insent Angus.

There should be vampire puppies

Vampire beagle puppies. ijs

Yes. Angus feeling better is good.

Angus feeling better and slightly drunk? Wonderful.

You just have to keep those two states up, you see.

Nou, I am not strictly speaking a UK resident, but I do have a UK bank account and a Paypal account. Let me know if I can be of any help.

I guess I actually need a UK taxpayer, Fiona. I donate money to a UK NGO called WaterAid, and I wanted to take advantage of this tax rule:

On April 6th 2000 the Inland Revenue introduced a new tax scheme making it easier for charities to reclaim the tax on single and regular donations. This means we can reclaim the tax on any donations you make to WaterAid, increasing the value of your gift by a third at no extra cost to yourself.

I don't get a tax deduction for donating to an unAmerican charity. So I thought maybe I could channel my donation through someone in the UK and increase its value by €280. The PayPal account isn't necessary, I guess. I was just wanting to get a 1% discount by donating with my credit card, but it looks like the cross-border fees PayPal charges would eat up more than that.

So thanks, Fiona, but I guess I need someone who pays UK income tax for this scheme. What's this income tax thing anyway? I thought European countries all used a VAT.

OK, Nou, sorry I can't help.

What's this income tax thing anyway? I thought European countries all used a VAT.

Is this a joke or are you being serious? Sorry, just trying to be careful. If you're being serious... in Europe, we have all sort of lovely taxes. VAT (currently 16% in Germany), income tax, social insurance, etc. etc. I believe our tax burden is comparable to the US on the whole, though.

The last comment we got about this thread title was that it was offensive.

Angus, I think perhaps you're forgetting who it was that found it offensive....

Glad to hear you're feeling better and drunk!

Nope, paying the VAT doesn't get you out of income taxes - the GST in Canada, for instance, replaced the manufacturers tax, so you're now directly paying a tax that in the past you didn't see, though it's cost was built into the price of goods. (In theory, the cost of goods should have come down to reflect the reduced cost to the producer. Probably that did happen in some cases, but I imagine not all.)

I think I heard about the VAT in editorials about doing away with the income tax. Then when I was living in Spain for a semester, I saw the VAT stickers, but I didn't see anyone filing tax forms, of course. Boo for taxes. Do UnAmericans have the ritual of the annual refund?

OK, so it's about lunchtime in New Zealand and one of my babies is asleep and the other is watching Blue's Clues, and I'm... obsessing about Buffy. About it ending. About my adolescent Spuffy fantasies poofing into dust (that's what I fear anyway). Maybe I shall have to go and live in some hermetically sealed fanfiction bubble.

Is there a cure for this? Maybe the fact that I am going through marital apocalypse is a good enough excuse. All my angst is subliminated into a TV show. Admittedly a deserving TV show.

It's a pity Dru's nuttiness isn't hereditary, because crazy vampire puppies? It's comedy gold! But now I'm having horrible memories of Bunnicula, that annoying vegetarian vampire rabbit. That's not so funny.

I LOVE BUNNICULA! (As does Jilli, IIRC... wasn't Bunnicula part of the inspiration for Clovis?) Also, my mom is working on a project with James Howe, who wrote the Bunnicula books, so he is therefore cool by association even if the books weren't wonderful themselves.

Also, my mom is working on a project with James Howe, who wrote the Bunnicula books, so he is therefore cool by association even if the books weren't wonderful themselves.

I think whenever I read them I was uneducated in the vampirc genre, so it just annoyed me that he didn't actually eat anybody, rather than it being all ironically cute and such. But I just found Celery Stalks At Midnight on Amazon, and that's the best title ever, so I'll be quiet now.