Over at The Guardian’s Comment is Free, LDV Co-Editor Mark Pack notes that the behaviour of the new Lib Dem chief secretary to the treasury, Danny Alexander, wasn’t a patch on the sort of tax avoidance measures the Telegraph repeatedly recommends. Here’s an excerpt:
… a piece by Ian Cowie, from May 2010, lays out in detail how Telegraph readers can avoid paying capital gains tax. It even says: “Do as MPs do and ‘flip’ your home … large potential CGT liabilities can be avoided quite legally in this way.” The story goes on to urge a full exploitation of expenses and maximise the use of exemptions. It is a list of recommendations that goes well beyond what Alexander did. …
Perhaps, then, Alexander’s mistake was not to be a signed-up reader of the Telegraph; after all, perish the thought that the newspaper is suggesting that there is anything wrong with its readers doing what it recommends to them.
You can read Mark’s post in full here.
And, almost exceptionally on Comment is Free, there is a comment worth reading (it’s from a Lib Dem) noting that in Danny Alexander’s case:
… there was no flipping of houses involved, that he sold what was his main (and SOLE until 2 years previous) property within less than 3 years of moving which automatically disqualifies it from CGT, and that Alexander would therefore have had to send a cheque to the taxman saying “Please take this money off me” as that would’ve been the only way for him to pay more than he was required to pay.
As another article said, why would we want to have a Chief Secretary to the Treasury who deliberately overpays on his tax bill? That would hardly be very confidence inspiring!
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7 Comments
Wahey, that’s my comment – may I say however that I was merely re-iterating Mark’s own points on this very site, whose absence in the CiF article gave the article a rather different slant in my view.
As they used to say on the ‘west wing’: “welcome to the NFL”.
Be prepared for more and more and more of this over the coming months now that you are no longer (so I am told- joke) a ‘ginger group’.
Have I had this wrong all my life, or are M.P.’s salaries paid from taxes?
@RCM – I would assume so. Why?
Because there seem to be some people making comments about Mark’s article in the Guardian, and elsewhere over these “expenses” issues, who do not realise that M.P.’s are paid their salaries from our taxes. They are talking as though only their expenses are paid with from taxes, for example, “he didn’t earn it, he claimed it from our taxes on expenses”, as if his earnings are not also our taxes?
I don’t understand why they are seeing expenses claims as specifically different from earned money, I thought most people who took a job that included allowances for expenses, counted the expenses as a kind of earned perk. I have never been entitled to expenses in my own work, so I could be wrong. That is how I thought it was, and if I am right, why is it deemed so different for M.P.’s?
Also, why are so many people going on about M.P.’s taking OUR taxes, as if they, themselves do not pay tax, when if all taxpayers money is jointly owned, and M.P.’s pay taxes, it is as much THEIR taxes as ours, no?
@RCM – Ta, yes completely agree, it’s an MPs job to do what they do and while I feel a LOT of MPs did rather lower their claims when receipts were needed* which is suspect, with them having to work in London much of the time we simply cannot expect them to stump up for these things on their own.
Also some MPs may have worked for the City etc before but they have spent a lot of time working at low or no salaries as PPCs and so forth before becoming elected, sometimes for years, e.g. Laws was elected as MP in 2001 but spent ca 7 years in between with little income because he chose to work for the Lib Dems instead of continuing his career as a banker.
* How the hell did they ever think it was OK to set this up WITHOUT needing receipts?
I do think that the argument that the DT and it is supportive followers will put forward is that they are not hypocrites for legally avoiding paying taxes, because they are not Lib Dem politicians, so they are not saying that the tax situation is unfair as it is. I am not saying that they have a good point, just that it is probably the one they are making.