Tough Challenge

Well who would have thought it the task in hand must be relatively easy one, all I had to do was deliver a three minute speech at Berkhamsted Speakers Club on Tuesday evening what could be simpler?

The catch was I had to sit down and deliver the speech, sounds easy, not. After a year of delivering speeches walking around my stage area using body language, this task completely through me. Although the feedback from the club was supportive I had to ask my self the question was I satisfied with my performance and the answer truthfully was NO.

So based on that answer I have decided to rework the speech a little and present it again at the next meeting on Tuesday 10th August please come and support me.

As promised here is the speech and I will be reworking it a little for next time.

What Goes Up Must Come Down!
On the afternoon of the 22nd June the Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne presented his first coalition budget address to parliament and the country.
As he took his place at the dispatch box in which he gave a 55 minute address and banged on the dispatch box 85 times whilst taking 3 sips of Water he announced that VAT would rise from 17.5% to 20% on the 4th January 2011.

Harriet Harman replied to this by saying that this increase would punish the poorest most.... and that pensioners would have less money in their pockets.
Unfortunately, the new coalition government have to find ways to address the deficit and by raising VAT by 2.5% it is expected that this will raise an additional income of £13 Billion a year by the end of parliament.

The increase will mean that the government do not need to make extra cuts or raise income tax.

Although, many would argue that raising taxes is a fairer and more appropriate alternative as those earning more would pay more tax.

This would not have the effect the government desire, extra income tax rises would force employees to ask for pay increases that would both eventually drive up inflation, and increase the wages bill which could deter foreign employers from trading in the UK. As the government are actively trying to tempt new business to the UK by decreasing corporation tax over the next four years tax rises are certainly not an option.

However it can be said that a VAT rise has a minimal effect on the poor as many items are except from VAT, items such as food, children’s clothing, newspapers and books items that could be described to be the necessities of life.

If you are on a low income are you likely to be buying items that are subject to VAT on a regular basis?

The more positive tax payer may choose not to focus on the VAT increase but on the increase in the personal allowance which will rise from £6,475 to £7,475 next April putting an extra £1,000 in our pocket for those of earning.

Wasn`t it Sir Isaac Newton who said What goes up must come down, who knows in a couple of years time we could be saying what a great chancellor when he reduces the VAT rate by 1%.

I have a dream

When the chancellor George Osborne said, his dream was "that people might actually understand the tax laws which they were being asked to comply with". What was he talking about?

Well last week the Office of Tax Simplification was launched the chancellor stated that the "spaghetti bowl" of UK tax law is to be simplified to cut the burden on business and attract foreign investment.
It is very true that we have an extremely complex tax system with 11,000 pages on tax codes.

The intention is to initially focus on two areas, the first being the allowances exemptions and some 400 reliefs with the intention to streamline the system.
Secondly will be music to many ears, as the OTS will examine the controversial IR35 legislation. They hope to be able to announce a simplified alternative to this unpopular tax system introduced in the late 1990`s.

With the announcement of cuts in spending highlighted by the coalition government, combined with Mr Osborne` earlier words “push for a bonfire of the quangos" Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury Liam Byrnehow raised the question of how the OST is to be funded?

Mr Gauke said the OTS would be paid for out of existing budgets.
In addition the chairman of the body will be former Conservative MP and Treasury minister Michael Jack and its director will be John Whiting, formerly of PricewaterhouseCoopers, who is tax director at the Chartered Institute of Taxation. Neither will be paid.

It is hoped that any reforms will hope to stimulate Economic growth.
Many will applaud the government’s decision to look at the UK tax system any especially the position of IR35, let’s just hope that the desired result of SIMPLIFICATION is achieved.

We all remember the introduction of Self Assessment which was supposedly introduced to let the average tax payer take control of their tax affairs in an easy to understand way.

We will all be waiting on the side lines with bated breath.

Not me again?

How do I get roped in?

Although it has come of no real surprise to me, I have to say a few words at the Cornerstone Communicators meal this evening.

The meal is a celebration of the club chartering and now being officially recognised within Toastmasters International.

As the club president is unfortunately unable to attend, it has fallen to me as Vice President of Education to step into his shoes and say a few words at the start of the evening.

Apparently, there will be some very senior officers from Toastmasters present this evening, just adding a bit more pressure on me.

So here we go my third public speaking performance this week.......

After Eight (and not the mint)

News Round up a bit like John Craverns legendary children’s TV news programme but without the now so awful jumpers.

It seems unbelievable that the last week has flown by so quickly, as you will recall I was planning to present my first speech from the communicating on television manual at the Berkhamsted speakers club last Tuesday, however for the first time everI had to cry off due to being slightly under the weather which was very disappointing. If you were hoping to see a transcript of my speech you will have to log in next Wednesday.

Thankfully, I was fit and well by Monday and able to attend the advance Toast Masters speakers club Cornerstone Communicators, where I delivered my speech “After eight (and not the mint)”.

I thought that I would kill two speech opportunities with one stone (speech), using Monday night as a practice run for the Berkhamsted Speakers after dinner competition on the following night.

With seven entries for the competition I was not expecting to win which is just as well as I did not, but to be fair that are some remarkable speakers at Berkhamsted toast masters and the trial run from the previous night proved to be extremely useful.

