Tour to promote 'green money' system
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Your support makes all the difference.A SPEAKING tour is travelling around the country from Tuesday to promote local barter trading groups, the so-called 'green money' system.
The meetings are organised by the New Economics Foundation, a charity sponsored by the Bishop of Durham and Lord Soper.
Ed Mayo, director, said: 'It is called green money because it is recycling people's labour and promoting the local economy, and it came out of the environmental movement.'
The founder of the Local Economy Trading Scheme in Canada, Michael Linton, will explain how it originated and developed to the point where one local scheme alone has an estimated annual turnover of Cdollars 250,000 ( pounds 134,000).
Mr Mayo explained that the purpose of the scheme was to enable people to obtain services they could not otherwise afford, rather than to avoid paying tax or encourage people to work while they were in receipt of benefit.
But he added that if the schemes were treated as part of the formal economy they would collapse. 'There needs to be some flexibility on the part of the authorities.'
A spokesman for the Inland Revenue warned that no-cash deals were subject to income and corporation tax.
He said: 'The principle is clear, they are treated the same as cash transactions, and any profit is taxed. We will take steps to calculate the conversion into sterling, and tax as normal.'
Details of the tour can be obtained on 0985 217871.
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