(1888PressRelease)
February 17, 2009 - Despite best efforts by the Chancellor and Gordon Brown to keep this year's Budget date a surprise until last week, one tax expert drew on his powers as a member of The Magic Circle and had correctly predicted the exact date on his blog.
Against all previous precedents, Mark Lee, former ICAEW Tax Faculty Chairman and current Chairman of the Tax Advice Network, correctly predicted the Budget date of 22nd April on his popular TaxBuzz blog and was amused when this very date was revealed last week, making him wonder if his magical senses had any influence on his accurate prediction!
"The profession has long been used to the uncertainty that surrounds the date of the Chancellor's Budget statement each year. So this year, I decided to turn this indecisiveness on its head and come up with some predictions of my own", says Lee, who is an active member of The Magic Circle and the Zodiac Magical Society.
When asked why he chose April 22nd, Lee said:
"The Treasury press office's claims that 'no decision has been made yet' were arguably untrue as decisions had been made as to when it wouldn't be. The G20 Finance meetings in March made me pretty certain that the Budget would be deferred until after the start of the new tax year and that this delay would be blamed on the economic crisis. The Budget is invariably held immediately after Prime Minister's Questions and since 2001, these have always been held on a Wednesday. And as the House of Commons will be in recess from 13-19th April, the most likely date for the Budget had to be the 22nd."
Lee says that despite the tax profession's ongoing despair with the lack of notice they normally get from the Chancellor when it comes to the Budget, he may well keep his gift, and future predictions, under wraps.
On his blog he wrote "There must be a good reason for the Chancellor and PM believing that they have to surprise us all when they announce the date. It would never do for us to have more than a couple of weeks notice now would it?" Lee adds, "But within days of me writing that, we were then given more notice of the Budget date than we have had for many years.” Spooky!
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