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Comment from the
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 Eureka - your tax bill problems solved!
IT'S been quite a week for in-office discussions this week - and I don't think the JEP will have been that different from other workplaces in the topics under discussion.
The first revolved around Itis and the current spat of confusion over what the bill that isn't a bill means, if indeed it wasn't a bill, which it probably wasn't if you're an Itis-paying employee.
So, that's all right then.
Even though my tax situation is quite simple, I managed to become confused all by myself - which says a lot more about me than it does the tax department, to be honest.
But the main problem seemed to be those who weren't sure whether they had overpaid or underpaid or were just too scared to look. I fell into the latter category, on the grounds that it's better not to look than to do so and admit complete numerical inadequacy.
However, during the discussion at work, news reporter Anna Heuston came up with a solution which, as far as I am concerned, bordered on genius, and we both want to know whether her idea would work and if not why not. Her idea is, as another colleague said, 'scarily simple': if we carry on paying tax until the end of time, there is always going to be a year owing, or as Anna put it, 'a year which doesn't exist'. That being the case, the tax department would not actually lose anything by writing off a tax year and starting a pay-as-you-earn scheme immediately.
So, for instance, in January 2007 you would start paying for that year, not 2006. You have not stopped paying tax, and the tax department has not stopped receiving it, so nobody loses any money.
As we saw it, PAYE had many advantages over the current system which seems very like the last one but with compulsory direct debit and lots of different percentages. The first among them being the ease of leaving or coming back to the Island.
Another less tangible reason is that paying in arrears gives the perception of debt, which only really becomes a reality if you are trying to catch up with yourself.
It would also get rid of this situation where newcomers start on PAYE only to be swapped onto Itis after a certain time because because under EU law, everyone has to pay tax in the same way.
Please tell us whether it can be that simple.
THE second discussion which rumbled around the office and will continue to do so in one form or another for years to come, probably without conclusion, was about Muslim women wearing full face veils.
One of the biggest fears among those who felt veils shouldn't be worn, particularly in some professional areas such as teaching, was that their view would be taken as racism.
Others, me included, were worried that the whole issue stemmed from a deep-seated need by the government to keep the debate over cultural differences in the public eye for reasons of pure propaganda.
The latter came to an uneasy agreement that there really was no easy answer to the debate, since we were torn between the need to protect someone's rights to individuality and a common sense of maintaining a community that was recognisable to us. 'Us' in this case being, without exception, white non-Muslims.
Are we all being led by paranoia and recent events into stifling individuality and religious belief? Is this just state-led Muslim-bashing, as many in the Islamic community in the UK believe?
Most worryingly, is this just the tip of the iceberg in terms of the seperation that is to come? Two weeks ago it would not occurred to me to have minded whether someone wore a full-face veil or not; now we have to have an opinion on the subject.
The first group felt that there was no discussion to be had and that the veils should come off, especially in the context of a classroom (which is where the UK debate first began). Reasons included scaring children, not being able to make proper eye contact, not knowing who was under the veil and hampering the learning of language by not seeing a mouth moving and forming words.
While a couple of these have some merit, it says very little about embracing difference and allowing for an individual to shine through.
We reached no conclusions other than the ones we already held, although everybody - well, most of us - swayed between each other's arguments before settling again with the views we had initially held.
Unlike the first debate, this one was scarily complex given that it is at its simplest level about an item of clothing, and left me with the uncomfortable feeling that there was lot more of this to come.
THE only results I can see from installing condom machines in secondary-school loos have little to do with a lowering of teenage pregnancy or raising of sexual health.
There could be a short-lived but intense period of giggling in the girls' loos and an explosion - not quite as short-lived - of water-bomb fights.
IT seems that in last week's column I not only threw my toys out of my pram, I also managed to throw them in completely the wrong direction.
Like a number of others, I made the assumption that the Plémont land being discussed for redevelopment as a golf course was the headland - which in my mind includes the Pontins site. Although it wasn't specifically mentioned, the implication is that this does not include the Pontins site. So, I was wrong.
According to the ministers in the know, it does not include the headland, but is instead privately owned land to the south.
So, my apologies for getting it wrong. I do, however, stand by my slight sneering as far as golf courses are concerned. Just don't want one.
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