Tesco's rip-off at the
tills: Offers on shelves are out of date, but customers aren't told - so pay
more
Tesco has been “accidentally” routinely overcharging
shoppers at the tills, according to a damning investigation. Most customers do
not usually bother to go through their receipt after a shopping trip, assuming
supermarket technology will not get prices wrong. But it appears that about two
thirds of Tesco’s outlets have not been updating the shelf prices for items
regularly enough. And the vast majority of the errors involved overcharging
rather than undercharging, the investigation found. The problem involved
multi-buy deals that remained advertised on the shelves long after they had
ended. Consequently people who were tempted by an offer may have ended up
paying full price. For example, packs of Christmas gingerbread were listed at
£1.75 each or two for £3, but the saving was not given at the till. Another
‘deal’ involving burgers and bottles of guacamole sauce saw a shopper pay 60
per cent more than the shelf price – an extra £3.30. One store offered two
Viennetta ice cream packs for £2, however the till rang up the normal full
price of £1.37 each. The findings will raise suspicion that the same thing is
happening in other supermarkets and across the high street. A survey of 50
Tesco stores in the West Midlands, Liverpool and Leeds, over a three month
period found 33 were regularly short changing customers on offers. When
challenged over the discrepancy, Tesco staff honoured the shelf price offer,
however trading standards say that was not good enough. Martin Fisher, from the
Chartered Trading Standards Institute, said: ‘If customer A has come back and
complained and been refunded that doesn’t mean there weren’t 20 other customers
who didn’t spot it and didn’t complain.’ One member of staff captured on film
said there were not enough people to remove offer labels that are out of date.
She said: ‘It’s called short staffed. They’ve cut the department in half.’ In
some cases, staff failed to remove out-of-date labels from the shelves even
after being warned that the offer prices were wrong. At a Tesco Express in
Birmingham, one out-of-date offer price was still on display a month after the
error was first pointed out. DAILY MAIL
Businesses are using
self-employment laws to avoid tax
The head of Theresa May's inquiry into the way millions of
people work has said there is evidence businesses are using self-employment
laws to avoid tax. "There is no question - and Phillip Hammond said this
in the Autumn Statement - that when self-employment rose that reduces the tax
take to the Exchequer," said Matthew Taylor, who is head of the Royal
Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce. Some were
deliberately using so-called gig workers to avoid paying contributions to the
Treasury, he said. His comments come on the day a report by the Trades Union
Congress says the tax hit from the growth of "insecure work" could be
as high as £4bn ($5bn) a year. The TUC said that represented nearly a quarter
of the social care budget spent in England. Research from the Institute for
Fiscal Studies revealed last week that a permanently employed person pays an
effective rate of tax of 31% on their income. That falls to 22% for
self-employed people, who pay lower levels of national insurance. Businesses
also save as they make no national insurance contributions and can avoid
maternity and holiday pay entitlements. Because self-employed people tend to be
on lower incomes they also receive higher levels of benefits, another cost to
the Treasury. BBC NEWS
Nursing degree
applications slump after NHS bursaries abolished
Applications by students in England to nursing and midwifery
courses at British universities have fallen by 23% after the government
abolished NHS bursaries, figures show. Nursing leaders said the sudden slump
revealed by the latest university application data was inevitable given that
student nurses now faced paying annual tuition fees of more than £9,000. “These
figures confirm our worst fears. The nursing workforce is in crisis and if
fewer nurses graduate in 2020 it will exacerbate what is already an
unsustainable situation,” said Janet Davies, the general secretary of the Royal
College of Nursing. “The outlook is bleak: fewer EU nurses are coming to work
in the UK following the Brexit vote, and by 2020 nearly half the workforce will
be eligible for retirement. With 24,000 nursing vacancies in the UK, the
government needs to take immediate action to encourage more applicants by
reinstating student funding and investing in student education. The future of
nursing, and the NHS, is in jeopardy.” Universities dismissed talk of a crisis,
arguing that undergraduate numbers across other courses fell in 2012 when
