Forum Topic

Bank Holiday con in UK.

Yesterday was VE day many countries had a bank holiday. Tomorrow is ascension day again no holiday for us. In May there are four bank holidays in France plus bridge days, this is where for example a bank holiday such as May day falls on Thurs and a bridge day is given to join it to the weekend. Victory day 1st world war and 2nd world war are also given in many countries. The sting in the tail French productivity is above ours.

Nicholas Beard ● 2657d37 Comments

Keith - I think you would only have a problem if somehow you colluded for instance if the builder said I will knock the VAT off for cash. You are right the tax loss because of corporate avoidance is significant - for instance routing profits through low tax jurisdictions ( and not all of these are the obvious tax havens ) and relatively easier to quantify but the tax loss because of individuals evading tax, VAT, excise duties is much harder to estimate.

James Morris ● 2654d

I would also suspect that to be so, Christopher. If someone, not me obviously, decided to pay a builder cash in hand with money on which I had already paid tax and he does not declare it, how can I bet at fault? I know it is him evading tax, but I think in law I am still liable for some kind of offence.I know that corporate tax avoidance is far more of a problem, but if anyone reading this does not pay their due taxes, how do you suppose ambulances, doctors, hospitals and schools and welfare benefits (all of which you or your family will probably use at one point or another) are funded? It's not by the tooth fairy btw. Do the decent thing and pay your taxes.

Keith Iddon ● 2654d

The UK seems to be the money laundering capital of the world, which is why kleptocrats buy so much property here.My guess would be that straightforward petty tax evasion for stuff like being paid cash in hand is no different to anywhere else.

Christopher Gillie ● 2654d

There is a lot of tax evasion right from cash in hand upwards in the uk.

Nicholas Beard ● 2654d

Nothing provocative about the truth, Christopher. Maybe you should get out more ;-).I wonder what the average tax rate is in the EU, and how much tax evasion there is? In Greece it was a national sport, as I would surmise it is in many countries. We are not squeaky clean here either.

Keith Iddon ● 2654d

I think you are referring to the claimant count. It is indeed true that if you have too much money, you cannot claim benefits for unemployment. The Government stopped using this as the official measure of unemployment over 15 years ago precisely because of the effect you describe.Theses days it is the Labour Force Survey that is used to provide official unemployment figures. In this, the amount of money you have does not matter, what matters is whether you are seeking work or not. Furthermore, the International Labour Organisation makes sure standards and methods used in different countries are the same, so that comparisons between countries are valid.Insecure work, zero hours contracts etc are a bigger part of the employment landscape in this day and age, but that happens in France as well. One of my cousins there spent many years on short term "temporary" contracts with the same company before finally getting a "permanent" job.Unemployment in France is much higher than here (about double), as measured using the same rules and methodologies established by the ILO. Being able to claim benefits, having savings, and working part time, are all treated in the same way whether you are in France or the UK, and this has been the case now for over 15 years.

Christopher Gillie ● 2654d

In Holland they retire later but get 100.6% OF THE NATIONAL AVERAGE WAGE as a pension. As was shown recently we have the least generous state pension and struggle to pay it. In Greece petrol is cheaper than here as is fresh food.

Nicholas Beard ● 2654d

We hide our unemployment here. Suppose here you take redundancy and have a golden handshake you are not considered un employed whereas in France if you are looking for a job you are considered unemployed. Also here if you are working part time and want full time you are not considered un emploed whereas in a lot of countries you are. So if you added in all people looking for a job here our unemployment would be a lot different.

Nicholas Beard ● 2654d

Your example, whilst perhaps slightly provocative, is nevertheless a good example of "all upside" populist promises being made with no regard to the downside.I remember getting asked to sign a petition against fuel duty increases a few years ago. I wrote back to the sender that if the government cancels the fuel duty rise, there are 3 options to cope with this:1) Increase borrowing so that your children pay for it instead of you.2) Increase taxes elsewhere to compensate for the lost revenue - Which taxes do you want to increase instead?3) Cut spending so that the fuel duty increase is not needed - What spending do you want to cut?Needless to say, there was no response. Sadly, I think the sender took umbrage at me asking them to think about the consequences and/or make a decision that would also turn out to be unpopular. Only looking at the upside and ignoring the downside of any change pretty much guarantees unhappiness.My rule of thumb is that if something is claimed to be 100% good and 0% bad (or vice versa for that matter), they are probably lying.

