David Cameron’s tax disclosure: a story but maybe not the whole one

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I was asked by three national newspapers to look at David Cameron's tax disclosures. I declined. I was in very real need of a day off to achieve things for my family. And to be honest, I felt it was going to be a non-story.

Jolyon Maugham did give up some family time to the task: his blog on the subject is better comment than I have read in the press and contains the details. Since I presume the media asked him to do it I am surprised that I cannot see him referred to in any paper this morning.

Let me add some observations though. Given I am speaking to an audience at 10 in Cambridge this morning I thought I should have something to say.

First, and to state the glaringly obvious, this may be full disclosure. The accountants acting for Cameron say it is, but as Jolyon Maugham points out, they only know what they are told and we have no way of knowing if there are discretionary trusts for Cameron or his family of which they, and maybe even he, is unaware. But, and I stress, this may be the whole truth. Providing the whole tax return would have been much more convincing though, by a long way. Yet again David Cameron has missed a trick.

Second, we now know that because he is Prime Minister David Cameron can make £90,000 a year from letting his London home on top of his salary, a sum way in excess of an MP's salary, and more than three times that of most people in the country.

Third, whilst at the same time he has chosen to pay tax on the expenses payment to which he is entitled as prime minister he still lives at Downing Street and Chequers tax free and has other benefits. He remains in a very favourable tax environment.

Fourth, I am very surprised that it is said that the disclosure is complete because the special form required of MPs is not detailed. In that case this information is definitely an extract from the returns.

Fifth, I am also hoping that is true with regard to Gift Aid, because no use of this releif is mentioned. We either have an exceptionally parsimonious prime minister who gives no money to charity or one who does not know that when doing so gift aid benefits the charity, but does require declaration on the your tax return as a result. There is no mention of gifts at all in the information supplied. This is either very odd, or says something deeply significant about the man or shows that, again, we are getting the version of events that someone wants to tell us that is less than the whole story.

Finally with regard to the return, we are led to believe that Cameron sold about £140,000 worth of investments in 2009-10 but all the gain was on Blairmore. That's possible, of course. But I am not convinced. His overall gains were below the CGT level. But what of that on Blairmore? Were they really the entire gain? I don't know, of course. But I think there could be more to that issue than has so far been said because to be true it seems to demand that the remaining £110,000 of assets were all sold at almost no gain or loss overall. That seems to be very unlikely, although possible.

In summary, we have a story. I am still not convinced it is the full story. The tax returns would have helped address that. There are, then, questions left unanswered. But there is nothing more to mention with regard to offshore, at least from this angle.


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