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Yes no with a man in tartan kilt between the wordsWhen Mary Pitcaithly, Scotland’s Chief Returning Officer, announced the referendum result on Friday 19th September, most of you will probably have thought that the devolution debate was over? Think again – it’s only just started on tax.

Scottish Referendum opens the door to Tax Devolution

With all the attention on the action north of the border as the Scottish nation voted in huge numbers against independence, Prime Minister David Cameron may come to regret his moment of weakness in agreeing to the SNP’s demands for the referendum.

Now everybody’s at it.

As the polls got increasingly tight ahead of the vote, the three main party leaders slapped together a last-ditch package of “devo-max” proposals giving Scotland significantly more powers over its tax collection and expenditures.

This did not go down particularly well in Wales, Northern Ireland and especially England.

Bristol’s independent mayor, George Ferguson, went on regional TV to argue that Westminster’s centralised control was stifling the whole country and that the UK’s cities, too, should be given the same freedom the Scots are likely to get.

“Currently little more than 5% of our total tax take is retained locally, leaving us with the indignity of having to beg for what is due to us from the government of the time,” he wrote.

Even UKIP leader Nigel Farage appeared to jump on the decentralisation bandwagon by calling for English regions to get some of the powers being contemplated for Scotland.

All the arguments may end up as froth and jetsam on the political waters once the referendum storm subsides, but David Cameron, the Chancellor and their Treasury advisers must be gnashing their teeth at the havoc they unleashed when they opened the Pandora’s Box of independence.

And it’s not much better for Ed Milliband and Nick Clegg as they jumped on the Cameron bandwagon of “promise them anything as long as they vote No”, 4 days before the vote.

Where will it all end, I wonder; but with a General Election in six months’ time, I suspect we’ll have a clue soon.

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Daniel Dover – It’s the way he tells ‘em

That huge accountancy firm BDO hosted a gathering of accountancy’s glitterati on Wednesday evening for the launch of partner Daniel Dover’s latest book, ‘HMRC: Her Majesty’s Roller Coaster’.

Sign reads HM Revenue & Customs Weve got what it takes to to take what youve got

Click to buy on Amazon

Dover has some history in this area, having published previous titles such as ‘An Inspector Returns’ and ‘The Taxman Always Rings Twice’. Daniels books are informative, easy to read and when he’s extracting the urine from HMRC (which he does a lot) very funny and it speaks a lot for Daniel that the place was packed.

The most surprising invitee was Margaret Hodge MP, the scourge of HMRC in her role as chair of the Public Accounts Committee. Hodge unfortunately had to send her apologies after being involved in an unfortunate encounter with a motorcyclist in her car earlier that day; but Mrs Hodge was not forgotten. In her absence, Dover unveiled a special present for her (pictured above): a HMRC T-shirt with the slogan: “We’ve got what it takes to take what you’ve got.”

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& finally this week’s other burning issue

Whiskey vs Whisky vs Waetsecy, Scotch pies and Eggs

The Scotland independence referendum has thrown up a number of other debates as well as politics. For example, would people in England still buy Scotch eggs or Scotch pies in the event of a ‘yes’ vote?

Luckily, given the outcome, this qualm has now been put to bed, but it also sparked a debate about one of Scotland’s other most popular exports, namely Scotch whisky. Peter Robinson Northern Ireland’s First Minister announced that he was bringing in legislation so their version of usquebaugh or “water of life” would legally be spelt, whiskey.

Not to be outdone, Plaid Cymru President Dafydd Wigley, commented, I think that our Penderyn Distillery, which makes whisky without an ‘e’, should change the spelling to the welsh waetsecy”.

To put an end to this one, why don’t we all agree that politics and alcohol should not be mixed!