Christopher Gillie ● 2654d

Yes, it's a shame we can't retire at 50 on 90% of our salary, just like the Greeks used to before they went bankrupt.

Keith Iddon ● 2654d

France tried to tackle unemployment in 2000 by reducing the working week to 35 hours.In 2018, France still has double the unemployment of the UK, and youth unemployment is over 20%.Sometimes what seems obvious and popular does not work because people have not thought it through. The uncomfortable truth is that in France it is so difficult and expensive to reduce your workforce that employers are super reluctant to employ anyone. Changing the number of hours does not change this calculation, but it gets votes, and 18 years on, France still has a massive unemployment problem.

Christopher Gillie ● 2654d

You are right. We get minimum redundancy payment as well. I have heard politicians talking about how we are limited to a 48 hour week. Remember when the EU introduced that they said how will our doctors manage. It didnt effect other countries. Who else was working 48 hours a week.

Nicholas Beard ● 2655d

This may have more to do with Brexit thank you think.There are EU regulations stipulating a minimum number of paid holidays. Currently the government can increase the number of holidays but cannot reduce the number of holidays, as unlike other EU countries, we only get the minimum allowed by EU.After Brexit, the government has a free hand to do either, so a reduction would probably be more likely than an increase.

Ian Fillingham ● 2655d

Annual Leave in France is 5 weeks, not 10 weeks. On top of that they have 15 days bank holiday, making a total of 40 days leave.An extra 12 days holiday would cost you (and everyone else in the country) a 5% pay cut. Do you also want a 5% pay cut? If so then fine but make the decision with open eyes. Don't pretend it is going to happen for free.Personally I would rather you negotiated it between yourself and your employers and let everyone else make up their own minds as to whether they wanted more holiday or more pay.

Christopher Gillie ● 2655d

Just to be clear Nicholas the ‘extra’ months pay that some European countries pay either in the summer or before Christmas isn’t really an extra payment - employers simply take the annual salary and divide it by the number of months payments as agreed with the unions.

James Morris ● 2655d

I don’t think Keith was saying it invalidates all your other words, I think he was merely pointing out that this subject has nothing to do with Brexit so there’s no need to bring up that (contentious!) subject.

Sam Pollard ● 2655d

We want more bank holidays and more annual leave. They do it on the continent so why not here. There is a 35 hr week in France you can by arrangement with your employer exceed this but the you get 10 weeks leave. Also remember here we only get 12 months pay a year. No extra month in the summer.

Nicholas Beard ● 2655d

"Giving" extra holidays to everyone also "takes away" 0.4% of everyone's income for every day of holiday that you "give".While that can be made up via productivity gains, doing so when UK productivity growth is so awful means it actually makes everyone poorer. Sorry, but there is no "Free Lunch" here. Either we we become more productive to "Earn" more days off or we get poorer.This time I will avoid using the B word as apparently it cancels out all my other words, but the same principle applies, suggesting that a change is all upside, and ignoring the downside is just a lie.

Christopher Gillie ● 2655d

Always good to know that the word Brexit makes all other words invalid.

Christopher Gillie ● 2655d

You had me mildly interested there Christopher until your gratuitous mention of Brexit.

Keith Iddon ● 2655d

The law requires that people have 28 days holiday.This is worked out as being 8 bank holidays and 20 holidays you can choose.Putting in more bank holidays will mean we will still have 28 days holiday but with fewer holidays we can choose. So asking for more bank holidays is unhelpful.If you want to be on holiday for St Georges day or any other day you personally want, then book the day off, don't force everyone to take THEIR holidays when YOU want them to.If you want more total holidays then that is a different thing, but you can already do that by asking your employer. Most employers should be quite happy to sell you a bit more holiday in exchange for a bit of your salary.Unless what you really want, but are not saying clearly, is to have your cake and eat it. Have more total holiday and not take a pay cut for it. Implying that you can get free extra holidays with no costs sound a lot like the type of dishonesty that got people voting in favour of Brexit.

