No wonder we pay so much in taxes!!

[Grumpmeister]

Let me see if I understand this correctly, MP's can claim for up to £23k for stuff for their second home? Just how exactly is this enefitting the average taxpayer? 

If they can claim £10k for a sodding kitchen then I want to see them cooking food for meals on wheels or doing soemthing else worthwhile, and not enjoying their second home at our bleedin expense!!!!!

MPs are allowed to claim expenses of up to £10,000 for a new kitchen, £2,000 for furniture and £750 for a TV or stereo for their second homes.
The figures are revealed in the so-called "John Lewis list", used by Commons officials to determine whether an expenditure claim is reasonable.

MPs can claim about £23,000 a year each towards the cost of their second homes.

In February the Commons was ordered to release a breakdown of the claims under the Additional Costs Allowance.

It followed an Information Tribunal hearing at which Commons resources chief Andrew Walker revealed the existence of the list.

But he had resisted publishing the list, explaining that if MPs saw "what the maximum price we will allow for such an item is, it will become the going rate".

On Thursday the list was published, following a Freedom of Information request by the Press Association.

It shows MPs can claim up to £10,000 towards the cost of installing a new kitchen in their second homes, as well as more than £6,335 for a bathroom, £750 for a television or stereo, £300 air-conditioning units and £2,000 for furniture.

[Snoopy]

Every Government department has a method of calculating values of everyday items. IOt seems that on this occasion they are using a John Lewis Catalogue. Could be worse ..... might have been Harrods.

It may interest you to know how HM Customs calculate the value of items imported. They look at a book of values and they look at the declared value (Receipt/Proof of purchase etc). They then take one from the other and charge you the difference. And the books they use? A standard Mail Order catalogue from Littlewoods and the Argos Catalogue.
Obviously this applies to items purchased for instance in the US and "over your personal limit" and to gifts sent to the UK from people resident abroad. I am not, before some pedant points out that Littlewood don't sell Weapons or Cars or Aircraft, talking commercial imports but the everyday items that they pull out of your case at Heathrow or they find in parcels marked "Gifts", for example, as they go through the Royal Mail.

For instance mail from Hong Kong all comes into the UK via Southamton Post Office where it all passes, on a conveyor belt, in front of one of a team of 12 Customs Officers who select parcels at random to be opened and checked against their declared contents.

[Grumpmeister]

I can understand that Snoop but its the extravagant amounts that are getting to me. The full value of the claim is more than a newly qualified nurse would earn in a year and I know who does more for the community.

There was some more coverage on the news this morning when they were mentioning some of the specific items on the list. £250 for a coffee machine!! Now regulars here know I'm a coffee nut but even so there is no way I could justify that much on a machine.

[Nick]

Well see here again

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7295586.stm

But what is this. If they have to go public with their "expenses" they are demanding compensation in the form of higher salaries and allowances. So tacitly they admit that they use "expenses" to supplement their salaries!

Bastards. I bet there are a few sweaty MPs out there waiting for the publication date

He said the Commons Members Estimate Committee, which is reviewing the expenses system, was "coming to the view" that every MP's expenses for the past three years should be published - and was set to make that recommendation to MPs.

But in return MPs are likely to demand higher salaries or a £160-a-day allowance, he added.

[Grumpmeister]

But in return MPs are likely to demand higher salaries or a £160-a-day allowance, he added.

[/quote]

That is pure genius, £23,000 expenses currently or £58,400 with a £160 a day allowance. Get caught in the trough one way and then try to sneak a bigger share in through the back door.

I have a counter proposal, they can have an allowance but both it and their wages will have to be performance related.