By the next election one million working people will depend on housing benefit to afford rent

Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith has done the sums...National Housing Federation says by next election one million earners will be dependent on welfare to afford rent. Government says "under our reforms those on housing benefit can still afford up to a third of homes on the local rental market." - GUARDIANSEE OUR RELATED STORIES:Is the top rate tax really paid by the wealthiest? In fact, the low paid have the highest marginal tax rate at 95%Build more affordable homes, reverse the property bubble, and we'll save billi...

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Liebrary: Are energy companies really forced to raise prices due to high wholesale prices?

We notice that energy company spokesmen defend price hikes on television, radio and in print by claiming to buy all their energy on the wholesale market. (You can also read our more detailed post on this from 2011).The fact is the retail energy companies, who bill domestic consumers, buy their wholesale gas and electricity from...you guessed it...themselves. The generating companies, who take the coal and gas from the Earth and generate the wholesale electricity, are the retailers’ own conjoined twins. Each of the ‘big six’...

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Liebrary: Are energy companies really forced to raise prices due to high wholesale prices?

We notice that energy company spokesmen defending price hikes on television, radio and in print are claiming to buy all their energy on the wholesale market. (You can also read our more detailed post on this from 2011).The fact is the retail energy companies, who bill domestic consumers, buy their wholesale gas and electricity from...you guessed it...themselves. The generating companies, who take the coal and gas from the Earth and generate the wholesale electricity, are the retailers’ own conjoined twins. Each of the ‘big six’ are...

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Richard Murphy on why HMRC’s tax gap calculation still makes no sense

By Richard MurphyAdviser to the Tax Justice Network and the TUC on taxation and economic issues. He is also the director of Tax Research LLP.I admit I have not the time or energy just now to spend a lot of time on HMRC’s new tax gap data.The ‘tax gap’ has three major components:Tax lost to tax avoidance, which is defined here as seeking to minimise a tax bill without deliberate deception (which would be tax evasion or fraud) but contrary to the spirit of the law;Tax lost to tax evasion, which is the illegal non-payment or under-payment of...

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Starbucks, Google, Facebook, Amazon, IBM and Apple pay UK tax rates of just zero to 0.54%

Chris, Fee and KJ try to come to terms with the bad news about our favourite companies...OUR RELATED STORIES:David Cameron wants to turn the UK into a tax havenRead why the IMF is calling for an immediate end to austerity program...

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Rip-off News round-up. Our pick of the last week's media (Thu 25th October)

Not just Starbucks! Google, Facebook, Amazon, IBM and Apple pay UK tax rates of just zero to 0.54% Starbucks’ CEO Howard Schultz claims its British operation makes losses and therefore owes no tax here. True? There are legal methods multinationals use to "increase" UK costs and move actual profits into a tax haven: charging the UK operation “royalty fees”; push profits around their global supply chain; loading UK subsidiaries with high-interest loans. DAILY MAIL(“I was so shocked I spat into my own latte, to save them the bother,” said one...

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Cameron is tough on crime, but what of the rehabilitation of offenders?

The Prime Minister works out how to make Britain safer on a tight budget...

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A British politician, the Prime Minister no less, promises to legislate that Britons must not be ripped off!

Something truly remarkable happened in Parliament on 17th October 2012. A moment so rare we should give it a name – "Bloomingheck Day". A British prime minister, not covered by a shower curtain singing into the spray before breakfast but in full view of parliamentary television (19 minutes 15 seconds into the video), promised to legislate uncompromisingly against a long running rip-off. So clearly, so concisely, so undeniably that we reproduce his words directly from Hansard (Parliament’s minutes):“I can announce, which...

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Amazon makes £7bn in sales but pays no UK corporation tax

KJ, Fee and Chris work out what it costs us...

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Rip-off News round-up. Our pick of the last week's media (Thu 18th October)

Wonga caught advertising on Talking Ginger children's gameThe Talking Ginger smartphone app, which teaches children how to get ready for bed, has been carrying adverts for Wonga and online casinos. App users can only remove the adverts if they pay for "virtual toothpaste" – 69p gets a user 100 squirts of toothpaste and no more adverts. The game teaches kids that a foul smell means you’ve not been brushing your teeth. GUARDIAN(...or you've stumbled into the offices of Wonga and Talking Ginger.)George Osborne: Workers of the world unite... and give...

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Beware of George Osborne's "shares for rights" scheme

There's been lots of criticism, even from the business community. But what has history to teach us?...

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Tories propose you give up your Employment Rights in exchange for a bunch of shares - a repeat of the Manhattan Scam?

Apart from doing that Bullingdon thing the Chancellor George Osborne also studied Modern History at Oxford University. Some may be surprised to learn that "Modern" history starts from the 16th Century straight after the Middle Ages. One of the lessons Osborne would have learned from this period is how the island of Manhattan in New York was given up by its Native American Indian inhabitants for a handful of glass beads. Clearly an example of how one party misled the other on two things:a)     the relative values...

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British Gas raises energy bills for winter

Fee knows what we all know about the Big Six energy suppliers, British Gas, SSE, Npower, Eon, EDF and Scottish Power...

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Rip-off News round-up. Our pick of the last week's media (Thu 11th October)

'Low food prices are gone for good': experts blame bad weather and market speculatorsExperts blame the current rises in grocery prices on a combination of terrible weather, bad harvests and speculation. Meanwhile, 'political drift' on the issue meant any solution to the problem in the longer term was unlikely. DAILY MAILPensions in 'freefall' due to Bank of England's money-printingAnnuities – which you buy with your pension pot when you retire - determine a savers annual income for the remainder of their life. However their value has plunged by...

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George Osborne to cut another £10bn from welfare

Tax benefits, allowances,,, is nothing sa...

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With predatory companies on all sides, it costs an awful lot of money to be poor

Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs (HMRC), responsible for tax collection in the UK, recognises certain special needs. HMRC provides tax deductions and allowances for being old and married, for being old and divorced, and for being blind. These are well targeted allowances that are deliberately not intended for younger and sighted people.However, none of these special needs is more generously provided with tax deductions and allowances than the special need of “being rich”. Nor are any other deductions nor allowances more ruthlessly...

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