tuition fees rose to £9,000 a year but later recovered. GUARDIAN
Young men paid less
than predecessors, says Resolution Foundation
By the age of 30, young men have earned £12,500 less on
average compared to those born between 1966 and 1980, according to the
Resolution Foundation. It suggested that men now were more likely to be working
in basic service jobs, or part-time, with lower wages. Torsten Bell, executive
director at the Foundation, said: "The long-held belief that each generation
should do better than the last is under threat. Millennials - those born
between 1981 and 2000 - are the first to earn less than their predecessors. "While
that in part reflects their misfortune to come of age in the midst of a huge
financial crisis, there are wider economic forces that have seen young men in
particular slide back." Many found themselves working on reduced hours in
shops, bars and restaurants, whereas their predecessors were more likely to
have been employed in manufacturing. The proportion of low-paid work carried
out by young men has increased by 45% between 1993 and 2015-16, compared with a
fall among young women, the report said. This has narrowed the gender pay gap,
but for the wrong reasons, it said. "In one sense this is a story of
female progress on a massive scale. Women are leaving low paid occupations in
their thousands. As public policy has supported female employment, with better
maternity and childcare policies, and cultural norms have shifted, more women
are finding work that pays a good wage," said report author Daniel
Tomlinson. "But, on the flip side, the fact that the UK has a large
low-paid service sector economy is something that increasing numbers of young
men will now be able to testify to. It's good news that low-paid roles are now
more evenly shared between men and women but the way in which this is happening
raises serious concerns about what the world of work has to offer some young
men... Young women are seeing a lack of generational pay progress and they are
only catching-up with their male counterparts because of a deterioration in
outcomes for young men.” BBC NEWS
UK tax burden will
rise to highest level for 30 years, IFS warns
The amount of tax paid in the UK is poised to reach the
highest level in 30 years and will rise even further because of mounting debt
and pressure on public services, economic forecasters have said. The Institute
for Fiscal Studies said that next year more than 37 per cent of Britain's national
income will be drawn from tax receipts for the first time since 1986. It said
that Philip Hammond, the Chancellor, will have to extend public spending cuts
into the 2020s and introduce even higher taxes to tackle a £34billion black
hole in his Budget. Britain's national debt has now hit its highest level since
1975, the Institute for Fiscal Studies said, leaving the Government more
dependent on taxpayers to balance the books. Households and companies have been
hit by an array of tax rises over the past decade including rises in VAT,
increases in insurance premium tax and higher levels of stamp duty. Theresa
May's Government has increased the "tax burden" further with further
increases in insurance premium tax and an apprenticeship levy on big businesses.
Hundreds of thousands of people have also been dragged into paying the higher
rate of tax because the threshold at which it is paid has failed to keep pace
with rising inflation. The Institute for Fiscal Studies said that spending on
social care dropped by over 6 per cent despite a 16 per cent increase in the
population of over 65s in the UK. The report warned spending on adult social
care "seems likely to continue falling", largely due to the increased
pressure of an elderly population and overstretched health budgets. Spending on
law and order and schools has also fallen significantly over the last few
years. The report said that higher rates of inflation by the end of 2017 will
push down household spending, increasing the Government's need to either
increase taxes or cut spending. The Government has already announced for
£17billion of tax rises over this Parliament, and the IFS believes that Mr
Hammond will have to find an extra £34 billion unless he ditches his target of
eliminating the state deficit before 2025. Compared with 1986, the last time
the Government was so reliant on tax income to balance its books, companies pay
significantly less tax but the amount of VAT has increased significantly. Health
spending is rising at the slowest rate for a decade, the IFS said, as it warned
the Government is not putting enough money into the NHS to cover the growth and
increasing age of the UK's population in the years to come. TELEGRAPH
Government begins
