The Observer on the campaign against the domicile laws

Posted on

The report issued about the illegality of the domicile laws on Friday was picked up by the Observer on Sunday. The report, entitled 'Oligarch's tax break 'racist' ' said (in part):

It is the tax rule that has enticed some of the world's richest tycoons to live in London. The 'residence and domicile' loophole allows the likes of Labour donor and Britain's richest man, Lakshmi Mittal, to avoid paying hundreds of millions of pounds to the Inland Revenue.

This has led to the UK being branded the world's first onshore tax haven after the accountancy firm Grant Thornton worked out that the UK's 54 billionaires paid income tax totalling just £14.7m on their £126bn combined fortunes.

But campaigners are increasingly confident that so-called 'non-dom' rules are illegal. A new report from Richard Murphy of the Tax Justice Network argues that the loophole is contrary to the Race Relations Act.

According to the updated 2003 act, a definition of race discrimination is if a public authority provides a service so that a person of one national origin has a social advantage over a person of another national origin, unless there is a legitimate objective to justify different treatment.

'The domicile laws have always been economically and socially divisive. Now it's clear they are illegal as well,' said Murphy.

'It's time to end the harm they cause by promoting the UK as a tax haven. These laws have imposed massive cost on the UK - not least by letting non-domiciled people fuel the massive house price increases in the UK out of untaxed income.

'The Treasury thinks that the domicile laws promote economic wellbeing in the UK but they've never been able to show how. In that case, there can be no policy justification for this discrimination.'

And the ball has kept rolling. I have recorded a feature for Newsnight on BBC2 tonight, although such is the way of that programme that this does not guarantee it will be broadcast if some pressing issue arises during the day. But what this does make clear is that this does touch a raw nerve. Indeed, it was fascinating that historian Tristram Hunt also writing in the Observer in Sunday and without having any awareness of the news release we were putting out said:

Meanwhile, why does the Inland Revenue seem only to endorse the City's arrogant tax-free ethos by allowing non-domicile loopholes go unchallenged?

Non-technical people can clearly see that this rule undermines our society. It's time to act.


Thanks for reading this post.
You can share this post on social media of your choice by clicking these icons:

You can subscribe to this blog's daily email here.

And if you would like to support this blog you can, here: