Tax
It’s easy to sex up the business of paying tax
To fund the war against Napoleon in 1813, Princess Marianne of Prussia invented an ingenious tax-raising scheme. Wealthy Prussians were…
The super rich aren’t all bad – some even pay their taxes
Paying tax — which many of us have been doing this week before HMRC’s 31 January deadline — is a…
The slow death of the public-sector pension
Hedge funds have already spotted it: Jim Mellon’s latest book, Juvenescence, reviews the new science that will lengthen our lives…
Why my name didn’t appear in the Panama Papers
My, my, the rich are under attack everywhere, and I thank God the Panama Papers didn’t include the name of…
Portrait of the Week: David Cameron’s tax troubles and the Archbishop of Canterbury’s paternity
Home David Cameron, the Prime Minister, after spending a week parrying questions about his late father’s investment fund Blairmore, suddenly…
How to make the rich pay more tax
The 11 million documents leaked from Panama lawyers Mossack Fonseca tell us much that we know already. It’s hardly news…
Buy-to-let investing just became a very, very bad idea
If you pick up a buy-to-let property now, you’ll be fighting the full might of the Chancellor and the Bank of England
Maybe you should tax me more – just don’t touch my dishwasher
There was a big fuss a year or so ago about a book by a French chap called Piketty about…
The bears are here to stay – but we’ll survive
Like Leonardo DiCaprio in The Revenant, we’ve just been savaged by a bear but we’ll probably survive. Leading UK-listed stocks…
Archive: Motoring as a hobby should be discouraged
From ‘The Conscription of Wealth’, The Spectator, 22 January 1916: At recent race meetings streams of motor-cars have proceeded from…
How far can Bernie Sanders go?
Could the socialist senator of Vermont be on track to win the Democratic nomination?
A non-dom speaks: ‘The Swiss, Hong Kong, the Singaporeans, they are all saying “Come”!’
Indian magnate Nirmal Sethia on what the English get wrong about tea – and the other countries seeking to recruit our discontented non-doms
Susan Hill’s French notebook: My struggle to avoid local cuisine
An overnight stop on the Ile de Ré taken between the St Malo ferry and the Quercy, where we always…
I don’t want to be a mansion tax migrant
The super-rich can shrug off Labour’s big tax idea. People like me will be forced out
Why so many bankers secretly like Labour’s non-dom proposal
The interesting thing about Labour’s pledge to abolish non-dom tax status — a squib designed to trap Tories into expressing…
Ed Miliband’s 100 days – and the first Ed Balls Budget
There will be tax rises to suit every taste. But the people he’s expecting to pay will probably just leave
James McAvoy is wrong – the arts are better off without subsidy
The season of cringe-making acceptance speeches at arts awards ceremonies is nearly over, thank heavens. But it hasn’t passed without…
Where Alcibiades once walked, amateur tax spies are trying to entrap poor pistachio-sellers
Athens I am walking on a wide pedestrian road beneath the Acropolis within 200 meters of the remaining Themistoclean wall…
Lord Green must answer for HSBC’s sins – but maybe it was always too big to manage
Stephen Green — the former trade minister Lord Green of Hurstpier-point, who became this week’s political punchbag— was always a…
Why everywhere should be more like Essex
Apart from the Wye Valley, where I grew up, there are only two places in Britain I’d consider living: Kent…
Why my friends love the idea of a nasty, stupid mansion tax
I see all the flaws with a mansion tax, I really do. And yet some little piece of me, some…
Why the real winner from George Osborne’s ‘Google tax’ could be Nigel Farage
George Osborne’s promise to crack down on multinational companies’ avoidance of UK taxes by the use of impenetrable devices such…