The Conservative Manifesto has confirmed the 2015 promise of raising the starting threshold for Income Tax to 12500, and the threshold for 40% tax to 50000.

Published and promoted by Fraser Mc Farland on behalf of John Redwood, both at 30 Rose Street Wokingham RG40 1XU

Authorities in central China’s Hunan province rolled out more measures Saturday to restrict housing purchases and cool the property market.

From Saturday, Changsha residents will only be allowed to own two homes in the city and non-local people will be restricted to one, so long as the buyers provide evidence of at least 12 months of income tax and social security payments in the city.

Property may not be re-sold within two years.

The price of second-hand housing in the city rose 4.3 percent in April.

In March, about 30 Chinese cities limited housing purchases.

In the first two months this year, investment in China’s real estate market rose 8.9 percent year on year to more than 985 billion yuan (US$140 billion), and housing sales jumped 26 percent from the same period in 2016 to over one trillion yuan.

The number of cases filed in Chinese courts from May 2015 to March 2017 hit 31 million, up 33.9 percent, said the Supreme People’s Court (SPC).

Courts changed their filing procedure from accreditation to registration in May 2015, which greatly lowered the barriers for filing a case.

Unlike the previous practice of examining cases before they are filed, cases are now accepted by courts on the spot as long as they meet basic requirements.

During the past two years, the number of state compensation cases increased the most, 102 percent, and private prosecutions of criminal cases rose by 60 percent. Administrative cases were up 54 percent while civil cases up 25 percent in the same period.

The problems of refusing or delaying filing cases by courts had been basically eradicated, said Gan Wen with the SPC.

So far, 2,605 courts have provided online case filing services. Seven high courts and seven intermediate courts are required to accept trans-regional cases.

Meanwhile, the SPC is studying abuse of litigation rights and plans to regulate such behavior.

There are three possible answers to who should pay for an individual’s care. The individual themselves may have the money to do so. The individual’s family may have the money and the capacity to provide the care. The state – in other words the rest of us – could do so.

By common political consensus in the UK we take a differing view on who should pay for a child’s care, and who should pay for an elderly person.

All mainstream parties and most people agree that as a child cannot work and does not usually have any money of their own, the parents should normally provide. We expect mother and father, or mother or father, to offer food, shelter and clothing, and to look after the child when not at school. Both parents are expected to contribute financially where they can. The state steps in if the parental income is insufficient, offering help with money and housing. The state also has powers in extreme cases of poor parental behaviour towards the child to remove the child and find surrogate parents willing to look after the child.

In the case of elderly people more emphasis has been placed on the elderly person themselves contributing financially to their care and maintenance where they have substantial savings. No party has proposed making children responsible for their elderly relatives,nor would that be an acceptable proposal, though in practice many families do provide answers to the care needs of their elderly members. The state provides all healthcare free, and provides free places in care homes for those who need them and have little by way of assets or income. There has also been an issue over differing treatment of an elderly person who chooses to stay living in their own home, and those who move into care homes, vacating their old property. There are issues over what constitutes free healthcare, and what is normal living cost.

The contentious question revolves around how much capital an elderly person should be able to pass on after death, and how much should be used up during their later years on paying for their living costs and care.I am interested to hear your thoughts on the right balance over who pays for what. In the next post I will talk more about the various options.

Published and promoted by Fraser Mc Farland on behalf of John Redwood, both at 30 Rose Street Wokingham RG40 1XU