The BBC reports:
Conservative donor and deputy party chairman Lord Ashcroft has admitted he is “non-domiciled” for tax in the UK. He said he agreed with David Cameron that anyone sitting in the Lords must be “resident and domiciled” in the UK.
He said he expected “to be sitting in the House of Lords for many years to come”, suggesting his status would change if the Tories win the election. Mr Cameron said, in another statement, he was “pleased” that Lord Ashcroft had decided to clarify his position.
Lord Ashcroft has donated millions of pounds to the Conservatives in recent years, much of which has been spent on campaigns by Tory candidates in marginal seats. He, and senior Conservative Party spokesmen, have refused to say what his tax status was over recent years, saying it was a private matter.
So, at long last, Lord Belize Ashcroft has finally admitted what had long been suspected: that he avoids paying as much tax in the UK as he can. Yet for the past decade he has seen nothing wrong with being a member of the House of Lords who legislates on how the rest of us get taxed, and how the money raised from us is spent.
As Chris Huhne commented back in December:
… it looks increasingly like the Tories see taxes as something that happens to other people. … If Zac Goldsmith must give up his non-dom status to stand for Parliament, how can Lord Ashcroft be a non-dom and sit in Parliament?”
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10 Comments
It’s simple enough. Cameron’s guff about “patriotic duty” yesterday reflected the deep-seated Tory belief that, even though they only have the support of one third of voters, only the Tories are properly British and everyone else is some sort of European / immigrant / lower class traitors who shouldn’t have a vote.
Lord Ashcroft – or, as he should have been until he fulfils his lying promise, Mr Ashcroft – simply embodies that Tory view. The Tories are synonymous with Britain, so it’s his patriotic duty to refuse to pay for any choices made through the wishes of the un-Tory, un-British vast majority of voters who don’t count.
So what’s the legal position on all his donations?
Lord Ashcroft has now published his letter of March 2000 to William Hague at
http://www.lordashcroft.com/pdf/01032010_statement_from_lord_ashcroft.pdf
In it, he says “I hereby give you my clear and unequivocal assurance that I have decided to take up permanent residence In the UK again before the end of thIs calendar year.” Sounds straightforward, doesn’t it? But apparently it means being “a long term resident” who pays tax on his UK income, if any, while actually living abroad most of the time, and paying no UK tax on most of his income.
As Dr Johnson remarked ” Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel”. So now we know where the TORIES STAND.
It makes me want to puke.
As for Hague – “Lord Ahscroft has fulfilled all his undertakings” – what a pathetic liar.
In his statement Aschcroft says:
>As the letter shows, the undertakings I gave were confirmed in a memorandum to William Hague dated 23rd >March 2000. These were to “take up permanent residence in the UK again” by the end of that year.”
>In subsequent dialogue with the Government, it was officially confirmed that the interpretation in the first >undertaking of the words “permanent residence” was to be that of “a long term resident” of the UK
So, in subsequent discussions, did the words, “by the end of that year” become – “not at all in the next ten years”?
For almost a decade William Hague has known precisely what commitment Michael Ashcroft gave. It was to ‘take up permanent residence in the UK’. It was not to be domiciled for tax purposes in the UK.
All those involved in the award of Ashcroft’s peerage either did know or should have known the difference between taking up permanent residence and being domiciled for tax purposes.
Having rejected the award of a peerage to Ashcroft once those responsible for the honours system nevertheless went on to award him a peerage and they did so without extracting a firm promise from him to settle in the UK for tax purposes. They need to be publicly identified and questioned about their behaviour.
The award of the peerage stinks! And the rot responsible for the stink must lie at the very core of our political system.
It is at least as great a scandal as the abuses of parliamentary allowances and expenses, revealed by the Telegraph. And it is a political scandal that has been fermenting for much longer and doing even greater damage to our political and economic system.
No one with any sense and integrity could possibly doubt that any politicians who were privy to Michael Ashcroft’s tax status were anything other than hypocrites if they claimed to be campaigning to clean up UK politics while failing to come clean about this dirty secret.
I dont think Hague’s credibility can survive this. It shows he had now power at all as a leader.
I can’t understand the basis on which persons without a permanent commitment to the UK (which what a non-dom is) are allowed to seek influence in British politics by making substantial donations to political parties or to stand for or hold public office.
When Labour changed the law to prevent foreigners donating to political parties (above a de minimis of fifty quid a year to allow for overseas memberships and the like) they should have included non-doms in the foreigners class. Did anyone think of that at the time?
Is the man down the pub talking about this?
Chris Huhne had a good go;
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8412434.stm
Labour were not quite so vociferous probably because of their dependency on Lord Paul.