I have a confession to make. However I look at myself there is just a little too much of me. Only a few kilos, maybe, bit too much, nonetheless.
Now I have promised to address this issue for a long time and people are beginning not to believe me so I have decided to do something about it. As some people may be aware, I like writing laws, and so I've decided I'll address the problem that way. Here's my new law.
The No Chocolate Biscuits Law 2015
1. This law shall only apply to Richard Murphy
2. This law bans the eating of chocolate biscuits.
3. This law shall not apply to Jaffa Cakes and Tunnocks Tea Cakes, because they're not biscuits.
4. This law shall last until the temptation to repeal it becomes too great.
That should solve the problem. Woe betide anyone who does not believe me!
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Broken biscuits are allowed because calories have leaked out of the edges.
Sounds like a domestic Osborne’s tax law! A deliberate echo, I presume?
Indeed…
Ha Ha.
I’ve got to say though that clause 3 reveals your accountantcy background rather too well!
Honestly.
Richard make shure you get plenty in stock,because after,no v a T,No Tax,no ins increases,there will be no cut in the Tax allowance that has been promised.
Well I certainly LOL’d, and we need laughter to get through these dark neo-liberal days.
I see now that the Establishment is having a go at Mrs Hodge. Not only will some mud stick, but she and the wider left will have to waste time on this.
At least it show that they’re desperate.
I hope the mud is ignored
There’s a rule about not fighting pigs: you get muddy and they enjoy it
Good advice. It’s hard to defend anyway as Hodge has done nothing illegal. So what actually is the charge? How do you defend someone against a non-existent charge?
And what about hypothecated biscuit consumption – have you allowed for that?
I don’t need encouragement
Pass the Rich Teas
About fighting pigs – Nice one – I like that!
Margaret Eve, Lady Hodge MBE MP PC is NOT the Establishment?
What a strange thing to say.
I presume you are referring to the 1960s when to call someone “Establishment” was an insult.
I suppose what you really mean is that you don’t like people pointing out Lady Hodge’s gross hypocrisy.
And I note that on previous occasions she did not accept other people using her defence. And neither did mine host, the blogger himself.
I really fail to see the difference between what she did, which she considers entirely acceptable and what Starbucks, Amazon and Vodaphone did which you consider is illegal (which it isn’t) and immoral (which it may well be).
The difference is, if her statement is correct, that all she did was inherit shares, which is a passive act
She did not set up, manage or benefit for it’s duration from the offshore trust
You appear to be making her guilty for another person’s crime. I am not sure I buy that. Nor does any law
I would change my mind if she ran the trust. No one seems to be suggesting she did
I suggest another exception as biscuits are “Multi-Micronutrient—Fortified [food] and can decrease prevalence of anemia and Improved micronutrient status and effectiveness of deworming in …. school children”. The Journal of Nutrition, 139: 1013-102, 2009.
Apparently a republican senator (Missouri) is trying to stop people on food stamps buying seafood or steak -they don’t deserve it!
See: http://www.examiner.com/article/cracking-down-on-snap-no-more-cookies-or-steaks-and-no-more-movies-either.
They have ways of making the poor diet!
I suppose the key point is whether the Richard Murphy parliament is sovereign: can the Murphy parliament of today ban the eating of biscuits forever! Perhaps you need a codified constitution instead to stick to your plan!
🙂
Less unrealistic than some of the legislation proposed in this campaign…
So, about that Margaret Hodge . . .
Yes?
What has she done?
Huh, maybe you haven’t heard yet.
Labour’s Hodge ‘had £1.5m shares in offshore tax haven’: Senior politician accused of hypocrisy following earlier fierce criticism of tax avoidance
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3060029/Labour-s-Hodge-1-5m-shares-offshore-tax-haven-Senior-politician-accused-hypocrisy-following-earlier-fierce-criticism-tax-avoidance.html
So, one of your allies in the ‘tax-avoidance is tax-evasion’ battle is, you know, *tax-avoiding* I’d figured you might have something to say on the subject rather than tell us that you’ve given up sweets.
I could be jumping the gun here, maybe you’re preparing a reasoned response but haven’t finished it yet?
She did not have shares in a tax haven
She inherited shares that had been owned there
She has issued a wholly reasonable explanation that suggests she had no involvement in the former ownership of the shares she inherited and has paid all tax owing on them
To suggest as a result that she has been tax avoiding is as absurd as saying that someone who buys M & S shares formerly owned by someone else in an offshore trust is responsible for what they did with them
The accusation appears to be so desperate it discredits anyone who wrote it, let alone believes it based on what I have read
She has said:
“The Link Steel Foundation was set up in 1970 by members of my extended family, Jewish refugees who fled Austria and Germany for France and the United States. I had no role in setting it up or running it, and was not a beneficiary of the foundation until 2011, when the shares were brought onshore via the LDF, ending the structure my relatives created. At that point I then inherited additional UK shares in Stemcor. I was of course aware of this transfer and the increase in my shareholding.
