Rob Callister

[Declan]

25 minutes ago, Grounds Keeper Willy said:

Perhaps he has an expensive script writer? 

Or a cheap one paid by the word.

[Holte End]

Why doesn't somebody just explain to him the difference between expenses and General expenditure.

 

Edited September 24, 2019 by Holte End

[slinkydevil]

"£347.98 – IPA Pool Event, Bradford (hotel & flights etc)" - The honourable Rob MHK

"Happy to confirm that I travelled to the IPA World Champions in February (at my own expense), along with scheduling various meetings between the IPA and local hotels, travel agents and the tourism team in April." - The honourable Rob MHK
 

[Bobbie Bobster]

@slinkydevil

[Declan]

56 minutes ago, slinkydevil said:

"£347.98 – IPA Pool Event, Bradford (hotel & flights etc)" - The honourable Rob MHK

"Happy to confirm that I travelled to the IPA World Champions in February (at my own expense), along with scheduling various meetings between the IPA and local hotels, travel agents and the tourism team in April." - The honourable Rob MHK
 

Good spot.

However, because of how the expenses are paid as an allowance that doesn't have to be accounted for, there's no real difference between, "out of my allowance" and "out of my wages". He doesn't have to spend the allowance on anything work related.

[Roger Mexico]

5 minutes ago, Grounds Keeper Willy said:

But surely if you publicly said you were going to pay something out of your own pocket but then subsequently it was proved (by yourself ironically) that you had actually allocated it to work expenses that is sort of a bit of a lie isn’t it? 

I think Declan's point is that it still did actually come out his own pocket.  So it's not a lie - just incredibly dumb. 

[Phillip Dearden]

9 hours ago, Cheesy Wheezy said:

 

You wouldn’t want to be his tax adviser though. Who makes charitable donations out of untaxed money? And you can get tax relief on professional subscriptions so why use your untaxed money here either?

Is that right?

Surely charitable donations are deductible whatever monies you use to make them.

and

Professional subs would only be deductible if "wholly, exclusively and necessarily" incurred for business purposes. Would that apply here? Assuming it does, why would using untaxed money to pay the subs deny a right to tax relief?

 

[Declan]

Well, he's foolishly left himself open to ridicule by doing that.

But the reality is - it has come out of his pocket. Because that's where the expense allowance goes. He could just as easily have left the item of the list of claim expenditure and nothing would have changed. Follow the money...

• Wages and allowance paid into Rob's bank account.
• Rob's bank account pays out for him to go to the pool.

It doesn't matter if he chooses to call them expenses or not, because he doesn't have to spend a penny of the allowance on expenses and he still gets them. He doesn't have to explain how he spends them, he's one of the few that tries. The fact is the allowance is just a part of his wages.

[Declan]

12 minutes ago, Phillip Dearden said:

Is that right?

Surely charitable donations are deductible whatever monies you use to make them.

and

Professional subs would only be deductible if "wholly, exclusively and necessarily" incurred for business purposes. Would that apply here? Assuming it does, why would using untaxed money to pay the subs deny a right to tax relief?

 

You're probably right. But that would require @Rob Callister to publicly claim that he's used the tax free "expenses" to pay for these things, and privately add them to his tax form, reducing his tax bill. I doubt he would be so two-faced. 

And I'm sure he wouldn't mind confirming that. 

Edited September 24, 2019 by Declan

[Rob Callister]

10 minutes ago, Declan said:

You're probably right. But that would require @Rob Callister to publicly claim that he's used the tax free "expenses" to pay for these things, and privately add them to his tax form, reducing his tax bill. I doubt he would be so two-faced. 

And I'm sure he wouldn't mind confirming that. 

No, I didn't add my professional fees onto my personal tax return.

As for the IPA trip, the funds came out of my personal bank account..... the alternative option was to ask DfE to cover the cost of the trip, but I didn't feel comfortable with that idea especially when I am given "expenses" each month....

I have always offered to finance any trips wherever possible, both on the Parliament and the Department level.  

People might not agree with the items that I have listed, but I remain the only Tynwald Member to try to explain how these funds have been spent each year.  

An independent committee is currently looking at MHK / MLC pay, including expenses - so hopefully I won't have to publish my expenses next year.

 

[Mr Helmut Fromage]

11 minutes ago, Rob Callister said:

As for the IPA trip, the funds came out of my personal bank account..... 

 

The Truth of the lie...................

No-one is disputing you paid for it from your personal bank account - the question of why you have publicly announced it was from expenses is still to be clarified.

 

[Holte End]

14 minutes ago, Rob Callister said:

As for the IPA trip, the funds came out of my personal bank account..... the alternative option was to ask DfE to cover the cost of the trip

Can I ask why would DfE cover the cost of you going to watch a Pool Competition.?

[Declan]

34 minutes ago, Grounds Keeper Willy said:

But to the man on the street it is confusing. As I said he seems to have more pockets than a snooker table. So his wages money is his, his expenses money is his, and departmental expenses seem to be paid on top as well in many cases if I read it right. No wonder he can’t describe which pocket it’s paid out of when disclosures are made as I’m lost just trying to follow what’s been said. 

Oh, it is confusing.  But let me try - Rob only has one pocket into which goes his wages and with his wages go something called an expense allowance. The expense allowance was a cunning wheeze years ago by the Tynwald of the day to raise there wages tax free. So they called that an expense allowance. However, there's no need to explain how these expense are spent, so most MHK's pocket the money and pay any expense that come their way.

But Rob feels bad about it and tries to explain what the money's gone on.

Now, if an MHK travels on government business those costs are Government costs rather than the cost of being an MHK and the system is the Government covers those costs as well. Rob feels bad about that, especially since part of his wages includes an allowance for expenses. So instead of claiming the money back from the Government he pays this out of his own pocket rather than the Government's.

It's not his fault really -

• it's a daft selfish system
• he didn't make it
• he knows it's rotten and is trying to be ethical
• he's trying to be transparent
• in doing so he's shone a light on how daft this system and change may follow

But he's done it in such a way that he's copping all the flack, and we all pick at his expenses. Meanwhile he'll have colleagues who don't spend anything on admin expenses still get the allowance and claim Government Expenses on top of that, but no-one's challenging them.

 

Edited September 24, 2019 by Declan

[De nada]

It doesn't seem to matter if the 'expenses' are all used up or not. I guess not one of them ever returns any, so the term 'expenses' is totally wrong

[Rushen Spy]

Yes, Rob deserves a Nobel Prize for his bravery in being transparent and cutting edge social media engagement. It has revealed to us all just how little MHKs actually do and how much money they waste. We either need to get rid of some of them or give them more tasks to do.