timeo danaos et dona ferentes

he probably doesnt mean card read as in card read a shop would use to process a payment, but instead a card reader used to verify online account transactions. you put your card in and it access the in-card chip and can verify the pin and spit out a transaction authorisation key you can use online. most of my accounts have them, and interestingly they seem to be a generic item, i;ve used the one for my wifes accounts to verify my card and pin when i couldnt find my own. here's a pic of one

I see what you did there

In the UK we have a simple system for normal employees called PAYE (pay as you earn). Basically the govt tells my employer what my tax code is and the employer sends part of my pay to the inland revenue every month before sending the rest to me.
Some things are tax deductible, like pension contributions, but as i'm in the employer's pension plan that's all calculated by them.
we do charitable contributions differently. Basically the charity gets to claim the tax not you, so if you donate money to a charity, you tick a box on a form and they get to ask the revenue for the tax you paid on that money.
that's all for normal employees. If you're self employed or have multiple income streams for several jobs, then you gotta do a tax return, which allows you to deduct some things.
my wife was a locum GP (she recently became salaried (i.e. directly employed)) and she got to claim mileage and depreciation on her car plus other things as well (her insurance was a big one). I felt sorry for her accountant given how bad she was at book keeping :)

funny thing is the the US govt spends more on health in terms of % of GDP than the UK does and the UK has a full national health service free at the point of (ab)use (my wife is a GP in the NHS so i hear the stories).

Companies don't pay VAT. They may collect it on behalf of the Revenue if they are selling direct to consumers but they don't pay VAT on thier transactions (or if they do then they get to reclaim it).

surely it was a russian impersonating a republican operative impersonating a democrat

years (2005 ish) ago i worked on a system using Windows XP Embedded and you could set up the system to do this. writes would go to RAM and be discarded on reboot.

dont forget BigClive

i have some shares in a nifty little start up call The South Sea Company if you're interested

you've never bought you kids some shoes that "dont match any of their clothes you idiot" then?

that's because you can't batter it and deep fry it.

the 40% tax kicks in at 44k-ish not 33k, you're forgetting about the 11k tax free threshold below which you don't pay any income tax.

there's only one reason. waterproofing. other than that there's no reason i can think of..

Anglican Jihad: the local vicar calls round for a cup of tea and a chat. And if you insist, a nice slice of the Victoria sponge.