Osborne advised using financial loopholes to avoid tax and care costs.

[Mr Angry]

This.

"George Osborne once advised people to use “clever financial products” that could have helped them reduce care costs and inheritance tax, a video from 2003 shows.

The re-emergence of the footage will be embarrassing for the chancellor as it comes amid controversy about the government’s lack of prosecutions of tax evaders who had accounts at HSBC in Switzerland.

Downing Street has also been criticised over the subsequent appointment of the former HSBC boss Stephen Green as a trade minister and the lack of investigation into the bank’s activities."


Is brilliant.


Almost on a par with the irony of the Tories attack on Ed Balls for saying people should get receipts for work carried out when it was their Treasury Minister David Gauke who most recently mooted the notion when he said "It is morally wrong to pay tradesmen cash in hand".


You couldn't make this stuff up. The political classes are a bunch of numpties who will do and say whatever it takes to convince the electorate that they're the best of a bad bunch and people are stupid and blinkered enough to chant their mantra for them.

I like the way he keeps raising his eyebrows to make it seem as shifty as possible.

Ah, the old "evasion" versus "avoidance" ploy....

I mean, what sort of senior politician would use something that would reduce inheritance tax?

[Mr Angry]

Originally Posted by Hugh

I mean, what sort of senior politician would use something that would reduce inheritance tax?

Essentially my point Hugh. You'd need to be a pretty dull tool to think that one is any better than the other or to cheerlead on either's behalf.

[heero_yuy]

Originally Posted by Mr Angry

Essentially my point Hugh. You'd need to be a pretty dull tool to think that one is any better than the other or to cheerlead on either's behalf.

Quite. I don't condemn anybody for using faults in the tax system to their advantage. Where I DO have a problem is politicians attacking others for using said loopholes when they themselves are using the exact same loopholes.

Hypocrisy.

[nomadking]

Inheritance tax is only due once the person dies. Before that time whatever you do can't be avoiding tax, because it's not yet due.

[TheDaddy]

Originally Posted by Damien

I like the way he keeps raising his eyebrows to make it seem as shifty as possible.

I like it when large crowds boo him, like at the olympics or Christmas lights switching on

Might just be me but George Osbourne always looks shifty and no matter what he says even when its true just doesn't sit right I've got him in the same category as milliband cant put my finger on a specific just don't trust a thing they say.

[Ramrod]

Originally Posted by Hugh

Ah, the old "evasion" versus "avoidance" ploy....

Illegal versus legal you mean?

[TheDaddy]

Originally Posted by Ramrod

Illegal versus legal you mean?

No illegal verses illegal, only difference is if you do it for a few quid you'll go to jail, aggressively do it for a few million and hmrc will accept an offer, normally after years of legal shenanigans in which the cash in question has accrued more in interest than the pittance hmrc collects

Originally Posted by TheDaddy

No illegal verses illegal, only difference is if you do it for a few quid you'll go to jail, aggressively do it for a few million and hmrc will accept an offer, normally after years of legal shenanigans in which the cash in question has accrued more in interest than the pittance hmrc collects

Times

Sports stars and businessmen face huge bills and potential bankruptcy after the taxman won a landmark victory in a £1 billion tax avoidance case.

Investors in the Eclipse 35 film partnership face tax bills of up to nine times their original investments after the Court of Appeal confirmed an earlier ruling that it was not trading.

Almost 300 wealthy investors, including Sir Alex Ferguson, the retired Manchester United manager, and Sven-Göran Eriksson, the former England football manager, poured money into the scheme. If it had worked, members could have enjoyed an average of more than £400,000 in tax relief on a personal investment of £173,000.

Instead they are now required to pay tax on loans that were part of the scheme but which they did not personally receive, leaving the average investor facing a bill of more than £1.3 million in loans and interest.

Being billed for £1.3 million isn't balanced by £400,000 in tax relief - and it's good/right that they have been penalised, as there was no legitimate business reason for the partnership, other than to evade tax.

[heero_yuy]

But Mr Balls’s bigger issue comes with his day job, Shadow Chancellor.

On Sunday, when asked by Andrew Marr what constituted tax avoidance, he said: “If you are having somebody cut your hedge for a tenner make sure they give you their name, address and a receipt.”


He really said that? Yep. Then 48 hours later what do you think happened? The little firm that has cleaned his windows at his family home in Castleford, West Yorkshire, revealed that in 17 — yes 17 — years he has never asked for a receipt.

Helpfully, the window cleaner reveals that it takes him ten minutes to do the windows for £12 and then he pops a note through the letterbox, saying: “Your windows have been cleaned.”

So he is just like the rest of us paying the handyman in cash, and as 99 per cent aren’t VAT-registered (you need a minimum turnover of £81k) they don’t have to be.

By not telling the truth he emerges as just another hypocritical politician.

Paywall link Kelvin MacKenzie

Seems they're all in it together.

[blackthorn]

Didnt it come to light that he pays the windows on account by bank transfer. So there is a paper trail. He was talking about cash with no paper trails.

[Osem]

I bet Ed Balls and his wife Yvette Cooper got plenty of receipts for all that family travel undertaken at public expense.

A Tory MP complained after the shadow chancellor and shadow home secretary claimed more than £14,000 to fund 375 journeys for their three children between 2007 and 2010.

Andrew Bridgen said the claims were against the "spirit of the rules" because the couple's marriage allows them to claim twice as many free trips as other MPs with young families.

http://www.standard.co.uk/news/labou...s-6574682.html

But a spokesman for the couple said no rules had been broken and highlighted that other MPs are able to claim travel expenses for their spouses.

Nice to see poor folk like this not having to worry about the soaring cost of their children's travel.