Latest news with #David
Metro
5 hours ago
- Business
- Metro
HMRC doesn't know how much tax billionaires in the UK pay
Despite having more than 150 billionaires in the UK, authorities don't know how much tax they pay, according to a damning new report. HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) said they simply don't know how much tax billionaires contribute, despite the relatively significant sums of money involved. Now, the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) is warning HMRC to do more to understand and explain the contribution that the very wealthiest in society make to tax revenue. PAC suggested using The Sunday Times Rich List and artificial intelligence to dig deeper into wealth and assets. Last year, the BBC found that sixty of the wealthiest people in the UKcontributed more than £3bn a year in income tax, but PAC says HMRC does not collect information on taxpayers' wealth and says that it only collects the data needed to administer the tax system as required by UK tax legislation. The report said: 'There is much public interest in the amount of tax the wealthy pay. People need to know everyone pays their fair share.' In the United States, the Internal Revenue Service has worked with researchers to link its data to The Forbes 400, the report said. The tax authority told the inquiry that the tax gaps – the difference between taxes theoretically owed and those actually paid – for wealthy people and for offshore wealth are particularly difficult to measure. PAC member Lloyd Hatton said: 'This report is not concerned with political debate around the redistribution of wealth. 'Our committee's role is to help HMRC do its job properly ensuring wealthy people pay the correct tax. While HMRC does deserve some great credit for securing billions more in the tax take from the wealthiest in recent years, there is still a very long way to go before we can reach a true accounting of what is owed. 'We already know a great deal about billionaires living in the UK, with much information about their tax affairs and wealth in the public domain.' Famous figures including Sir Elton John, Andrew Lloyd-Webber, Sir Lewis Hamilton, David and Victoria Beckham, and the King are all among the UK's richest individuals and families. But this year, the number of billionaires slid to 156 this year from 165 in 2024, but taking the top spot again this year was the Hinduja family. More Trending Gopi Hinduja and his family, which is behind the Indian conglomerate Hinduja Group, were Britain's richest again after recording a wealth of £35.3 billion. The King's personal wealth jumped by £30 million to £640 million in the last year, making him as rich as former prime minister Rishi Sunak and his wife Akshata Murthy, according to The Sunday Times Rich List -but not a billionaire. Charles, who acceded to the throne in 2022, ranks joint 238th in the list of the UK's 350 wealthiest people and families, up 20 places from 258th in 2024. Calculations by the newspaper's Rich List suggest the monarch is £140 million richer than David and Victoria Beckham, who are said to be worth £500 million, with former England captain Beckham being Britain's richest sports star. Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@ For more stories like this, check our news page.
Perth Now
9 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Perth Now
David Corenswet hails Superman director James Gunn
James Gunn created a "familial feeling" on the set of the new Superman movie. David Corenswet plays Superman in the superhero film, and the 32-year-old actor has revealed that he relished the experience of watching the movie for the first time with the cast and crew at the premiere in Los Angeles. During an appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, David shared: "Usually I watch a movie early. If I'm nervous, I want to get my self-conscious viewing out of the way early. But when I started seeing the trailers, I kind of got the feeling of what it might be to watch the movie as an audience member, and there was this ... uplifting energy and feeling of inspiration. "It feels like the movies that I grew up watching and loved, so I wanted to preserve the experience. "It was a great audience for it. Big crowd and the cast and some of our crew and loved ones ... so it was just a very positive and supportive audience." David - who stars in the film alongside the likes of Rachel Brosnahan, Nicholas Hoult and Isabela Merced - then praised the director for creating a supportive attitude on set. The actor explained: "James Gunn does that deliberately. He really makes a familial feeling ... He loves what he does." David actually watched the movie for a second time at a cinema in Philadelphia. He shared: "That was the first viewing and there was some self-consciousness, so I needed to go back. So I snuck into the back of an IMAX screening outside of Philly with a couple of friends. "It was great. It was better the second time." Earlier this year, James claimed that "people are looking for heroes right now". The filmmaker also revealed that he was feeling optimistic about the new Superman film. Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter at a DC press event, he explained: "I think he's the right Superman because he is a character that stands for something that is solid, stands for basic human morals, basic human integrity, basic belief in protecting others and protecting the weak being good to people and being honest. "People are looking for heroes right now. They are looking for values of goodness, looking for people who are good and decent human beings. And Superman is that." James also revealed that Warner Bros planned to throw its full weight behind the promotional campaign for the film. The director said: "DZ [David Zaslav, the CEO of Warner Bros. Discovery] loves what we're doing, loves the movie, and has really rallied the entire company behind Superman for this summer. "You've seen what can happen when Warner Bros. Discover gets together behind a Barbie or a Beetlejuice or a Wonka or Kong. And that's how its being treated right now for Superman. Everything that DZ has promised us two years ago when we got the job, it's all been a reality."
