ONE RULE FOR THEM....

It must be nice to be able to claim £22000 towards your expenses. That's more than most people earn.
Take this example to how it works for ordinary people.
Last year my wife received her Yorkshire BS account statement, interest for the Tax year 2007/8. She'd paid £45 in Tax. So you may say , well she had registered with YBS for GROSS interest. Forms duly signed and taken to the Branch where it was all noted. A year later we find out that they "had errored and not done it". Well we can always claim it back off HMRC as my Wife doesn't earn enough to pay tax.
Contacting HMRC they say "no you can't, well not till next Tax year 08/09!!" WHAT?
SO, we have now put in our claim for our £45 back!. HM Government via the Tax man have had our £45 for over a year now. Of course they need it more than us? To pay all these damn MP's expenses no doubt.
So there you have it. Mr or Mrs Average can't have their Tax back for over a year after it was paid to HMRC. Think of the Millions of folk in this position, and thus the Government has benefit of our money for a year when it should be in our pocket or better in a bank earning us interest. Oh I forgot - us savers only get 2% interest if we're lucky now and if the Bank etc. is as incompetent as YBS then we pay Tax on it as well.