Israel’s recent budget had something for everyone. There was a 1% hike in VAT, the cruellest but most efficient tax, that in its stark regressiveness hurts the poorest most. The freezing of progressive income tax rates along with national insurance tweaking has more than tickled the underbelly of the employed masses and shopkeepers of the…
Israel’s legislators and its tax authority currently have enough on their plates handling the war economy to justify some light-headedness when it comes to answering the demands of an ill-timed audit by the tax-wallahs of the OECD. That august organization is now threatening Israel (who isn’t?) with the naughty step. The misdemeanour – our system…
Horror movies reflect our worst nightmares. The Day of the Triffids and The Little Shop of Horrors were classic examples involving man-eating plants. For those of us who dream tax, there has always been ‘The Company that Purchased its own Shares’, not a Hollywood Blockbuster, but a Tax Brainbuster. The plot is quite simple. A…
‘Power without responsibility – the prerogative of the harlot throughout the ages.’ Thus wrote Rudyard Kipling, author of the Jungle Book, in reference to the British Press. In a similar vein, ‘Leisure without taxation – the prerogative of the tourist in Israel throughout the ages,’ just about sums up the historic approach of the Israel…
Listening to some supporters of Israel’s new right-wing government, the casual foreigner could be forgiven for imagining that the country’s Supreme Court is modelled on a Dickensian opium den with a touch of John and Yoko’s Bed-In thrown into the mix for extra psychedelic peace and love. Alas, as witnessed by a non-headline grabbing…
Language is notoriously ambiguous, especially when it comes to official documents. A hundred years ago, the traitor Sir Roger Casement was hanged on a comma in the English Treason Act of 1351. Just this week, I had a long discussion around an exceptionally poorly worded clause in the Israel Income Tax Ordinance, the various interpretations…
"For our last number, I'd like to ask your help. The people in the cheaper seats, clap your hands. And the rest of you, if you’d just rattle your jewelry." John Lennon's immortal words at London's Royal Variety Performance in November 1963 reflected the weltanschauung of the time - Britain was careering towards a General…
Mass hysteria is not a concept normally associated with the local tax community, but the hype in recent months around an impending change in partnership tax law is having its effect. The situation is analogous to a hot air balloon, into which hot air continues to be injected until, eventually, the balloon leaves the ground…
Bach’s Double Violin Concerto was once played as a conversation between husband and wife, by two virtuosi, at a memorial service in Westminster Abbey for the late spouse of a prominent politician. A Tel Aviv Labor Court decision earlier this month suggested grounds for a similar musical parley between the National Insurance Institute and the…
Israel’s much vaunted ten-year tax holiday for new residents is viewed by some as the best thing since sliced bread. To me, it is analogous to shopping for food. My local Jerusalem pint-sized supermarket is no place for the uninitiated, and not much of a place for the initiated. Prices are high at this emporium…
Tax Break 