As the Guardian reports this morning:
David Cameron's father ran a network of offshore investment funds to help build the family fortune that paid for the prime minister's inheritance, the Guardian can reveal.
Though entirely legal, the funds were set up in tax havens such as Panama City and Geneva, and explicitly boasted of their ability to remain outside UK tax jurisdiction.
And this is the man who talks about a general anti-avoidance rule saying:
"With the large companies, that have the fancy corporate lawyers and the rest of it, I think we need a tougher approach.
"One of the things that we are going to be looking at this year is whether there should be a general anti-avoidance power that HMRC can use, particularly with very wealthy individuals and with the bigger companies, to make sure they pay their fair share."
But as ARC - the senior HMRC staff union say:
The general anti-avoidance rule [the government is proposing] is a Trojan horse, which suggests tough action while actually facilitating avoidance.
They are right. Cameron's posturing is pure hypocrisy to protect his own kind, and even his kin.
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I’m sure we would find that most of the front bench are in the same boat.
Sorry Richard but this is a complete non-story. There is no evidence that DC or any of his family, didn’t pay full UK tax on any funds that were repatriated to the UK. Therefore, in my opinion, he hasn’t either avoided or evaded anything.
All that shows how unattuned you are to the political zeitgesit
Even Chris Bryant thinks the article is wrong. You demean yourself.
Oh what utter nonsense
The article is factual
How can reporting it demean anyone?
What’s your point ?
Presumably you are in favour of the GAAP so isn’t criticizing Cameron in this way a bit like criticizing the son of a mugger for advocating additional rules against mugging people ?
I thought you stood for fairness – in all its forms. Do you think its fair that the sins of the father (if that’s your view) should be revisited on their children ?
I want a GAAP
But we are not getting one or anything remotely like one – as ARC have said
What we are instead getting is a whiewashing for the tax avoidance industry where the 99.5% of what they do will be allowed ion future – and they will now claim it is entirely moral
That is not accident
That’s deliberately misleading
How precisely is GAAR a Trojan horse?
Canada and Australia have the GAAR don’t they?
It effectively nullifies a transaction if there’s no material purpose besides tax planning/tax avoidance. SO things like ‘head quarters’ in geneva with 3 puppet employees get nullified out and allow the tax authority to assess accordingly.
Unfortunately that is exactly not what the UK GAAR will do
In fact it is very far from what it will do
The UK GAAR is designed to let “normal tax planning” to take place – but that means 99.95% of what happens now – and that’s not a GAAR by any stretch of the imagination in that case
[…] There has, apparently, been some disquiet about the Guardian attacking David Cameron’s late father’s tax arrangements, which were reported in the Guardian yesterday. The New Statesman did, for example, refer to this matter. I admit I have no such disquiet. […]