UK chancellor raises national insurance payments for self employed in new budget

Friday, March 10, 2017

UK chancellor Philip Hammond announced his 2017 budget on Wednesday, which included a £2 billion pledge to social care and a tax hike on the self-employed. It was accused of breaking Conservative Party manifesto promises.

It was announced there will be a 2% increase in national insurance contributions for the self-employed, with chancellor Philip Hammond citing worries that people were choosing to become self-employed in order to pay lower taxes and his perception of unfairness in the different rates paid by employees and self-employees. There were accusations this change in policy goes against the manifesto promises the Conservative Party ran on in 2015, which promised four times that there would be no increase in national insurance rates. Conservative MP Anna Soubry tweeted saying she believed these new measures would be unpopular as many would see them as unfair. The leader of the opposition, Jeremy Corbyn, claimed the new measures will not clamp down on people whose self-employment is just for tax benefits, instead causing problems for those legitimately self-employed, arguing that if they are to start paying similar tax rates to the employed then they should get rights such as statutory maternity pay. The think tank Resolution claimed, however, this increase is outweighed by other government policies and is, therefore, a good move.

In addition to this, the chancellor announced a £2 billion pledge to social care over the next three years, saying he was aware of the stress the ageing population is having on the NHS and social care. Liberal Democrat Norman Lamb described the amount as “wholly inadequate”, saying much more is needed to pay for an increase in care demands due to the ageing population. The lowest threshold at which shareholders pay dividend taxes is to be lowered from £5,000 to £2,000 claiming that the taxes for dividends provided “an extremely generous tax break for investors with substantial share portfolios”. Other budget announcements include an additional £325 million for the NHS, £90 million transport spending for the North of England, £20 million to support campaigning against violence against girls and women and a slight increase in funding for the devolved governments.

Tuesday, February 3, 2009

Sales of automobiles in the United States fell as much as 35% in January, compared to the same month a year ago, as manufacturers reported their January sales.

Ford Motor Company ^NYSE: F sales dropped 42% last month from the previous year. General Motors ^NYSE: GM reported a 49% decline. Chrysler was hardest hit among the domestically owned manufacturers with a plunge of 55%.

The decline in sales has not been limited to just US manufacturers. Japanese automaker Toyota ^NYSE: TM reported a 32% drop in US sales from a year earlier, Nissan Motors^{NASDAQ: NSANY} dropped 30%, and Honda ^NYSE: HMC sales dropped 28%.

Subaru and South Korean Hyundai Motor Company ^LSE: HYUD were two of the few auto firms that reported an increase in sales. They posted gains of eight and fourteen percent, respectively.

On an annual basis, sales overall have also been plummeting. Industry-wide US car sales dropped 18% last year to 13.2 million automobiles.

GM announced today that it will offer voluntary buyouts to 22,000 employees in the US, in an effort to reduce its expenditures.

Last month, GM and Chrysler were given loans worth US$17.4 billion from the government after they warned of imminent bankruptcy.

Tuesday, November 21, 2006

Buffalo, New York —Buffalo, New York developers have been stymied by old real estate deeds.

The prospective Elmwood Village Hotel may be scuttled and businesses now located there may be forced to move.

Frustrations over property located in an area once known as “Granger Estates” circulate around a clause in the original deeds over land divided by then-owner Erastus Granger in the early 1800’s.

According to the documents, “no business establishment of any kind whatsoever” shall ever be constructed on the property, and they shall forever be exclusively for residential use only. Also prohibited are barns, farms and stables.

Sam Savarino, CEO of Savarino Companies, the prospective hotel developer, announced that his legal research team found the restrictions on properties located between 1109 and 1121 Elmwood Avenue which also stated in part that “no businesses, hospitality establishment of anykind whatsoever” shall ever be permitted to be built on the property.

Savarino, whom is expected to contest the restrictions, said that his company could have ignored the findings, but that, “we can’t risk the future of a multimillion-dollar project on the hope they wouldn’t be discovered. Our opponents would have had a field day if they’d surfaced after the fact.”

Savarino said his attorneys and researchers are anticipated to determine “exactly what weight the restrictions carry and if there’s a way for the courts to negate them.”

Existing businesses are also jeopardized.

Hans Mobius, owner of some of the restricted properties upon which a carriage house is built, said, he wasn’t aware of any restrictions, and “never had a reason to research the deed and title documents.” He confidently added that, “the lawyers can get this taken care of.”

