The script for my argument on Radio 4 this evening is available here. Of course all the discussion was entirely unscripted.
Only one loss in the edit caused me regret: I pointed out rather robustly to the audience that Mike Warburton's claim that the UK tax affairs of a non-domiciled person were simple was completely wrong. The remittance rule is horribly complicated. Which is exactly, and in complete contrast to what Mike claimed, why accountants love this rule. It's a money spinner for them.
But as I said in the programme, those who abuse our country are the only people who know they win from this rule. On the basis of logic and principle, given that their is no economic evidence, the domicile rule has to go.
One other correction too: a member of the audience said I was wrong to say companies owned by non-dom people can pay lower rates of tax than those owned by domiciled people. Well, technically he might be right but since non-domes can sell their companies without paying Capital Gains Tax and can have offshore holding companies that can render management charges and the like which can be shifted to low or no tax environments pragmatically he's wrong. But I didn't have a chance to say so on the programme.
Well done Richard! I thought you came across well in an interesting debate and won the moral argument hands down. Michael Cole was as odious as ever. Does he still have the ridiculous hairstyle?
The programme doesn’t seem to be available on Listen Again on the R4 website.
Roger
Thanks
As for Mr Cole, perma-tan and silly haircut still in place. And a nauseating ability to drop his conversations with Princess Diana into conversation every other sentence.
Yuck.
Richard
I have had the privilage of working with Richard at a meeting with finance industry representitives in the tax haven of Jersey.
His performance is always amazing, and the Hecklers programme was no exception.
Well done Richard.
[…] And I couldn’t put a cigarette paper between the opinions I expressed in Hecklers and the logic of this paragraph: The claim that executives with families well installed in London and country houses will suddenly vanish to Monaco or the Cayman Islands if not paid millions more each year (or if fully taxed on those millions) is absurd. It ignores the role of location, lifestyle and other nonpecuniary perks in a modern executive’s career package. […]
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[…] I’ve been asked by a couple of people to do an update on Northern Rock. There are two reasons. The first is that, as the Guardian has reported, at least £23 billion has now been lent by the UK government to banks facing meltdown as a result of the UK sub-prime crisis. At least £18 billion of this has gone to Northern Rock and that bank does itself admit it might need £25 billion before the situation is resolved. The number is so big I have been asked to comment what it might mean. The second request was for comment on the absurd article written by my Hecklers foe, Tim Congdon on this issue in the FT a day or two ago. […]
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[…] what you said about domicile as well Mike. You even said it on Radio 4 in debate with me. But you were wrong then: you’re wrong […]
[…] you remember the domicile debate and how almost all accountants argued that we had to keep our favourable tax treatment so that all […]
[…] you remember the domicile debate and how almost all accountants argued that we had to keep our favourable tax treatment so that all […]
[…] overdue with regard to our tax system is the abolition of the domicile rule, something for which I have long campaigned. Another long over due change is that all MPs and Lords should be deemed domiciled and fully tax […]
[…] overdue with regard to our tax system is the abolition of the domicile rule, something for which I have long campaigned. Another long over due change is that all MPs and Lords should be deemed domiciled and fully tax […]