Covid19

[monkeyseemonkeydo]

I thought the orange tosser had repealed that, good job if not!

I'm wishing I'd got a haircut  a couple of weeks back... trying to decide whether to trust the Mrs with the clippers. First world problems eh?!

[Tom Booth]

Relief package for the self employed is fantastic, can't say I'm thrilled about the 2 month wait (especially seeing as it seems like giving the kate tax returners 4 weeks grace has added to that period, you've had 2 months extra already!?) but its help regardless!

 

[Al_Fel]

https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html

This is a pretty good map if you want to see some statistics. (Saw Thunderf00t using it on YouTube)

[sharn]

Would this mean that any of those naughty people who are self employed but havn't been fully declaring their true income will end up getting stung as theyll only receive a percentage of what they've been declaring? And does anyone know if its calculated on final taxable income only? So does not include income spent as work expenditure offset against tax? Or is it total income before offset deductions?

I'm not self employed anymore but just curious how it's working for others.

 

 

[MadManMike]

What I heard was that it's 80% of declared profits, over a three year average.

And yeah, those that have been a bit naughty on their returns will be a little short of cash I think!

[AdamR28]

2 hours ago, sharn said:

And does anyone know if its calculated on final taxable income only?

 

Probably not even the chancellor yet

Nah, sounds like it will be based on your 'bottom line' - the total net income, you incomings minus all the outgoings. I too think there will be a few naughty people caught out by this, not declaring cash jobs, putting through loads of expenses etc to keep their tax bill down.

It's a welcome intervention, but end of June is estimated date for payments... I wonder how many will go under.

I think the above will also inadvertedly (or perhaps deliberately) 'catch out' company directors who pay themselves a low salary but top up wages with dividends (the company has already paid corporation tax at 19% on the dividends, and then those dividends have additional tax on them too, so it's not exactly a tax fiddle), me included within this.

It's an uncertain time for all in business, and with all the other shit going on in my life, pretty much the only thing stopping me jumping off a bridge right now is my bike and the fact that I'm extremely lucky to live in a spot where I can get out on the moors without needing to take the car.

[Mark W]

At least for some of "the other shit" there are some dates available now - whether good or bad - so you have an idea about when things will start to take shape.  Even if that shape is a big old turd, the not knowing or uncertainty will be adding a lot to how you're feeling about things.  

Related to that, obviously we're full of unknowns at the moment, but it's worth considering what's happened in countries that have already (hopefully/potentially) peaked with the virus, and how they're getting back on track.  China are getting back on track after 2 months, and although they had the benefit of a compliant population and an authoritarian government, we've got the advantage of knowing what we're up against (on the 14th January, the WHO tweeted that their preliminary report found that it wasn't transmissible humna-to-human, for example, so China had at least a month of it spreading freely around) and some mitigation tactics for it (even if different governments are treating it with differing levels of seriousness).  Things like the antibody tests becoming more widely available will be a huge game changer, and could result in things opening back up much faster.  We don't really know.  

For the self employed thing, it'll be interesting to see how that works out too.  They appear to be saying it's 80% of profits on a monthly average, over the past 3 financial years.  Be interesting to see if they just essentially divide your profits from that period by 36, or if they go into more depth and do it just by the amount of time within that period that you were self employed.  I went self employed mid-to-late in the 17/18 tax year, so if it's the "divide by 36" thing then I'll get noticeably less than if it's divided by the actual time you were self employed.  I kind of suspect it'll be the former, as they'll presumably just use the SA302 forms to work it out.

Either way, definitely better than nothing, but clarity would be good.  Surprising really, Boris and his pals are usually so rich in detail and depth for their plans...

About to do battle with Admiral's travel insurance team as my Mum is stuck in NZ.  New Zealand implement their lockdown the day before she was supposed to travel back, and have just introduced a ban of travel completely within the islands so she now can't get from Christchurch to Auckland for her second attempted flight.  Admiral quote their hold times as 2+hrs, so going to be soundtracking my afternoon with some sweet sweet hold muzak, to no doubt be fobbed off by a stressed out call centre worker.

 

EDIT:  Boris Johnson's just tested positive for it, and is experiencing mild symptoms apparently.  Will that trigger his empathy and make him realise that it can hit anyone, and that we need to look after people, or that Dominic Cummings was right all along, it's only a bit of flu and that we should keep the country open even if "some pensioners have to die"... 

[Rusevelt]

Ali C, wish about Boris and his pals can do one in the Sea, came through then. Still begs the question on how high profile people can get first dibs on tests when NHS staff are struggling to get their own.

 

[Brian Bleech]

USA. USA. USA. This country. 
 

https://gizmodo.com/teen-who-died-of-covid-19-was-denied-treatment-because-1842520539

 

 

 

 

[MadManMike]

1 hour ago, Rusevelt said:

Ali C, wish about Boris and his pals can do one in the Sea, came through then. Still begs the question on how high profile people can get first dibs on tests when NHS staff are struggling to get their own.

 

I've seen lots of people question this. He's the prime minister. He runs the country. Of course he will take priority over "lower" NHS workers.

I don't particularly like him so I'm not defending him, but it seems obvious that the PM will get top rate treatment if he needs it. I'm sure if he deteriorates he'll be in the top private hospital as well... People would question it if he was left in a waiting room to die too, you literally can't win with the public.

[Davetrials]

Can we run with him faking it to get people to take it serious rumours? that seems a lot more fun.

Also how long as prince Phillip been dead for? i heard rumours he died well over a week ago?