It was nice to receive an email suggesting that I should have been placed but the truth is there can only be one winner and I am just learning a new skill which just needs a bit of fine tuning.

So what is ahead, possibly a minor speaking roll at the Cornerstone Charter meal on Friday evening if the club president arrives late, and then we start of where we started with next Tuesday.

I am sure there are some more possible speaking opportunities at 4N Business Breakfast Networking which I should be exploring but I need to ensure that I have a good theme and I am sure you will agree speaking about Tax can put many people back to sleep, however there is a thread and with a bit of thought it will definitely come to me before I know it.

For those of you who missed my speech here is the transcript I look forward to hearing your comments.

After Eight (and not the mint)

This is the scenario you have attended a lovely meal with colleagues and friends and then the host for the evening stands up to introduce the name of the after dinner speaker.....That person is you.

When you were asked several weeks back to say a few words it sounded such a good idea, but a couple of days before hand the realisation set in and you started to appreciate the difficulty of your task...and you’re not even doing this for money
An after dinner speech is in some ways very different to that of a normal presentation the guests will have had one hopes a fine meal and several glasses of wine, and now they want to sit back and be entertained.

Your first hurdle of the evening is a simple one how are you going to entertain them. You could tell them about the time you put salad cream on your pudding at school by accident. That joke you tell so well, if you could only remember the punch line. And don’t forget to then tell them a heart breaking story about a man from somewhere who overcame a personal tragedy and through hope and determination became a much stronger person.

You see it wasn`t that difficult was it?

Did I mention the fear, the dry mouth the sweaty hands the shaking that desperate need to visit the little room.

But what is FEAR every time we get ourselves into a situation where we need to “Fight or Flight” a pair of small endocrine glands just above the kidneys secrete a powerful hormone that pumps it way through our blood stream raising our heart rate and causing a face to go red.... that hormone is Adrenaline.

You see it wasn`t that difficult was it?

Did I mention the heckler?

Although you are unlikely to encounter such a situation its always a good idea to be prepared for the drunk at the back of the room who is bitter and twisted because he was not asked to be in your shoes right now, and because he knew that he could not have delivered such an entertaining speech.

However, he has started heckling what are you going to do, ignore him smile pause and continue, but you feel the need to say something, “Thank you” this should keep you on the moral high ground and prevents a slanging match incurring.

He continues you need to say something the audience are fed up with him, don`t try to be a comedian it is unlikely to work, you could however try something like “I really should ask my dad to stop coming to hear me speak” and smile. Always SMILE, hopefully this will get you some laughter and empathy from your audience.

I recently read this exchange of words between Bessie Braddock and Winston Churchill

“Winston, you are drunk, and what’s more, you are disgustingly drunk.”

Churchill: “Bessie, my dear, you are ugly, and what’s more, you are disgustingly ugly. And tomorrow morning at least I shall be sober.”

You see it wasn`t that difficult was it? WAS IT?

New Aussie PM

Perhaps not quite the headline Julia Gillard had wanted

A New Chapter

It’s the second Tuesday of the month which can only mean one thing its TOASTMASTERS night.

Although giving a speech is still quite a big deal for me Tuesday night is the start of a new chapter yes the first chapter of the new book “Communicating on Television”. The first project is a 3 minute news presentation on a topical news story.

Now that sounds like it could have been written for me, but strangely enough it’s me who has done all the writing.

So what do you think I could possibly be speaking about BP the Labour Leadership Contest (saving that for my Humorous Speech contest entry) no I am speaking about VAT.

I am sure you are all sitting on the edges of your seats, well if you want to hear it I suggest you make your way down to the Quaker Hall in Berkhamsted for 8pm for an entertaining evening.

If however you cannot make you may be lucky enough to get to see the published article together with the evaluation notes over the next few days.

Don`t pay too much tax in July

For those of us who have to prepare a Self Assessment Tax Return the 31st July is a date in our diaries that we fear as much as the dreaded 31st January.

On the 31st July we will be making an additional payment to HM Revenue & Customs against our estimated tax liability for the tax year ended 5th April 2010.

However, when we submitted our tax return on or before the 31st January 2010, we did not know what our tax liability was going to be for the 2009/10 tax year so HMRC assume that it will match your 2008/09 tax liability and ask you to make two equal payments on 31st January and 31st July in order to settle your liability in full.
So what happens if you tax liability is higher, easy you pay what is called a balancing payment on the following 31st January 2011 together with the first payment on account for 2010/11, and so the cycle goes round.

But and there is always a but, your taxable income has dropped in the year ended 5th April 2010. Maybe you are struggling to get funds together to pay your Second Payment on Account.

Don`t worry, you can always apply to reduce your payments on account to even as low as £Nil, the down side is that if you over reduce them and there is in fact tax due HMRC will charge you interest on the shortfall.

The best thing to do is to prepare your 2009/10 Tax Return as early as possible before 31st July 2010, by doing this you will be able to confirm your tax liability and therefore establish if you can reduce your Payments on Account and by how much without any fear of suffering interest charges on an inaccurate claim.

Also in my experience the summer months are always a good time to send your book and records to your accountant as this allows him sufficient time to ensure your return is correct instead of attempting to beat the deadline date of 31st January 2011.