You'll Pay the Tax Anyway, Enjoy it

Dear Ade,

I’ve read your writing for several years. You express your thoughts sometimes wittily, sometimes violently. For instance, you favour the bicycle over other forms of travel, and to quote you from several of your musings: ‘In a land fit for heroes, charities would not exist’. How do you reconcile your beliefs to the needs of your clients? Are there things you would not do?

Thanks, Harri

Dear Harri,

You might have heard the saying that knowledge shouldn’t get in the way of common sense: it is commonly supposed that the tomato is a vegetable, but you know that the tomato is a fruit, nonetheless, common sense tempers your knowledge such that you’d not put a tomato in a fruit salad, except of course you embarked on a course of culinary experimentation, the manner of which only a six-year-old would normally get away with.

You’ve got my number: ahead of her time, Bronte, Charlotte noted: ‘Eleemosynary relief never tranquilised the working classes’.

You’ve got my number: charity, with its tax jiggery-pokery, is simply a crude, albeit elaborate, manner of mugging of the populace by allowing wealthy folk not pay their taxes if they make charitable contributions.

Charity is evil: philanthropy, in corrupting every noble notion of all that is right in a liberal democratic society is baleful.

Charity, that manifestation of failure of governance, is cankerous. Don’t take my word for it; observe, the obscenity of the food bank.

You’ve got my number. My last word on charity is, as the Arab saying goes: ‘your relatives have first claim on your favours.’

Two Wheels Good, but...

You’ve rightly surmised, I’m a two wheels good sort of fellow – only one motor car has ever been registered in my name. I still run it – I drive fewer than two and half thousand miles a year.

In the days I travelled to see my clients, my favoured conveyance was my velocipede. Another time I’ll tell you of the delight of cycling pensions, especially on the continent.

The Best Clients are Relatives, they Pay Full Whack

I’ve this relative, who also happens to be a client. Relatives don’t get discounts: they pay whack thank you.

At 75, my cousin Mary has one of those conditions by which sufferers appear fine they’re fine until they’re not. They’re fine, but the end is swift. The period from taking ill to dying is usually measured in days not weeks and, to borrow a term which became part of our national lexicon some half dozen years ago, she, and all about her, expected her to fall off the cliff-edge.

Nice Problem to Have?

In arranging Mary’s affairs, we alighted on the fact that some no small inheritance tax would be payable on her estate.

Some would say that was a nice problem to have.

As one thing led to another, she mentioned the matter of wanting a fine motor car. Asked what she had her eye on, she retorted the Porsche Cayenne. A used Cayenne. Pulling myself erect to my eight inches and five feet, I reasoned if she drove a new car off the dealer’s forecourt, she’d have borne 10% depreciation. Depreciation is in effect a new car tax.

Pay the Tax, Enjoy it

Why not buy the car of your wishes?

The car of your dreams, new – to my way of thinking the only car worth aspiring to is the Porsche 911, but if you must a 4 x 4, go for the Cayenne, get it fully loaded.

That’ll be ￡150,000. You’ll pay a tax – you either pay inheritance tax, or depreciation – a new car tax.

Personally, if you asked me, pay for the new car. Pay for something you’ll be around to enjoy. If you died after 3 years, your estate would be worth ￡60,000 less. That’s ￡60,000 on which your kin don’t have to pay IHT.

As we speak, the local dealer has assured Mary the carriage would be on her driveway in a week. Mary has asked me on a slight holiday—she’ll be driving the North Coast 500 in Scotland.

After all, she’ll have got the car for it. We’ll send you photos.

So, Harri, I’m a two wheels kind of fellow myself, but it’s the worst sort of practitioner that allows his beliefs, strongly and as sincerely held as they are, to colour, nay, overwhelm advice for which he is being paid.

In the final analysis, the client should always be confident, should always be assured, should always be certain they are getting the best possible advice, advice best suited to their circumstances my beliefs be damned.

Regards,

Ade