He starts to blurt out something about the interesting people he meets in his job, but David isn’t listening. “I’m just a slut,” he says to no one in particular.Once the waiter is gone again, David asks me, “Do you want him?”"I wouldn’t know what to do with him,” I laugh, wondering how I can bring mention of my wife into the conversation I may look sad but I have a wife Wife You read me?But by now he is bored anyway. I watch him totter off into the night (to find a prostitute, he tells me), his hands in his pockets, his little blue-grey bullet head bravely erect, a man not ashamed of being out on his own. COMPANY CAR drivers have learnt over the past few years that their vehicles are less of a perk than they once might have been. This week, the Chancellor told them that they stand to pay even more.

Mr Brown announced that while the tax charge, at 35 per cent of the list price of a company car, will continue to reduce depending on the number of miles driven, it will not reduce as sharply.
Henceforth, it will fall to 25 per cent if the car is driven between 2,500 miles and 17,999 miles a year for business travel and down to 15 per cent if the mileage is above 18,000.The biggest hit is on petrol duty, up 6 per cent above inflation, or 3.79p a litre, pushing the price of a gallon of unleaded fuel above pounds 3 for the first time. Unleaded fuel will rise faster, by 4.25p to 74.4p, while diesel will jump 6.14p to 71p.This was combined with measures aimed at encouraging the use of smaller cars. Vehicle excise duty will drop from pounds 150 to pounds 100 for cars with engines smaller than 1,100 cc, while rising pounds 5 for others.Andrew Verity. PLANS TO continue taxing savings at 20 per cent, despite the introduction of the 10 pence band, looks certain to spark a row. The Inland Revenue has confirmed that deposits in banks and building societies will face a 20 per cent savings tax, even if savers only pay 10 per cent tax on their income.
Non-taxpayers can continue to receive interest gross, but 10 per cent payers will not be able to reclaim the extra 10 per cent.Adrian Coles, director general at the Building Societies Association, says: “The people who will be most affected by this will be those on low incomes and with only modest savings, mainly pensioners. We intend to raise the issue with the Treasury.”The Government’s argument is that the 10p tax rate was introduced as an incentive to people in work, but why should pensioners who have worked all their lives, be penalised.”Teresa Hunter. PARENTS WHO have been using a loophole which allowed them to avoid paying tax when they transferred money to their children will no longer be able to do so following this week’s Budget.

Up to now, if a parent opened a savings account in a child’s name, the account was allowed to earn up to pounds 100 interest a year before it became subject to tax. However, many thousands of parents have used trust law to avoid this tax law. They have set up a “bare” or accumulation trust, which meant the income in the trust became the child’s. In turn, this allowed the child’s own tax allowance to be used, saving a parent up to pounds 1,678 a year in tax.
Many fund management firms, such as investment trusts, have tended to incorporate bare trusts within the children’s savings schemes they offered to the public, costing the Inland Revenue up to pounds 50m a year in tax.From this week, new bare trust arrangements, or money added to existing trusts, will no longer be sheltered from income tax, unless the income is less than pounds 100.Nic Cicutti. INSURANCE PREMIUM tax (IPT) will rise by 1 per cent to 5 per cent in July adding, pounds 3 to the cost of a typical motor contract of pounds 315 and a similar amount on an average home insurance policy of pounds 285. The Chancellor said this week that the vast majority of insurance products would continue to be exempt from IPT.
However, insurers argued that the tax, which is levied on motor, property, travel and extended warranty policies, would affect every household. One study claimed the increase would mean an extra pounds 10-15 a year in tax.IPT was introduced in 1994 and pegged at 2.5 per cent.