Saturday 28 April 2007

Sir Ronnie and his pall the taxman

Newsnight has just done an interesting piece on Sir Ronnie Cohen's tax status. The jist of it all is when put to him - are you non UK tax Domiciled he could not answer.

Well having spoken to a tax accountant to be non-uk tax domiciled, Ronnie would first have to be born abroad (in this case Egypt) and continue to have the intention to live abroad at some stage (i.e retire and die abroad).

[The alternatives including claiming to have aquired a Domicile in Israel seem even less credible as the man lives in London.]

Now under self assesment it is up to him to claim this but if he is claiming that he intends to retire to Egypt he should definitly be investigated!

The HMRC explanation is called IR20 and makes interesting reading.

If he is claiming to be non UK Domiciled where is he Domiciled? Israel, Egypt? Hampstead?

Add this to the tax relief he gets from chanelling his remaining income into his private charities and no wonder he is such a pall of the Chancellor!

N.B domicile is not to be confused with residency, Non UK Doms pay no tax on non UK income, very useful if you happened to run a large Vulchure fund with operations in Bermuda.

Monday 23 April 2007

HM Revenue & Customs Prosecution Office

The Telegraph has belatedly caught up on the news first reported here that Michaela Partridge the wife of the head of the office was employed by HM Revenue & Customs Prosecution Office at £500 a day. Well Done!

Stop Press: Private Eye have just published it to.

Brown's vendetta against the Miliband family!


The Mail on Sunday has a scary story about how the Marxist elder Miliband has sought to evade inheritance tax. A part from the "do as I say not as I do" angle [Polly Toynbee sends her children to private school and Donald Dewar owned shares in Railtrack] this seems quite dangerous. How would the newspaper get its hands on personal tax data? My guess is that Brown is using the tax authorities to intimidate his potential oponent, well it seems to have worked. To paraphrase Turner "you must admire the sheer Starlinist ruthlessness of it all."

Tuesday 17 April 2007

Gordon Brown ponders other people's courage


Poor Gordon. Not even published yet and Amazon has had to drop the price of his new book from £16.99 to £11.21.
I'm not suprised - why would you buy a book on courage from a man who forces his colleagues (notably Dawn Primarolo) to take responsibillity for his mistakes? As Mark Hoban once said when Primarolo was again forced to take the rap for the tax credits mess: "Will the Honourable but not Gallant member answer this question?"

Wednesday 11 April 2007

Gordonbrownforleader.org

Congratulations to Dizzythinks on his scoop. It is official Gordon is preparing for a leadership challenge.

Searching the registration details of likely websites he discovered that Gordonbrownforleader.org has been registered to a Rachel Bull of silverfishtv. Well Rachel may know a thing or two as Silverfish's web shows she has previously worked both the Treasury and Number 10, and Marcus Lucas has previously designed labour HQ! Silverfish has even designed the famous Cameron cameleon (if only they knew that one famous Conservative MP has it as a screensaver). Ideal company to help run a leadership bid!

Incidentally, I also count Geronimo PR and Tribal PR as their clients. No conflict surely?
[P.S have now seen this on C4 news]

Tuesday 3 April 2007

Gordon's latest fib - EU rebate


Fresh from making an Ed Balls of lying about his supposed advice from the CBI to increase the tax on pensions, it would seem Gordon has done it again this time on the UK's EU rebate.


Reuters have put out an article that stated that Gordon has secretly agreed to surrender the UK rebate in return for the French allowing him to implement an anti avoidance device called the "reverse charge". Strangly (or not) this was agreed on March 19 just before GB's Budget. Questions were asked at the time as to what was given away, some thought a farm deal, some the open skys deal now the truth is out.
"If the British tabloid press gets hold of this, London may change its mind," the diplomat said.
Let's hope so - but how much money did Gordon's lack of influence with the French cost? £3 billion a year.

Monday 2 April 2007

Gordon is a Moron



Gordon is a moron, apparently...