The Hill
10 hours ago
- Politics
- The Hill
LOL: NYT writer admits that shaming right-wing family members failed
One of my favorite recurring features in the mainstream media — maybe it's a favorite of yours as well — is when some progressive liberal in The New York Times or The Atlantic or elsewhere writes a column on how to avoid your conservative family members during Thanksgiving, or Christmas, or even the Fourth of July. The premise of these articles is always the same: The toxic rightwing views of your grandma, or your Uncle Steve, or your great aunt Betty, constitute a form of emotional labor that you, a good, moral, upstanding progressive should not have to be subjected to. Some of these entries don't merely suggest that liberals should avoid and shun rightwing family members and friends — they actually suggest that you should belittle or mock them. You may remember a ghastly Los Angeles Times column with this title: ' Mocking anti-vaxxer's COVID deaths is ghoulish, yes — but necessary.' Indeed, COVID vaccine skeptics were a favorite target of liberal op-ed writers year after year. But now, one card-carrying member of the liberal establishment, former Obama speechwriter David Litt, thinks that showing conservatives and covid vaccine skeptics was, in fact, a mistake of sorts. And he has a new piece in The New York Times that makes that case. It's called 'Is It Time to Stop Snubbing Your Right-Wing Family?' I'd say it was never time to snub your family over politics in the first place. But better late than never, I suppose. In his op-ed, Litt explains how for years he sort of tried to avoid making conversation with his brother-in-law, Matt, an ardent Joe Rogan fan who possesses contrarian, non-mainstream opinions that aren't universally right-wing but are definitely non-progressive. Matt, importantly, declined to get the COVID vaccine, a choice that David disdained. He wrote the following in his New York Times column: 'We were on opposite sides of a cultural civil war. The deepest divide was vaccination. I wasn't shocked when Matt didn't get the COVID shot. But I was baffled. Turning down a vaccine during a pandemic seemed like a rejection of science and self-preservation. It felt like he was tearing up the social contract that, until that point, I'd imagined we shared. Had Matt been a friend rather than a family member, I probably would have cut off contact completely. As it was, on the rare and always outdoor occasions when we saw each other, I spoke in disapproving snippets.' To David's credit, he admits in the column that he's decided he was wrong to snub his vaccine-hesitant relative. David says that this siloing effect, whereby we start only interacting with people with whom we totally agree, is unhealthy for the country. He writes, 'When we cut off contacts, or let algorithms sort us into warring factions, we forget that not so long ago, we used to have things to talk about that didn't involve politics. Shunning plays into the hands of demagogues, making it easier for them to divide us and even, in some cases, to incite violence.' I agree with that, and I'm glad David no longer thinks that it's a good idea to shun people over politics as a general principle. He's sorry he did that and admits he was wrong. But here's the thing: Shouldn't David also admit that his main beef with his relative — the thing that so riled him up about right-wing people — was a fervent belief that David ended up being wrong about, namely the importance of the COVID vaccine? Nowhere in his column does this progressive New York Times writer — who was willing to shun someone for not getting the jab — acknowledge that as it turned out, getting that vaccine is a personal choice that doesn't have much bearing on other people's health. David writes that choosing not to get the vaccine was shredding the social contract. Actually, no, forcing people to get the COVID vaccine on pain of losing their jobs — now that was shredding the social contract. And it's exactly what former President Joe Biden tried to do, until the Supreme Court stopped him. So while I'm happy to see New York Times liberals admit that it's bad form to lose friends and family members over politics, I'd also like to see them admit that when it came to this issue, specifically, they were really, really wrong. But don't worry. To any liberal friends and family members, I'm certainly not going to shun you because of it.
