There was a time, not long ago, when the ideal higher education of a tax specialist was a combination of law and accounting. With the gradual death by asphyxiation of income tax planning, the ambitious young prospective practitioner might add a third arrow to his bow - doctor of medicine. Many would argue that, despite frustrating…
Yes, Minister
Looking confused next to the overhead locker of my assigned Business Class seat on a British Airways flight from Heathrow to New York last year, I was approached by a helpful flight attendant (if that is what stewardesses are called these days) who offered assistance. Pointing to the little picture indicating which mini-compartment was 12A,…
Some like it hot
Political fossil Al Gore’s sequel to his Oscar winning environmental documentary ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ – ‘An Inconvenient Sequel’ – may have underwhelmed at the box office this month, but it provided a timely counterweight to President Donald Trump’s announcement some weeks earlier that the United States was pulling out of the Paris Agreement. Despite the…
Brother, can you spare a dime?
He is best remembered through the prism of the witticisms of his arch-rival, Winston Churchill: ‘A modest man, who has much to be modest about’; ‘A sheep, in sheep’s clothing’; ‘Up drew an empty taxi, and out stepped…’, but Clement Attlee, the fiftieth anniversary of whose death is being marked this year, had many arrows to…
There is an i in America
In a sweltering, politically incorrect scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark, Indiana Jones - tired of the boastful swordsmanship of an Arab adversary – nonchalantly draws his pistol and shoots him dead. This could be a metaphor for the last hundred years: with a few exceptions, when the Americans have put their minds to…
Doing it the people’s way
‘You’re not drunk, if you can lie on the floor without holding on.’ Dean Martin’s witticism has haunted me over the last couple of years as I have watched the impending self-destruction of the country of my birth (Brexit, the inevitability of a future Corbyn government), the temporary set-back to the United States (The Donald, the quack…
Was the Battle of Europe lost on the playing fields of Eton?
'History doesn't repeat itself, but it often rhymes.' That aphorism, attributed to Mark Twain, has been much on my mind lately. Anybody wanting to get inside the minds of the wrong-headed majority that tragically voted the UK out of the EU (and probably lit a fuse to both those abbreviations) could do worse than read one…
Let slip the dogs of war
I have just emerged from a fascinating two-day conference in rain-soaked Lisbon. Despite the headline title, the real theme was inevitably the prospects for the Base Erosion and Profit Shifting project of the OECD, the rump of which is due to be approved by the G20 shortly. The public proclamations on BEPS have displayed populist triumphalism…
Cogito ergo sum
Arguably, the greatest contribution to society of a liberal education is perspective. 'Dah da dah da dah. DISCUSS' was the way it went when I was at school, as opposed to the 'A, B, C, D, E. Tick one' of the modern era. Today, July 14, is only significant to the vast majority of the…
Yes we can!
2014 was the year when 'Yes, we can' finally became 'No, I couldn't'. It is all over bar the shouting, and Mr Obama is reduced to bumping wedding couples off Hawaiian golf courses so that he can get on with one of the remaining functions of his office. In fairness, it isn't just the President…
Tax Break 