Minister under fire for 'cash in hand' comments`

Treasury minister David Gauke came under fire today after suggesting that tradesmen explicitly offering discounts for cash was "morally wrong" during an interview on yesterday's Newsnight.

Consumer groups reacted angrily saying that cash payments were often more secure for single-person operations as there's no chance of cash bouncing and the imminent phasing out of the cheque will add a level of complexity to the process. "Demonising all cash tansactions is inherently anti-small business, the very group the government profess to support", said a press release from a small business representative body.

Gauke hit back strongly, telling our reporter "Clearly what I was driving at was that deliberately avoiding tax is wrong. What should happen is that the tradesman sets up an Employee Benefit Trust in the Cayman Islands with himself as one of the named directors. Then you as a consumer can transfer money into that and the tradesman can then draw down loans from the trust in lieu of wages at zero interest and with no obligation to repay. That's how I pay my cleaners and it creates jobs for accountants. It's good, honest British tax avoidance and not weaselly, shameless evasion".

A spokesgobshite from tax-averse lobbyists the Taxpayers Alliance said "blah blah blah tax, ooh, no thanks, blah blah".

U-turn tax proposed by Treasury

A new tax on U-turns is being proposed by the Treasury as it seeks to plug the gaps appearing in the figures as a result of the number of U-turns performed by the government over the mosr recent Budget.

A senior civil servant in the Treasury told us that the plan would raise the same as the abandoning of levying VAT on hot baked goods, the reduction in the proposed rate of VAT on static caravans and the reversal of the proposal to allow people of offset tax against charitable donations. "By levying a flat fee on every member of the Cabinet every time they go back on something previously announced", our source told us, "the economy should be back in rude health by Q3 this year as we're anticipating a number of other reversals of their fucking stupid ideas in the near future".

The number of U-turns have left many people unsure where they stand, but our insider unpicked them for us. "It's really very simple. There's now no VAT on baked goods unless they're stored in such a way as to keep them warm rather than allow them to cool naturally" he told us. "That means you can eat a warm pasty inside a cold static caravan and offset that against your charitable giving, but only if you've got a buzzard's nest in the garden. However, a cold pasty inside a warm static caravan is VATable at 20% or 15% if you give a buzzard to charity but only then if the buzzard is cold. No, wait, hang on...." he said as he disappeared back into 1 Horse Guards Road muttering something about having to carry a pheasant.

Charities to accept donations not linked to tax offset

UK-based charities have responded to controversial changes to tax allowances by permitting would-be philanthropists to donate without being used as a tax efficiency vehicle.

Changes announced in the recent Budget speech sought to limit the amount of tax relief any individual can claim in total, including tax breaks on charitable giving. Charities, fearing a loss of income as a result, have been forced into a response. A spokeperson for the Charities Commission told us that "we will be instructing our members to start accepting donations from people not seeking to minimise their personal tax burden, but actually believe in the cause and wish to support it".

Previously, charities only sought to attract donors by outlining the potential returns to investors and will now have to change tack completely by "spelling out a cause for which people may be interested in, not because of financial gain, but because they actually care. It's a complete paradigm shift which we'll be helping our members come to terms with" said our spokesperson. "They'll have to shift focus away from creating complex financial instruments and tax vehicles and start thinking about raising money for good causes".

Osborne "shocked" at wealth of rich people

The Chancellor George Osborne today expressed his surprise at revelations that rich people have more money than poor people.

"I was shocked to see that some of the very wealthiest people in the country have substantially more money than some of the very poorest" said the two-time winner of the Eton prize for boy least likely to do sums correctly. "Having seen some tax returns and seeing how little these people paid in income tax, I naturally assumed that they were extremely poor" he said in an interview with the Telegraph.

Osborne also expressed surprise about other things in the interview, such as the Pope's stated religion and what it is that bears do in the woods. "They're actually shitting in there?", he said. "Get outta here".

Osborne offers hope to beleaguered wealthy

With the Budget around the corner, Chancellor George Osborne today offered hope to the beleaguered wealthy with a hint that the top rate of income tax - currently 50p in the pound - is to be cut to 40.

Answering claims that this is an unfunded tax cut, Osborne retorted by pointing out the many areas that spending has fallen in order to pay for it. "By cutting funds from luxuries like libraries, schools, hospitals and the poor, we can make this gesture to those that have, so far, borne the brunt of the burden of generating extra tax revenues in difficult times".

"It's not a question of penalising those at the bottom end", continued the man somehow entrusted with the public purse, "more a case of rewarding those that have contributed to the success of the British economy as it slides towards another recession. However, if we can give the poor a good kicking while we're at it, so much the better. After all, we are the Conservative party and that is what we presume we weren't quite elected to do".

"We are all in this together", the Chancellor said before adding "but some of us are in it more than others".