Gulf Insider
12 hours ago
- Business
- Gulf Insider
Bitcoin Is Draining The Value Out Of Real Estate
With nearly $400 trillion in global value, real estate is the world's largest asset class, over three times the size of the global stock market and nearly four times global GDP. As more people have put their savings in real estate, houses have evolved from shelter to inflation-hedging assets that carry a significant monetary premium. Whether it's San Francisco, London, or Prague, residential and commercial landlords keep investing in more buildings despite only earning a 3% net rental yield. The reason is very simple: real estate makes for great collateral. In normal market conditions, banks are always happy to lend against real estate, which is why nearly anyone can get a mortgage. With mortgages, property owners can access liquidity through initial financing, refinancing, second loans, and Home Equity Lines of Credit. Despite the excesses that triggered the 2008 crisis, this system has largely worked: mortgages have democratized credit, offering liquidity without giving up ownership. That's part of what made real estate the undisputed king of store-of-value assets. But here's a question: why only real estate? Imagine you're a lender choosing between three borrowers—one offers gold, another a Ferrari, and the third a house. Technically, all can be collateral. But in practice? The house wins every time. Why? Gold can easily be transferred overseas, and cars can be driven away. But real estate is tied to land. As long as the state enforces property rights, the lender's position is secure. But what if there were a form of collateral that didn't even rely on legal enforcement? Enter Bitcoin. David vs. Goliath As collateral, Bitcoin outperforms real estate on nearly every metric: it's always available, globally recognized, instantly transferable, programmable, and secured by cryptography rather than legal systems. While selling a property requires navigating local markets, appraisals, fees, capital controls, and regulatory hurdles, liquidating Bitcoin collateral can be as simple as clicking one button. Even though everybody is currently focused on ETFs or corporate treasuries, Bitcoin's natural next step, as institutional adoption grows, will be collateral markets. As soon as you democratize non-custodial Bitcoin-backed loans, BTC becomes usable capital, similar to how people have been treating their house. And if borrowing against Bitcoin becomes easier, safer, and cheaper than borrowing against real estate, why would anyone store wealth in houses? Simple: they won't. Generally speaking, real estate's value is determined based on the cash flows the property can generate, plus a market-driven monetary premium. Bitcoin, on the other hand, is a pure expression of monetary value, unburdened by physical constraints or ownership costs. As more capital flows into Bitcoin-backed credit markets, this monetary premium baked into property will inevitably collapse, and real estate will return to its utility value. Some indicators suggest this is already happening. The Tide is Changing Last year, Relai observed that real estate investors, private clients, and businesses have been 'flocking to Bitcoin, [considering it] the ultimate hedge against central banks and the dangers they bring with unexpected rate cuts.' Demographics reveal a clear generational shift: Millennials and Zoomers don't aspire as much to their grandparents' lifestyle of settling in one place. Many can no longer afford to buy a house because of the above-mentioned monetary premium. The rise of digital nomads and remote workers reveals a new reality—the ideal store of wealth today must be portable, global, and native to the internet. According to a 2024 survey, Zoomers are more invested in crypto (20%) than they are in stocks (18%), real estate (13%), or bonds (11%). The generational divide is even clearer when looking at Charles Schwab's survey: 62% of Millennials planned to invest in crypto ETFs last year, compared to only 15% of Baby Boomers. Bitcoin is poised to take a significant bite out of real estate's dominance. That's not just because it performs better as a store of value, but because lenders will prefer it as frictionless, programmable, and borderless collateral. As we have already seen a shift in generational preferences, if Bitcoin captures even a fraction of the monetary premium embedded in the $400T real estate market, tens of trillions worth of capital will rotate into it. That's not a tweak in capital flows—it's a global repricing event. Most people are not ready for how fast this will happen. But it's inevitable. Source Bitcoin Magazine
Scottish Sun
17 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Scottish Sun
Coronation Street viewers shocked by new character's ‘make-over' – as they only just realise she's been recast
Viewers were left confused by the character's new appearance double take Coronation Street viewers shocked by new character's 'make-over' – as they only just realise she's been recast Click to share on X/Twitter (Opens in new window) Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) CORONATION Street viewers have been left shocked by a character's 'make-over' - as they realise she's been recast. As of this week, a soap legend's on-screen daughter now has a brand new face. Sign up for the Entertainment newsletter Sign up 4 Coronation Street viewers have been left shocked by a character's recast Credit: ITV 4 Grace Ashcroft-Gardner has taken over the role of Lily Platt Credit: ITV 4 The newcomer made her debut this week Credit: ITV Grace Ashcroft-Gardner has taken over the role of David Platt's daughter, Lily. The character was born to David and his late wife, Kylie, back in 2013. However, the recasting was not immediately obvious to all viewers - as they shared their thoughts online. One fan wrote: "Aww I actually liked the old Lily and thought she showed potential. "Shame to lose her but hopefully the new one is good too." Another added: "It wasn't immediately apparent, as she's very different from the pervious one, then