The Tories have appointed a new joint Treasurer of the party. As the Independent reports:
Peter Cruddas, the latest multimillionaire to take on the role of co-treasurer of the Conservative Party.
Mr Cruddas ... lived for several years in a tax haven favoured by the super-rich. He was one of the City's "Monaco boys", living in an apartment on the Avenue de Spélugues near Monte Carlo's famous casino. From there, it took him only an hour and 40 minutes to commute to work via London's City airport.
In other words he was a tax avoider.
Which sits terribly well alongside his co-Treasurer; again from the Independent:
He will now share the task of fundraising for the Conservative Party with his fellow co-treasurer, Lord Fink, the so-called "father" of the British hedge fund industry.
And this from the party that wants to stop unions paying the Labour party when their members have to democratically decide to do so.
The corruption in thinking at the core of the Tory party machine is laid bare, yet again.
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Certainly not a tax avoider, even according to your definitions.
The government offered a concession, and he took it. Just like the government offered a tax concession for ISAs.
This is tax planning, according to your own briefing sheet – or have you changed your definitions again to suit your purpose.
With the very greatest of respect, there’s not a person of sound mind on the Clapham omnibus who would agree with you
It wasn’t even a “concession” in the tax sense of the word (i.e. an Extra Statutory Concession), it is specifically laid down in statute: that a person who is not UK resident is only taxable on income arising in the UK. So clearly not avoidance.
Mr Murphy used to make a lot about his painstaking differentiation between tax planning, compliance, avoidance and evasion but this masked the fact that the whole time he was using them either interchangeably or only when it suited him.
This is, no doubt, why I spent more than a year sitting on a Treasury committee specifically seeking to address this issue and the problem such behaviour caused because it was rightly considered by the Treasury, HMRC and many in the profession to be unacceptable tax avoidance.
It is to the current government’s shame that it has not carried through on the work given it was agreed upon by all major tax professional bodies in the UK and would have closed this loophole
It isn’t a loophole. It is specifically laid down in statute. That’s my point.
And that’s nonsense: statute never envisaged London City Airport and 4 day a week presence in the UK and claiming to be resident elsewhere
So it is an abuse of a loophole
End of discussion
London City Airport opened in 1987. There have been 5 (I think) general elections, 5, prime ministers, and 24 (or so) finance acts since then. But this statute is still on the books. If it were a genuine loophole there would have been plenty of opportunities to close it. It was not and it says it all.
Complete nonsense
Due to intimate involvement I know how complex this issue is
It is a loophole
It needs to be closed
Due to complexity it has not been – yet
In the meantime you obviously promote its abuse – shame on you and your ethics (which is not a place north east of London – though I suspect you would not identify either)
What exactly is your intimate involvement in this issue? What exactly is the complexity?
I would be interested to know how you would close this loophole.
Richard, Carol – The law and ethics are two very different things. Mixing the two simply show how short of argument you are on this particular matter.
There really is no way to make people like Mr Burdett understand the meaning of ethical behaviour, is there?
@Darren
You may not have noticed, but this blog is very much focused on ethics.
I would have thought that one of the points about this is that these wealthy men want to avoid paying tax to the UK Exchequer, yet they are the treasurers of a party that wishes to reduce (or get rid of altogether), the payment of benefits to the unemployed or low paid, declaring that such people are ‘scroungers’, or layabouts i.e they are in some way morally defective for taking benefits; but being on benefits, assuming the claim is honest, is legal, just as much as is the tax avoidance practiced by the gentlemen mentioned above.
Typical right wing hypocrisy.