The Mirror has an investigative article this morning looking at the offshore finances of Richard Tice, the Reform Party MP.
As they note:
The multi-millionaire businessman admits he set up a family trust in the Channel Islands tax haven of Jersey more than three decades ago. He told the Mirror he created it during a two-year stint working in Paris in his mid-20s.
The Mirror asked Jo Maugham KC of the Good Law Project and me for comments on this. Our sentiments were pretty similar. I said:
There are only two reasons to use tax havens. One is to secure secrecy, but that was obviously not his goal here.
The other is to save tax. You would not incur the expense otherwise. That must be his aim in this case.
There is nothing illegal about this, assuming all the right steps have been followed. But the question remains, why would anyone who says they believe so strongly in the government of the UK that they want to be an MP undermine UK government tax revenues by establishing a trust in this way? His public and private positions seem very hard to reconcile.
To me that is the key issue. There is no suggestion of illegality or wrong-doing here. Tice has, in fact claimed he was investigated by HMRC and received a tax refund as a result. So the question is a political and ethical one.
Why would a person who so much wanted to be a UK politician and who has made patriotism such a key part of his supposed appeal have an offshore trust?
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Our blindness to private money in politics and democracy goes on and undermines it over and over again.
This is just hypocrisy – a typically English well-off person’s hypocrisy.
Thank you, Richard and PSR.
Further to that fake patriotism and hypocrisy, a well known Brexiteer who lost his Somerset seat last month is the beneficiary of such trusts domiciled across the Irish sea, for what was his EU investment arm, and in the Caribbean, set up for his aristocratic wife’s family and bearing the name of an extinct earldom associated with the family and Cambridge university’s main museum. It’s not uncommon.
Thanks, All – and Colonel, I understand that the prefix ‘Fitz…’ implies someone is a bastard?
Colin It just means son of, the same as Mc in Scotland. Fitzroy is son of the king.
I think it is illegitmate son … at least that has always been my understanding
Maybe he feels entitled to avoid taxes – it’s legal, and it’s line with the neoliberal view that the rich have earned their riches through being superior at getting rich and should not have to pay tax on their money because their wealth “trickles down” to the rest of us. Reform UK’s tax cutting policies would benefit the wealthy much more than anyone else after all. It’s like everything else in this country – one rule for the rich and privileged, another for the rest of us.
Is it wrong to donate to Reform UK, be a Reform UK Member of Parliament, to want your country to do better but are unable to because it’s highly centralised to Westminster and Reform UK have no political power there unless a vote is decided by 10 or less, and to also have money in an offshore trust?
Yes
Reform is an exercise in exploitation and disinformation that is provoking hate in our society, in my opinion. I am with Justin Welby on this one.
Is it ethically wrong to support Reform? Yes, in my opinion.
Just as it is ethically unjustified to use offshore trusts, in my opinion.
Thank you for the clarification. It sounds like you are making a suggestion of wrong-doing here.
It could not have been clearer that I was not
Imane Khelif, how good to hear from you! I`d no idea you took an interest in UK politics! No doubt an Algerian boxer might be a little hazy after all your efforts, and congrats on the medal, but I`d like you to know that Reform UK isn`t a political party, but a limited company owned by N. Farage. Why the electoral commission failed to notice this is beyond me. But we are all able to donate, thank god. Offshoring is of course a good way of benefiting from all that the wonderful UK has to offer, without contributing. Sorry you find centralised government a little puzzling, but it`s the reason we have white lines in the middle of the road. And the NHS. Also, even minority parties sometimes have a crucial voice in government, look at the national disaster in 1979!
Sometimes it`s polite to use your real name when contributing to a site like Richard`s.
Best wishes, Paul.
Thanks
I really don’t know boxing
Neat reply
Richard, I hope I’m not being too forward to suggest that you do a quick Internet search for the names of posters who are obviously trolling. The individual (or perhaps the astroturfing operation) who makes these disingenuous posts always seems to select obscure sports folk when picking a name out of the air.
It would be interesting to see if they are always posting from the same IP address. I suspect they will be using a VPN to obscure their origins (hello Tufton Street!), but perhaps they are dim enough not to do so.
Not that it really matters as their concern trolling is easily shot down.
The IP addresses differ
And I do search, quite often. But I am blogging despite having a heavy ear infection and anti-biotics right now
And sometimes I admit I miss things…
But I will up the testing
Perhaps this could be one for Dan Neidle to look into?
I know this is not the right place for my comments below, but didn’t know where else to submit/send. I imagine your e-mail inbox gets full very quickly on a daily basis so didn’t think it appropriate to send an e-mail (which may not get read in any event). Not sure if I have missed something, but do you have a folder or area in blog for readers/visitors to submit/send things which may not necessarily be directly linked to the topic/subject of blog itself but can be flagged to get your attention.
I think this blog and your published material, sources, references is widely used and is excellent for research. I am pretty sure the blog is used and referred to by many students, academics, practitioners, professionals, and wide section of population from varied backgrounds and for whole host of different reasons. So even though a particular subject/matter comments are closed there could still be useful materials/comments to be added/updated at a later date.
For example:
I want to bring to your attention that Tax Policy Associates have a web page which contains an automatically-updated list of every public limited company that’s missed the deadline for filing its confirmation statement. Listed companies are highlighted in yellow.
https://taxpolicy.org.uk/2024/08/11/every-plc-thats-failed-to-file-its-confirmation-statement-on-time/
If TPA can run this script, surely Companies House and HMRC can and probably do so as well. I imagine that all sorts of other agencies could and should also use this info in order to enforce and hold individuals to account. I know you have already written about Co House and its failure to enforce existing law so this is relevant in that context and the link above could be added to the blogs covering this subject. I am also confident and would expect that with even more sophisticated technologies, software code, AI etc etc, sharing of publicly held data will only increase and there could bring significant improvements to all sorts of things like tax investigations, tracking and tracing ownership and the changes to control etc, establishing links to individuals and other businesses companies etc etc etc. With public CBCR for large companies the data available will increase. But with all this data available online, I am still not convinced it is effective and leading to the desired outcomes/results.
Do you have any plans/intentions to look into technology in order to see how it could be used to alleviate and address the issues/concerns that you write about?
Also do you have any plans to do any podcasts with guests in future? I have raised this before and think if you were to join forces with others and even have a dialogue with some of your adversaries it will help in spreading messages/awareness.
Apologies for delay on this. I avoided complicated issues yesterday.
Dan has done a good job here. There are a lot of massive questions requiring answers here – how can a plc have not filed accounts for 30 years and still be there?
But I have no plan to run such scripts – and am not sure I could now. I used to know such stuff, but am very rusty. But to look at the register as a whole in this way would be fascinating. Volunteers?
I suggest his motive for becoming an MP is to destroy Govt, just as Farage’s mission as an MEP was to destroy the EU. I would call them fifth columnists but there is nothing clandestine about them.