with RBS started in the mid 1990s when I finally got sick of the mess Lloyds were making of simple things, like supplying cheque books and statements. RBS (prior to their buying Natwest) were supposedly a bit different, especially for Guildford (hundreds of miles South of Scotland - non-Brits might be wondering). So my previous company started trading, at a loss of course for several years while we found our feet and our customers found us. I build companies who sell something called Software As A Service (SAAS). It used to be known as an ISP (Internet Service Provider) and today it is starting to be known as a Cloud Solution provider. But basically we don't sell software, we provide services over the internet (and oth...