The "green" credentials are not as simple as the net energy produced. Generalising, we're running out of landfill sites in the EU. I daresay it can be an overall energy deficit and still be preferable.

Partly due to the lack of landfill, and partly for "green" reasons like methane and the nasty leachate run-off, the EU are mandating a per-ton penalty for waste dumped in landfill. The response has been effective in my city. More than half my usual domestic rubbish by volume (quite a bit more than half by weight) is now going to recycling - cardboard, paper, metal, glass, some plastics and food waste. The stuff that is still going into the trash is the stuff that is hardest to recycle - and probably quite nasty in the landfill.

It's just weird to go making an effort hunting down info on people's past. Wedding announcements and LinkedIn profiles are either pushed to you or stumbled across.

Also, people change. People also say things that they were happy to say publicly at one point in time, that now they might not. Not necessarily because it's inherently embarrassing or whatever, but the context changes with age and environment. Maybe what was written at 17 isn't something you particularly want someone to read now you're 27.

I guess there's also a weird power/balance thing going on when one person has read up on someone's history, and the other hasn't.

How is a job "American"? In order for something to be stolen, someone else must already have a right to it.

Yeah, I buy bottled water when I am going to be on-site at a clients. For the rest of the week I refill the bottle from the tap, but they still got one sale from me.

Also, I am not sure why people single out bottled water. Ever looked at the ingredients of bottled soda? It's just water that has been made bad for you.

Have a look on the websites and check out the people standing for election in your constituency. This are who you are voting for - you do not really vote for government, you vote to elect your local MP. You may find someone standing who may be a member of a party you do not favour, but has demonstrated through his voting record that he does actually stand for many things aligned with your own beliefs.

Frankly a lot of the shite seems to come from the government itself. The regular MPs (the backbenchers) are often a lot more agreeable, you'll find a lot more principle and a lot less obsession for control and headlines.

Admittedly though you will have to let them off with some things they've told to vote for by the party whip.

FYI I think OP is subtly patronising arrogant people, and doing so in a manner very relevant to the topic.

Yeah I'm an accountant and was wondering WTF the problem is with the VAT.

Amazon does not charge the publishers 20% VAT, the publisher applies 20% VAT when it bills Amazon.

The issue appears to be - or I should say could be since the article is worded so poorly I am reluctant to give the benefit of the doubt - that when negotiating the publisher's royalty, they are firstly taking the gross selling price to the consumer and then assuming 20% of that goes to the tax man when actually it is 3%.

Thus, say we have a textbook retailing at £100 (the gross selling price the consumer pays), Amazon is taking £97 (the net selling price) and passing £3 VAT to the tax man.
But then it goes and gives the publisher a royalty based on a net selling price of £80.

This is quite bizarre as business-to-business contracts almost always are based on the net price, given VAT is not a cost between two VAT-registered businesses, they merely collect the cash from consumers on behalf of the government.

There could well be an opportunity for confusion by the article's author because the publisher would indeed add 20% VAT to their invoices to Amazon. To someone with little idea what they are doing, they might not realise the net figure is what matters, so looking at the gross amount it would look fishy.

Hmm, if close to all the Brazilian newspapers (or enough of the ones Brazilians care about) are exiting Google because the "National Association of Newspapers in Brazil" (ANJ) said to, what are people looking for Brazilian newspapers going to do? If the ANJ controls the supply, it effects a monopoly on domestic Brazilian news and so it's a dubious assumption that demand will simply switch to a competitor or substitute paper, because there isn't necessarily one left on Google.

I'm not sure that international traffic is substantially important to the Portuguese-language papers, especially if their ad revenue per reader is highest to their domestic market.

Regardless, while there may be a long-term strategy that somehow makes more money by not being on Google, I'm not convinced that is the game. My guess is that they are betting that their monopoly power allows them to dictate terms to Google. The logic being that if Brazilian users are worth anything to Google then Google will be willing to pay something up to that amount in order to keep them. This something being more than the papers get currently thus a long term win.

Most of the posts in this thread seem to be talking about what is fair and/or assuming a competitive market. Far as I can tell, companies aren't particularly bothered about what is fair and the influence of the ANJ suggests the market is not competitive. I'm not trying to say I like it, but that's what it looks like.

Why can they not simply require that employees who smoke make contributions to cover the incremental premium on their policies?

I suspect what the OP may be failing to communicate is an emphasis on the "amateur" whilst drawing parallels with his gripes about his own field.

As an accountant*1, this does seem very much like an amateur accounting/design problem, i.e. someone cobbling something together with no understanding of what they are doing. This happens all the time. Excel is immensely powerful, but relies completely on the competence of the user - both at Excel and at whatever it is they are trying to do. A lot of folks think Excel can somehow substitute for the latter, they don't really need to understand what they are doing because hey, Excel has a function for that!

However, what should have been an internal embarrassment for one member of staff turned into a crisis for the entire department because of a more fundamental failure with the department: nobody reviewed it properly. Control systems either were not adequate or were not functioning. I am an accountant and also would not claim that I would not make similar mistakes, but I would happily claim that I would most likely discover them in my own testing, and any mistakes remaining would more than likely be picked up at manager or partner review.

*1 strictly speaking it sounds more like an economic/finance job, though there is a lot of overlap.

If you're trying to reference So I Married an Axe Murderer, the quote is "if it's not Scottish, it's crap!".

The problem with inheritance tax is that it leads to a substantial amount of inefficient, uneconomic activity as rich folk try to mitigate it.

Here in UK, if you have a large plot of land, you could:
a) rent it out and let someone do something useful with it, or
b) stick 1 sheep on it and claim agricultural relief.

Option a) would have to turn in a profit equating to approx 100% of the value of the land in order to approximately break even with the 1 sheep.

Why? Let's assume the plot of land is worth about $100. The net cash position with option
a) $100 profit less ~50% income taxes = $50 banked, plus $100 worth of land, total asset values $150. Deduct 40% Death Tax, kids left with $90.
b) $100 land, no IHT due to agricultural property relief, kids are left with $100.

Similarly, say John the entrepreneur built up a great trade, but now his heath isn't so great and he's kinda run out of steam. The business is floundering, it isn't turning a profit, each year a few more staff are let go, everyone is demoralised and it's basically crap. Another entrepreneur, James, eyes up the business, has some great ideas and the ability to pull them off. He's really on the ball and has business lined up already, very comfortable he could turn it around and grow at least 10% per year. He puts in an offer of $1m.

If John sells, he'll pay 28% capital gains tax now and 40% death tax on what's left when he dies. Net cash position £432k to his son.

If he does not sell, passing the business to his son will fall under business property relief so he'll hand over the whole business. If the son later sells he'll pay the 28% capital gains tax, so he will come out ahead provided he can sell for more than 600k.

Obviously the examples are highly over simplified, there's other things that can be done to mitigate etc, but you can see how it easily poorly thought out taxation can cast aside economics and basic common sense. I should point out that it's not just those reliefs or aggressive avoidance leading to perverse incentives, a lot of sensible IHT planning can. Also, for the avoidance of doubt I am not trying to suggest that IHT nor high taxes are a bad thing in principle, but rather that taxes have to be carefully thought about and designed - however they are mainly driven by politicians.

And BTW I am an accountant and while the above are made up for illustration, the principle is no concoction. I do not need to guess the number of clients I consider "substantially wealthy" where IHT significantly impacts their strategic decision making, the answer is all of them.