*stirs pot*

[manuel]

Cynical me thinks Boris is full of shit so as to get some sympathy and distract everyone from how pants he has been in dealing with all this. 

[JT!]

On 3/26/2020 at 0:42 PM, monkeyseemonkeydo said:

I thought the orange tosser had repealed that, good job if not!

Trump said he would. Generally if Trump said he'd do something, it has or will never get done. He's too busy doing things he's saying he won't do.

14 hours ago, Brian Bleech said:

USA. USA. USA. This country. 
 

https://gizmodo.com/teen-who-died-of-covid-19-was-denied-treatment-because-1842520539

Urgent care will not accept you if you don't have insurance. Emergency rooms legally have to treat everyone and anyone. I learned this when I was uninsured so I knew where to go if something happened. But either way, it's disgusting that we have this system here.

[Tom Booth]

19 hours ago, Mark W said:

For the self employed thing, it'll be interesting to see how that works out too.  They appear to be saying it's 80% of profits on a monthly average, over the past 3 financial years.  Be interesting to see if they just essentially divide your profits from that period by 36, or if they go into more depth and do it just by the amount of time within that period that you were self employed.  I went self employed mid-to-late in the 17/18 tax year, so if it's the "divide by 36" thing then I'll get noticeably less than if it's divided by the actual time you were self employed.  I kind of suspect it'll be the former, as they'll presumably just use the SA302 forms to work it out. 

I spoke to my accountant yesterday and hes fairly certain that aslong as you have over 12 months books submitted, your eligible, so they will tot up profits then divide by the amount of months books you have submitted.

It's 100% going to wake some people up about submitting clear and accurate books, but then again if the self employed will be taxed harder in the future, it could push more people under the radar.

[Al_Fel]

12 hours ago, manuel said:

Cynical me thinks Boris is full of shit so as to get some sympathy and distract everyone from how pants he has been in dealing with all this. 

Where is your evidence for this? I'm only joking.

I saw something about someone making ventilators for $300 each instead of $30,000 each. Why is so much money wasted? How come it takes something bad like this to happen for people to realise that $30,000 is too much money for a single ventilator? There's probably plenty of money going into healthcare systems its just badly managed.

[Tom Booth]

18 minutes ago, Al_Fel said:

Where is your evidence for this? I'm only joking.

I saw something about someone making ventilators for $300 each instead of $30,000 each. Why is so much money wasted? How come it takes something bad like this to happen for people to realise that $30,000 is too much money for a single ventilator? There's probably plenty of money going into healthcare systems its just badly managed.

Massively, my wife used to be the manager of a dental practice, I bought a few boxes of nitrite gloves home from work and she recognised them as the same they were using in surgery.

I was paying £4.50 a box from my supplier, they were paying £11 or more a box for exactly the same thing, same manufacturer, same packaging, same everything. Think how many boxes of gloves hospitals, dental practices, doctors surgeries and pharmacies must go through and they're paying double what joe bloggs on the street can buy them for.

[Al_Fel]

2 hours ago, Tom Booth said:

Massively, my wife used to be the manager of a dental practice, I bought a few boxes of nitrite gloves home from work and she recognised them as the same they were using in surgery.

I was paying £4.50 a box from my supplier, they were paying £11 or more a box for exactly the same thing, same manufacturer, same packaging, same everything. Think how many boxes of gloves hospitals, dental practices, doctors surgeries and pharmacies must go through and they're paying double what joe bloggs on the street can buy them for.

My mate works for poop and they are the same. They pay over the odds for stuff and its just a total waste of money. I imagine the people that do the buying get some sort of kick back from it all. I can't think of any logical reason to be paying more for stuff you are buying in bulk.

[forteh]

Might it be to do with quality assurance? For the medical might they need to be proven to be stored in a certain way, for example to meet audit requirements.

Some of it might also be down to the suppliers, we can skf, fag and timken bearings with around 70% discount from retail because we deal direct, go through another stockist and we're paying additional markup.

[Tom Booth]

12 minutes ago, forteh said:

Might it be to do with quality assurance? For the medical might they need to be proven to be stored in a certain way, for example to meet audit requirements.

Possibly, but then it's all coming from the same production line? 

I did wonder if it's due to storage and making sure the stuff is kept sterile before it gets to the practice, but the stuff for the practice used to turn up in cardboard boxes and just left at reception, so it threw that one out for me. Just seems like the same old tale, stick a tag word onto something so you can charge more.

[MadManMike]

I think it's similar to "I'd like a large cake" or "I'd like a large wedding cake" - suddenly £30 becomes £300.

We had the same with company cars at work last year, our company takes out hundreds of leases a year, yet people could get better deals if they went cash-for-car and did their own leasing... How can someone leasing one car get a better deal than a company that leases hundreds?

In our case it's the convenience of having one company manage our fleet, so we'll almost pay anything to have that.

[manuel]

Ok simple question. When do people think covid19 will be “over”? No restrictions, out of thought, just another seasonal virus we can sort easily? 
 

 

[Tom Booth]

Over in august, out of thought December..

[MadManMike]

I think we'll see the peak in a week or two, then most deaths / recoveries over the next 5-6 weeks. Probably over the worst of it in July / August.

[manuel]

But will it come back after?

 

in other news I found out today that nursery closed for the foreseeable yesterday. Would have been nice to have an email. Not quite sure where I stand as a key worker and paying them whilst closed. 

[MadManMike]

36 minutes ago, manuel said:

But will it come back after?

I don't think anyone really knows.

Lots of people guessing at the moment, based on other viruses, but I think time will tell on that... I hope it doesn't come back though.