So it appears that her wedding to Jack Tweed fulfilled far more for Jade Goody than some valuable coverage in the glossy magazines. If the affairs were planned correctly (which they almost certainly were) the marriage will have saved her estate and ultimately her children from a massive 40% inheritance tax. So I raise my hat to the late Jade for her (or her advisors') foresight in making this arrangement because Inheritance Tax has to be just about the unfairest tax of all. As Marion and I are approaching the later stages of our lives we often think about how Sarah and Paul will be taxed when we depart. We have built up a small estate comprising a house, some nice antiques and Instanta. When we retire we will need to sell the business to cover our retirement. We will pay tax on that sale. What I don't understand is why anybody should pay tax if we leave that money to them. We have paid tax all our lives and bought everything with taxed income. Why should this be taxed again? Despite my fairly liberal politics I am completely with the Tories on this one and it was good to see it on Cameron's agenda this week even if Ken Clarke has some reservations.
Lets say that someone dies leaving an estate worth £1 million there is £312,000 that's tax free and the rest is charged at 40% which makes the tax £275,200. This leaves the beneficiary with £724,800. Let's say that the beneficiary sadly dies twelve months later. He leaves £724,800. Of this, £312,000 is tax free and the rest is charged at 40% which makes the tax £165,120 leaving the beneficiary with £559,680. I could go on repeating this until we fall below the threshold but the point is that the government has taken hundreds of thousands off what is today a relatively small estate built up from taxed income. We can go and spend any money that we have on whatever we want whilst we are still here but when we die our kids have to give 40% to the taxman. Why? If anybody can give a valid reason I will happily publish it here. Don't expect any.
Spare a thought for Marnie Pearce who finds herself in prison in Dubai for three months for the "crime" of adultery (which she denies). Seems that Marnie may not get to see her kids again until they are grown up.
We were just discussing in the office (we're dead busy again) how Instanta is blessed with so many good looking staff some of whom are dead ringers for stars of stage and screen. Take a look below and see if you can recognise who we think they look like.
Nick Neal
Natalie Drummond
Darren Rodwell
Craig Mercer
Me
Orange Wednesday last night (come on Orange can we drop Dennis Hopper's bus pitch and have a new one) and we went to see "Knowing". Marion thought it was rubbish. I quite enjoyed the action scenes but it's a bit of a hotch potch of ideas from lots of other films stitched together. A lot of CGI but it's very obviously CGI. Worth a look in my opinion but give it a wide berth says Marion.
Finally I am grateful to Jim Westbrook of Coffee Plus for bringing this video to my attention after yesterday's brilliant Samsung super computer. What does it all mean? All correct answers will get an extra 5% discount on their next boiler purchase. Got to fly now. I've been order to bake a pizza by one of those film star lookalikes - bloody prima donnas!
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