someone called her Lily and it all made sense... Kind of." A third chimed in: "It's a recast Lily. David's daughter." While a fourth remarked: "They probably should have introduced her in the Platts' house by David calling her Lily as it was confusing seeing her out as could have been a random classmate who just happened to be called Lily and easy to miss." Young actress Brooke Malonie had been playing the character since June 2016. She was absent in recent weeks and new actress Grace took over beginning in Monday's episode. Emotional Coronation Street stars reveal final EVER scene together has already aired It comes ahead of a huge new storyline involving the show's pre-teen characters. Lily and her cousin Sam (Jude Riordan) are set to be at the centre of a dramatic new plot. It's not the first time that a Platt family member has been recast in recent months. Last year, Carter-J Murphy took over as Lily's cousin Harry Platt, son of Sarah Platt (Tina O'Brien). Soap characters who've been recast Soap operas are staple viewing for many people, but even some of the most famous characters have been played by different actors. Here are some examples from over the years. Coronation Street Tracy Barlow : Kate Ford took on the role of Corrie legend Tracy Barlow in 2002. Before Kate, three other actresses had played Tracy - most notably Dawn Acton from 1988 to 1999. : Kate Ford took on the role of Corrie legend Tracy Barlow in 2002. Before Kate, three other actresses had played Tracy - most notably Dawn Acton from 1988 to 1999. Nick Tilsley: Ben Price has been playing Gail's oldest child in 2009, but the former Footballers' Wives star is the third actor to take on the part. Ben Price has been playing Gail's oldest child in 2009, but the former Footballers' Wives star is the third actor to take on the part. Sarah Platt: Although Tina O'Brien debuted as Sarah Platt in 1999, she is the third actress who has played the iconic role of Sarah Platt. Although Tina O'Brien debuted as Sarah Platt in 1999, she is the third actress who has played the iconic role of Sarah Platt. David Platt: Completing the line-up of Gail's children, David was initially played by Thomas Ormson for a decade before Jack P. Shepherd took over. Completing the line-up of Gail's children, David was initially played by Thomas Ormson for a decade before Jack P. Shepherd took over. Daniel Osbourne: For almost a decade, the role of Ken Barlow's son Daniel has been portrayed by actor Rob Mallard. Before Rob joined, two other actors had previously played Daniel. For almost a decade, the role of Ken Barlow's son Daniel has been portrayed by actor Rob Mallard. Before Rob joined, two other actors had previously played Daniel. Bethany Platt: Fans know Lucy Fallon as Bethany nowadays but before her, three other actresses had stepped into the character's shoes. Fans know Lucy Fallon as Bethany nowadays but before her, three other actresses had stepped into the character's shoes. Kirk Sutherland: Before Andy Whyment took on the role of Kirk, he played by an uncredited actor in his very first appearance. Before Andy Whyment took on the role of Kirk, he played by an uncredited actor in his very first appearance. Todd Grimshaw: Gareth Pierce stepped into the role of Todd back in 2020, becoming the second performer to play this part. Gareth Pierce stepped into the role of Todd back in 2020, becoming the second performer to play this part. Summer Spellman: Harriet Bibby became the second actress to play Summer, taking over the role from Matilda Freeman in 2020. Harriet Bibby became the second actress to play Summer, taking over the role from Matilda Freeman in 2020. Ryan Connor: Ryan Prescott currently plays the long-running character, but Ben Thompson and Sol Heras had earlier portrayed the role. EastEnders Martin Fowler: Although Martin was the first baby born on-screen in EastEnders, he hasn't always been played by the same person. His current portrayer, James Bye, is the third actor to star as the character. Although Martin was the first baby born on-screen in EastEnders, he hasn't always been played by the same person. His current portrayer, James Bye, is the third actor to star as the character. Peter Beale: Seven actors have portrayed Ian Beale's elder son, with the current actor, Thomas Law, in his second stint as the character. Seven actors have portrayed Ian Beale's elder son, with the current actor, Thomas Law, in his second stint as the character. Ben Mitchell: Ben has been played by a total of six actors - with Max Bowden bowing out of the role in March 2024. Ben has been played by a total of six actors - with Max Bowden bowing out of the role in March 2024. Bobby Beale: Before Clay Milner Russell, Ian's younger son had been played by four other actors. Before Clay Milner Russell, Ian's younger son had been played by four other actors. Freddie Slater : Bobby's best mate, Freddie Slater, had been previously played by twins Alex and Tom Kilby before Bobby Brazier took over in 2022. : Bobby's best mate, Freddie Slater, had been previously played by twins Alex and Tom Kilby before Bobby Brazier took over in 2022. Chelsea Fox: Former Coronation Street actress Zaraah Abrahams took over the role of Chelsea in 2020. The character had been first played by Tiana Benjamin from 2006 to 2010. Former Coronation Street actress Zaraah Abrahams took over the role of Chelsea in 2020. The character had been first played by Tiana Benjamin from 2006 to 2010. Lauren Branning: Jacqueline Jossa took on the role of Lauren in 2010, succeeding Madeline Duggan who'd played her from 2006 to 2010. Jacqueline Jossa took on the role of Lauren in 2010, succeeding Madeline Duggan who'd played her from 2006 to 2010. Johnny Carter: Johnny has been played by three actors since debuting in 2013 - most recently, Charlie Suff has taken on the role. Speaking to press about the change-up, Jack P Shepherd said: "They've just recast the lad who plays Harry. "Carter is very, very confident." He succeeded twins Freddie and Isaac Rhodes, who'd played Harry since 2017. Coronation Street airs on ITV1 and ITVX.