Christopher Gillie ● 2655d

I don’t think that ‘bridge’ days are statutory but rather given at the discretion of the employer - and practice varies considerably. The other point worth bearing in mind is that if a holiday falls on a weekend in France the following Monday is not given as a holiday.

James Morris ● 2657d

Keith, we get that in my company already!

Paul Scullion ● 2657d

I'd be in favour of giving everyone their birthday off, or the next Monday if it falls on a weekend, as paid leave.

Keith Iddon ● 2657d

I remember being in London and a tourist asked me who were the beggars with red flowers. I explained to him it was poppy day and he could not believe that we sent people on the streets to get money for soldiers. He told me about the German soldiers and how they were looked after by the state.

Nicholas Beard ● 2657d

Nicholas, I somehow think Sam was being sarcastic...A day off for the Falklands War Day ?!.  What is this, we should go on holiday everytime a war the UK was involved in started or finished, or for every single christian religious day ?.To me it's such a modern fad to start celebrating everything, like how almost everyday now has some kind of title, e.g. Grandparents Day and such like.I can't go along either with the notion about bosses not being able to contact you outside of work-time, for some professions it might work but certainly in my profession it doesn't and it's all about give and take.As for the 'royal' wedding, all I can say is thank **** we are going to be out in the rural countryside up north and far away from a TV screen.

Adam Beamish ● 2657d

I certainly would ban the 'poopy' sellers!

Anne England ● 2657d

Or the Falklands war day.

Nicholas Beard ● 2657d

I think our leave is not too good. For example if you work over 35hrs a week in France you can get 10 weeks leave. Recently on tele they discussed an agreement with the shop Pritemps in Paris. It concerned Sunday working. You can work 12 Sundays a year only if you want to. No compulsion. You get double pay and a day off in lieu. If you have a child you get 78€ for the Sunday child care. This should be the same here. If your boss phones your mobile you can report him or her to the police for interupting your leisure time. If VE day is not worth celebrating surely we should ban the poopy sellers.

Nicholas Beard ● 2657d

I'm still seething that we haven't got a day off for the Royal Wedding.

Sam Pollard ● 2657d

But where does it all end ?.  I didn't realise until recently that we didn't even have the early May bank holiday until 1978.Personally bar the long gap Vanessa has pointed out, I think we have plenty of public holidays.  I for one certainly don't want a holiday for Ascension Day and whilst we should never forget, at the same time I can't personally justify a holiday to celebrate VE Day some 73 years after the event.  I know it's a stereotype but the French seems to always be on strike about something.Depending on what job/field you're in annual leave can be very generous here.I'm not sure how much we embrace flexible working here though, I think there's alot of people who commute to work 5 days a week would have easily work from home at least half of the week, and in these days of remote servers and high-speed internet access there's no technological reason not to.As a sole trader working from home, I've come to accept that my office moves with me when I go on holiday, I have the technology in place to ensure I can do that and I'd much rather be 'accessible' to my clients no matter where I am in the world - for instance from tomorrow until Monday I'll in be Dubai for leisure, and then in Norfolk for work on Tuesday, and it would hell for me (and have consequences for my clients) if I basically shut up shop tomorrow and didn't attend to emails etc. until next Wednesday.

Adam Beamish ● 2657d

As I say on the continent they have many more than we do. When compared to other countries we do badly. Our annual leave is also none too good.

Nicholas Beard ● 2657d

We get too many Bank Holidays in a run this time of year and need to spread them out - certainly we need one between August BH and Christmas.

Vanessa Smith ● 2657d

As I say the French get 4 in May plus bridge days. Of course we should have one in June and one in July. May day this year was on a Thursday so we should have had Thursday plus Friday to bridge it to the weekend.

Nicholas Beard ● 2657d

But we get two bank holidays at Easter, and two in May - then none till end of August.  Surely we dont want any more at this time of year, but one say late June?

Emma Renton ● 2657d

Correct and also poor training of stff. Also lack of invesment is another.

Nicholas Beard ● 2657d

I agree fully but I bet we wont get a bridge day with it.

Nicholas Beard ● 2657d

We should also look at why we have such poor productivity.  Struggling to get from A to B is one reason.  The gig economy particularly for those workers with responsibilities another.

Philippa Bond ● 2657d

I strongly believe that St Georges Day should be a Bank Holiday

Paul Fisher ● 2657d