plans to sell off billions of pounds worth of student debt to private companies
Graduates who took out loans before the 2012 academic year
could find themselves making repayments to private lenders buying up contracts
from the Student Loans Company (SLC) – a move the Treasury expects to make
£12bn from in return. Universities Minister Jo Johnson said there would be no
impact on graduates with loans, but union leaders have attacked the decision -
with the National Union of Students (NUS) accusing the Government of pulling an
“ugly move” on students. Sorana Vieru, NUS Vice President of Higher Education,
said: “Selling the loan book to investors is privatisation through the back
door. It is outrageous that bankers will profit off the backs of graduates who
took out loans because they had no other option.” First to be sold will be the
2002/06 student loan book, which had a face value of £4bn the end of the
2014/15 financial year. Former City lawyer and Advisory Board member for the
Intergenerational Foundation think-tank, Estelle Clarke, said "The loans
in question already charge expensive monthly compounding interest and
purchasers may well seek to receive more money from borrowers.” While the
Government insists there will be no changes made to the terms and conditions of
loans undertaken, Ms Clarke warned: "The government has a track record of
breaking its promises; its ‘press’ position cannot be relied upon”. INDEPENDENT
Hundreds of companies
failing to pay minimum wage
The government has named 360 businesses which have failed to
pay either the National Minimum Wage (NMW) or the National Living Wage (NLW). Among
them are well-known names like Debenhams, Subway, Lloyds Pharmacy and St Mirren
Football Club. More than 15,500 workers had to be paid back nearly one million
pounds. But that may represent just the tip of the iceberg: The Office for
National Statistics has calculated that 362,000 jobs did not pay the NMW in
April 2016. The biggest offenders were employers in hairdressing, hospitality
and retail. One worker at a dental practice in London's Harley Street was
refunded nearly £12,000. Excuses used by businesses for not paying the full
basic wage included using tips to top up their pay, making reductions to pay
for a Christmas party, or making staff pay for their own uniforms. For the
first time the list includes firms which failed to pay the National Living
Wage, which was introduced on 1 April 2016 for workers over the age of 25. The
current rate is £7.20 an hour. Those under 25 receive the NMW, currently £6.95
for 21 to 24 year-olds, and £5.55 for 18 to 20 year-olds. In total the 360
businesses that broke the law were fined £800,000. However the TUC said that
was not a big enough deterrent. It called for higher fines, and more
prosecutions. "This should be a wake-up call for employers who value their
reputation. If you cheat your staff out of the minimum wage you will be named
and shamed," said the TUC's general secretary, Frances O'Grady. "But
we also need to see prosecutions and higher fines for the most serious
offenders, especially those who deliberately flout the law." The ONS has
said that 1.3% of employees are not being paid the minimum, amounting to
178,000 full-time workers, and 184,000 part-time workers. But the TUC believes
that even that number is an under-estimate, as it does not take into account
those working in internships, or those who may be wrongly classified as
self-employed. BBC NEWS
Minister denies
'sweetheart' tax deal with Surrey
In January Surrey Council announced a local referendum on
whether to raise council tax by 15% to cover what it said were shortfalls in
funding to cover the rising costs of social care. Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn later
claimed leaked text messages showed ministers were prepared to offer a
"sweetheart deal" to Surrey council to avoid the embarrassing referendum.
But Mr Javid insisted there was "no memorandum of understanding"
between the government and the council. And Surrey County Council said "no
deal" had been offered. But plans for their referendum - which are
triggered if a local authority proposes a council tax rise of 5% or more - were
dropped during a full council meeting on Tuesday. Mr Corbyn asked the prime
minister: "So how much did the government offer Surrey to kill this off
and is the same sweetheart deal on offer to every council facing the social
care crisis created by this government?" Liverpool Mayor Joe Anderson said
he was "seeking urgent clarification" about whether Surrey had been
"bought off" by the government, adding that cities such as Liverpool,
Manchester, Newcastle and Birmingham had been hit "far harder" by
funding cuts. BBC NEWS
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