Some time ago, I wrote a blog about how HMRC had written to me to say that I owed them £50. There was no explanation as to how I’d somehow underpaid tax since my only income these days comes from, in one way or another, the government itself. So basically it was like this:
Dear Pauper,
We’ve fucked up. You owe us £50 and there is nothing you can do about it.
Yours Insincerely,
Big Brother
And that was it. I did not spend much time ruminating about it. What was the point? HMRC is a law unto itself when it comes to little people like me. But Damien Dove, who you will see at the head of this blog, has had a demand for 2p.
God knows how Damien managed to dodge such a vast amount of money, but HMRC was very clear. “We go after any debt”, is the sum of it. And if it costs us 100 times more than 2p to get that 2p back we are coming after you. This is all very well but how come this doesn’t apply to everyone?
If you are horse-warmer and serial tax dodger Nadhim Zahawi MP, it’s perfectly okay to dodge taxes. And it’s the same with David Cameron and, even closer to the top of the shop, Rishi Sunak’s wife who dodged £20 million in tax by being by being non-domiciled, a privilege that cost her £30,000 a year. Given that Akshata Murty is down to her last billion quid or so, you can understand it, can’t you?
But then, Sunak himself is hardly a shining example to the nation, is he? This is the former chancellor who wrote off £4.3 billion of loans to his mates during Covid, that and pissed away tens of billions on the botched test and trace system and unusable PPE. When Ordinary Joe, or Ordinary Damien in this case, underpays a staggering 2p, well Sunak’s pals are ready to pounce.
A small yet simple explanation of how this country works today, or rather how it doesn’t. The super rich look after their own and the rest of us have to do what we’re told. What a time to be alive.