Chancellor legal letters reject tax ‘smears’
Nadhim Zahawi has been accused of “dodging scrutiny” by Labour’s deputy leader after the Chancellor sent legal letters to a former tax lawyer investigating his tax affairs.
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Interesting if not wholly surprising, but we do seem to be entering a culture where legality is subservient to public opinion.
I've no idea of the facts of the alleged 'case', but what do you think tax planners do?
And to say that "Neidle has cross-examined Zahawi’s explanation .." is a tad naughty as it gives the impression that this occurred in a court of law!
DN is not that clever re tax. An example is here where he thinks the minimum period to avoid CGT is 5 complete (tax) years of non-UK residence, whereas in practice it's actually 6*.
https://www.taxpolicy.org.uk/2022/05/22/how-to-avoid-cgt/
Also, he's a bit of a hypocrite banging on about SDLT avoidance here, when CC advised on PB's SDLT scheme that failed in SC.
https://www.taxpolicy.org.uk/2022/05/25/how-to-avoid-sdlt/
Otherwise, he's more or less correct about tax stuff (I assume he's angling to be a labour politician) and at least he knows a bit more than RM (who's also a bit of a hypocrite). See also:
https://www.accountingweb.co.uk/any-answers/interesting-re-nz
* in fairness it's a common error. See: https://www.accountingweb.co.uk/any-answers/day-or-rather-midnight-calai...
The 6 year minimum was explained by a specialist tax law firm in a link in this link which is now broken: https://www.taxationweb.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=57629
DN; CC; PB; RM
The use of initials make you post difficult to understand so many will choose it ignore it. I lost the will to decode who you were referring to when I got to CC!
I'm sure DN knows. PB = Project Blue. RM = Richard Murphy. SC = Supreme Court. CC= Clifford Chance. (I assume you know what SDLT and CGT are.)
Also, if you copy & paste "CC advised on PB's SDLT scheme that failed in SC" into an internet search engine, it all comes up at or near the top of the 1st page, so it's hardly cryptic.
I gave the shares to my dad so not my problem
I recommend this particular scheme to the House
This sort of stuff makes a couple of drinks and unproven allegations look really trivial
When will we ever get a Tory chancellor come to the job with clean tax hands?
Three of them one straight after the other
There are nine outstanding questions about this affair :
https://www.taxpolicy.org.uk/2022/07/27/nine/
DN should be working for HMRC on a commission deal I think*.
Gibraltar was (probably accidentally) a poor choice due to no EU law freedoms protections e.g. a Cyprus trust company (or even Channel Islands) structure would probably have been OK there re s720 motive defence etc., so in fairness to NZ that is arguably more bad luck (or bad advice to use Gibraltar) than tax avoidance etc.
*I have often tried to help HMRC myself (for free) here re dodgy looking tax avoidance in the public domain. See for example: https://www.accountingweb.co.uk/any-answers/dodgy-looking-gdpr-provision...
Enjoyed that read
If a Chancellor gets this stuff wrong then surely we should not trust him with the UK chequebook
New PM needs to assess the current cabinet capabilities
As the marvellously named American Judge Learned Hand said in 1947
"Anyone may arrange his affairs so that his taxes shall be as low as possible; he is not bound to choose that pattern which best pays the treasury. There is not even a patriotic duty to increase one's taxes. Over and over again the Courts have said that there is nothing sinister in so arranging affairs as to keep taxes as low as possible. Everyone does it, rich and poor alike and all do right, for nobody owes any public duty to pay more than the law demands. Taxes are enforced exactions, not voluntary contributions. To demand more in the name of morals is mere cant."
The problem with morals is that everyone's are different.
Too much pious posturing if you ask me. If there was a box you could tick on the tax return which said "if you want your taxes to be £0 this tax year, tick here" how many people could honestly say they wouldn't tick it?
This really is about yesterday's man
Threats on 'I will sue' tend to be the cries of the pathetic Karen from Reddit blogs
How can this Ken be taken seriously?