Other threatened businesses include Don Apparel, H.O.D. Tattoo, Forest Plaza Art Gallery and Allentown Music.

Friday, August 10, 2012

After two days of mourning, the West African nation Ghana is giving its late president John Atta Mills a state and military burial today at Geese Park, a bird sanctuary near the seat of government, Osu Castle, along the Atlantic Ocean.

His mortal remains, which were moved from the Banquet Hall in Accra, currently lie in a Ghana flag-draped casket at Ghana’s Independence Square (Black Star Square). The burial ceremony is ongoing as thousands have gathered to bid him farewell.

Eighteen heads of state; President of the ECOWAS Commission, Kadre Quedraogo; and Hillary Clinton, US Secretary of State are among the dignitaries present for the ceremony.

The Chief Officiating Minister of the ceremony the Most Reverend Professor Emmanuel Asante, in an interview with Radio Ghana earlier, has congratulated Ghanaians for uniting to mourn the dead leader.

Mills was 68.

Saturday, October 22, 2016

The California Department of Justice on Wednesday released the warrant and affidavit of a criminal investigation of the Wells Fargo bank. The State of California served the warrant on October 5 to search the San Francisco headquarters of Wells Fargo for felonious activities related to identity theft.

The warrant said property to be seized at the bank’s San Francisco headquarters was related to the unauthorized creation of accounts by Wells Fargo employees including the names of individuals for the accounts; account information and fees; the names of employees and their managers who created accounts without the consent of the Wells Fargo customers in question; and all communications including emails referencing the unauthorised accounts.

California Attorney General Kamala Harris’s criminal probe is part of an increasing list of officials nationwide questioning the business practices of Wells Fargo such as California State Treasurer John Chiang who announced a one-year suspension of State investment with the bank on September 28; Illinois State Treasurer Mike Frerichs followed suit with a year-long ban on October 3; and Democratic United States Senators Bob Menendez of New Jersey, Jeff Merkley of Oregon, and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, who wrote to the U.S. Security Exchanges Commission (SEC) suggesting investigation on September 29.

Tuesday, August 29, 2006

Assuming the role of Rene Oswin, spokesperson for United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) in New Orleans, Louisiana, a member of The Yes Men gave a satirical 15-minute speech claiming that HUD had reversed its decision to demolish four serviceable public housing complexes — a controversial action, suspected by many former residents and the NAACP as a policy intended to drive out poor black families. The media coordinator for the Survivors Village, Annie Chen, applauded Oswin.

Alternatively, Oswin proposed for Wal-Mart “to withdraw from areas near low-income New Orleans neighborhoods and to help nurture local businesses to replace them,” “partnership with health departments and the CDC” to “insure there is at least one well-equipped public health clinic for every public housing development,” and “that Exxon and Shell have agreed to finance the rebuilding of the protective wetlands from part of their 60 billion dollars in profits this year.”

From Washington, D.C., HUD spokeswoman Donna White confirmed the speech as a hoax and that no one named Rene Oswin works for the department. She said, “I’m like, who the heck is that?”

Friday, June 27, 2008

Newspaper The Guardian reports today that the sale of the BBC subsidiary BBC Resources Ltd., has cost £3.4m in consultancy fees — over £1m more than the £2.3m trading profit the commercial division is estimated to have made for the last financial year. Details of the failed privatisation were released by the BBC following a freedom of information request, and prior to publication of its annual report on July 8.

Fourteen months after advisers were appointed to try to sell BBC Resources Ltd., only one of the three main business units has been sold — its Outside Broadcast division to Satellite Information Services Limited (SIS), for an estimated £20m. On March 7, 2008 it was also announced that the studios operation would remain in BBC ownership and in early June, the fate of the third business was put on hold with the BBC stating that “like Studios, Post Production will remain within BBC Resources, which will continue to operate as a wholly-owned commercial subsidiary of the BBC.”

BBC Resources Ltd. made an operating profit of £6.1m for 2005-06, down from £7.4m the year before, with the BBC accounting for 83.3% of its turnover, down from 87.4% for 2004-05. Last year’s published figure for 2006-07 was £5.2 million — with BBC business at 80% of turnover.

BECTU Assistant General Secretary Luke Crawley is quoted as saying: “It’s fairly outrageous that around half the profit of the company [announced last year] has been spent trying to sell it. It’s an inordinate amount of money. The BBC was promised big returns if it sold BBC Resources but it’s only managed to sell outside broadcasts and we do not know how much it made out of that. We think the £3.4m is a poor investment.”