“Stemcor is a family company and I have always fully declared my shareholdings. I have never held an executive or non-executive role and therefore have not had any role in the company.
“As a shareholder I have on a number of occasions sought and received assurances from the executive that the company always paid the appropriate tax.
“All I could do as a shareholder in a company not run by me, and over which I had no influence or control, was to ensure that any shares I held were above board and that I paid all relevant taxes in full. Every time I received any benefit from the company this happened.”
If you can construe tax avoidance by Margaret Hodge out of that you are a fantasist
I have to take minor issue with one of the points here.
The only reason for using the LDF is to declare tax evasion, not avoidance. Using the LDF guarantees no criminal proceedings and minimises penalties for the evasion. Avoidance is not illegal, therefore there would be no purpose to using the LDF. I think we can safely assume evasion took place here.
Whomever carried out the evasion, whether Ms Hodge or not, has used this facility to avoid criminal proceedings. I had a similar case with a client and a secretive European trust which we disclosed under the old Swiss regime for similar reasons. She had no idea she was a beneficiary (despite being in her late 80s, early 90s from memory), and the Trust was so secretive is was a nightmare getting information on the income which had been omitted (and, needless to say, which she had not seen a penny of. However, tax doesn’t work like that: as beneficiary, she was obliged to declare the income and pay tax). I don’t believe we ever did find out who the Trustees were; the only reason it came up was the Swiss bank which held the Trust’s funds wrote to her as part of the UK-Swiss agreement going on at the time. How they knew she was involved we never did fully find out..
But I digress. It is entirely possible in my view that Ms Hodge knew nothing about this Trust at all until recently, as she has stated. However, that does not mean that if she was beneficiary she is not guilty of tax evasion. Ignorance is no excuse in the law. I find it less easy to accept at face value that she was not a beneficiary prior to this point (albeit ignorant of the fact): who has she received the shares from? We can only assume it is a close family member (unfortunately random strangers are not in the habit of passing on shares in companies to people they don’t know), in which case why pass shares on to someone in the family who has no need of them (I think it fair to state she doesn’t need the money). It doesn’t pass the smell test that she has only recently inherited shares from a family trust. Who were the previous beneficiaries? In family trusts this would normally be the previous generation. Are they really still with us? Beneficial ownership would have passed to Mrs Hodge on their death.
What this highlights to me in particular is the dangers of strict liability for tax evasion, which I believe you are unfortunately a supporter of Mr Murphy. It is possible, and we have now seen, for people to be unaware of income for completely innocent reasons. But a beneficiary of a Trust must declare to HMRC; to fail to do so is evasion.
Perhaps you might speak privately with Mrs Hodge for the real details. If my suspicions are correct, then I would hope you revise your position on strict liability.
She has made clear relatively distant members of her family left the shares
The clear implication is they evaded. It is obvious there was evasion.
Why presume she was a life beneficiary? That makes no sense
And I retain my position on strict liability. Strict liability does not require prosecution. It allows it. No one would prosecute here.
“Relatively distant relatives”. £15million in shares. I’m sorry, she may come from a wealthy family where £1.5million is pocket change, but I don’t buy it.
Who leaves £1.5million to a distant relative in their will, or as a lifetime gift? That sort of asset is given to close relatives like children and siblings.
My point on life interest is that if you doubt the above then it follows she had them all along. And therefore a life interest. Which I believe she may have been entirely ignorant about (possibly justifiably so) given these secret European trusts which exist.
I wish I had your confidence in the DPP that they would choose not to prosecute. I have little faith that, particularly high profile, cases like this would be said to not be in the public interest to prosecute, if only pour encourager les autres.
I have made clear, I am taking her comments at face value
Given the nature of such trusts I candidly think that reasonable
And yes, I do trust the DPP on such issues. No jury would convict. That’s why, for starters. You have to recall that they are still involved
This law seems a bit rushed. Perhaps you could first put out a gold-and-silver consultation paper.
True
I’ll ask my sons
Sorry to get serious, but this is a serious issue. Obesity is a major problem – and exercise, however good for health, does not stop you getting fat. http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/apr/28/coalition-derailed-programme-to-save-lives-by-reducing-salt-in-food
Agreed
And I am doing something about it!
I can see all sorts of avoidance measures being attempted, including the exemption of Twix and KitKat from the ban as Not Really Chocolate Biscuits. Not to mention the crafty but ingenious practice of eating a plain biscuit with a square of chocolate.
The only way this will work for you is if you ban chocolate biscuits, chocolate and biscuits. Harsh but necessary.
Or even a (supposed nutrional) chocolate/nut spread.