Darling's emergency budget does little to offset damage to the lowly
paid.

Assume my yearly income is £13 335, the upper 10%% tax threshold last
year.

After Darling's emergency budget tax now begins at £6035. Last year it
began at £5225.

So last year I would have paid tax (at 10%%) of £811.

This year I will pay tax (at 20%%) of £1460.

This means my tax bill will be £649 higher!

To set a rate that does not make anyone earning less than £13335 worse
off is very simple.

Set the 20%% tax rate to start at the point midway between £5,225.00
and £13 335!

To pay for this you can reduce the 40%% tax threshold, or (better) set
up new taxes to hit overpaid bankers.

NYT
May 14, 2008

Italian’s Detention Illustrates Dangers Foreign Visitors Face

By NINA BERNSTEIN

He was a carefree Italian with a recent law degree from a Roman
university. She was “a totally Virginia girl,” as she puts it, raised
across the road from George Washington’s home. Their romance, sparked
by a 2006 meeting in a supermarket in Rome, soon brought the Italian,
Domenico Salerno, on frequent visits to Alexandria, Va., where he was
welcomed like a favorite son by the parents and neighbors of his
girlfriend, Caitlin Cooper.

But on April 29, when Mr. Salerno, 35, presented his passport at
Washington Dulles International Airport, a Customs and Border
Protection agent refused to let him into the United States. And after
hours of questioning, agents would not let him travel back to Rome,
either; over his protests in fractured English, he said, they insisted
that he had expressed a fear of returning to Italy and had asked for
asylum.