Anthony Barnett (London, OK): Call me naive. Go on! While I was away in New York it seems that the so-called Senior Salaries Review Body has suggested,
a tightening of rules to require MPs to submit receipts for all expenses claims above a threshold of £50 a month. The current ceiling is £250 per item or claim.
I knew that MPs had generous expense allowances which they fiddled. But I did not know that they they did not have to provide receipts for what they claimed! How do they know what to claim if they don't have a receipt? At modest openDemocracy, like any other business, you can't charge any expense without a receipt, and the management of expenses is audited and is also open for the Inland Revenue to inspect in case in their view any expenses so charged should in fact be regarded as taxable income. Why should there be any fiddlers 'threshhold'? It's very simple: no receipt, no claim. As Stuart Weir insists, MPs must stop treating themselves as being above the law.
PS: For a full breakdown of the system of MPsXs see the comment below provided by Quiet Man
