Why I shouldn't go away...

(By Richard Holway 2.00pm 17th May 09) As readers might have noticed, I’ve been away for a week. Everytime I go on holiday, something earth shattering occurs – Northern Rock, the Iceland banking crisis and now MP’s expenses.

I feel annoyed because my wife has believed that MPs are just a bunch of crooks since I first met her. She is now crowing that she was right all along. (Or, as a cartoon I read on the plane said, "It's the 95% of MPs that are crooks that give the rest a bad name")

But what really gets me is the double standards. I’ve been subject to three HMRC tax enquiries and an VAT enquiry in the last 10 years – all occasioned not by any suggestion of wrong doing but because my tax affairs are deemed ‘complex’ (which is true!). On every occasion I have been found to have paid too much tax! I’ve never ever had any apology for the time and anguish caused – or recompense for the £1000s of accountants fees incurred.

What I have learned is that claiming a ‘genuine mistake’ and saying ‘sorry’ really doesn’t cut the mustard with these guys! The choice for such mistakes are a penalty or a court case – ie not much of a choice at all!

I think my busy-ness quotient is just as high as any MP. But I have never forgotten that I’ve repaid my mortgage (Indeed, I will remember celebrating that day in 2000 for the rest of my life!) I’ve also learned that I have to prove that every penny I claim as tax deductible expenses were “wholly and necessarily incurred” for business purposes.

So, like what seems like 99% of the rest of the British population, I have absolutely no sympathy with the situation that the MPs now find themselves in.