Taxes

Will Alistair Darling endorse a global tax on investment banks? It's rumoured that he will use the Budget to detail plans of a new supertax on investment banks.

However Darling is not after an insurance option, whereby proceeds could create a fund set aside for bank failure – a route riddled with moral hazard, possibly encouraging more risk taking. He will instead urge a levy that will go direct to national governments.

Viacom, the American company suing YouTube for infringement of copyright, is facing a most peculiar charge - as the documents in the case became public YouTube accused the company of paying other parties to upload its property. YouTube alleges that Viacom paid some 19 agencies to upload materials.

The company also quotes mails from Viacom executives who say they believe, quite passionately, that the materials in question should be available on YouTube for free viewing. Many British properties are there for anyone to see, quite legitimately, including all of the Monty Python sketches. It is, in short, a bit of a mess.

Chairing the Social Media World Forum day one on Monday I was quite struck by how biased we all were towards Twitter - it's been the highest profile social network recently even if Facebook does have the figures, and oddly nobody minds that its numbers fell off a bit in January (there was always going to be some fall-off after the initial fascination).

This is no doubt why there's such a perceived opportunity for the new service, @anywhere, which allows people to embed Twitter onto their website. So you can follow a journalist straight from their column (anyone wanting to follow me is welcome, although you might feel three blog entries a day is all you want, thanks), authors from their books, whatever. But why would you?

A new report from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation suggests creating a "care levy" so each generation pays its own care costs, with extra inheritance tax funding the current generation but those 30 paying the levy and leaving their assets with no deductions.

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation says this could produce a system that is fair, sustainable and easy to understand. But it takes a lot more than that to convince any party to introduce new taxes.

Could public finances be in even worse shape than already suspected? We already know the economy is in a bad way. Biggest peace-time deficit, banks on verge of collapse, triple A rating under threat etc. Now an influential report says the government underestimates the scale of difficulties.

The report claims that additional tax rises or spending cuts of £20bn a year (over and above what we already know about) will be needed within three years. The government is also too optimistic in its economic growth predictions, suggests report author PricewaterhouseCoopers.

The Budget will take place on March 24, in what is expected to be the opening battle in the general election. Today's confirmation of the Budget date suggests the government is planning on May 6 for the election.

The imminent election means this year's Budget is likely to be more of a balancing act than ever. The Labour government is on a rock (the need to prove it is serious about cutting record levels of public borrowing). It is also close to a hard place (the need to woo the electorate and win votes). Neither aim is particularly compatible with the other.

It might sound a little calculating, not to mention downright paradoxical. But if you want to save on your tax bill, consider giving money away. As they say, giving is a form of receiving. Nowhere is this more true than in the UK tax system.

"Making charitable donations through the gift aid system is very tax efficient for both the charity and individuals who are higher rate tax payers," says Jason Butler of Bloomsbury Financial Planning.

Scrimping. Saving. Pinching pennies. Whatever you call it, many of us are doing it. Nearly a third of the population has cut down on everyday luxuries such as eating out, theatre and cinema. A fifth of us are spending less on holidays. The same proportion has switched to cheaper supermarkets.

Amid so much frugality, you might think we would all pay as little tax as possible. Wrong. We are set to waste a collective £9 billion in unnecessary tax payments, reveals a financial website.

Did you think HMRC was a highly-oiled professional machine dedicated to tackling and confronting the world of tax avoidance and its nefarious practitioners?

Some still labour under this idea apparently. The Treasury Select Committee isn't one. It reckons HMRC is badly organized, performs poorly and that its employees suffer from low morale.

All three major parties are now committed to the most economically damaging tax rises - on income and employment - through the 50p income tax rate and the increase in National Insurance Contributions (NICs), tax lobby group Refom has warned.

In its report Reality check: Fixing the UK's tax system, the lobby group lays out why it thinks government and opposition parties have got it wrong and what they should do. It makes for interesting reading.

According to the Electoral Commission just over £5m of donations to the Conservative Party from a firm belonging to Lord Ashcroft were legal.

The decision from the commission comes after a 14-month long investigation and will no doubt be greeted by a sigh of relief at Tory central office.

Taxpayers and companies who deliberately evade taxes face having their name, address and details of their evasion made public from 1 April.

HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) will be able to publish names and details of individuals and companies who are caught dodging their taxes after enacting legislation yesterday. I like the idea of naming and shaming.

Lord Ashcroft has finally come clean and admitted he is a "non-dom". He's also promised that he will become a full UK resident – if the Tories win the next election.

"Non-doms" normally pay tax on their UK earnings, but not on income from overseas earnings. David Cameron has said all UK peers should be UK resident, and that he would ban non-doms from the Lords.

One million a year is not enough if you're an RBS banker. Royal Bank of Scotland boss Stephen Hester has warned that such an uncompetitive pay package could mean more banker defections in the next 12 months.

Hester claims that banker walk-outs already have cost 84%-state owned RBS £1bn in profits. Plainly Hester wants to retain staff. But he also has to manage much-increased public scrutiny of the way his operation runs.