Cont: General UK politics [2]

[Andy_Ross]

It seems Rishi Sunak’s wife ‘avoided tax through non-dom status’

The Independent says "The Treasury declined to comment. A spokesperson for Rishi Sunak did not respond to multiple requests for comment."

 

[Jack by the hedge]

... A spokesperson for Rishi Sunak did not respond to multiple requests for comment."

Perhaps they were not at their domicile.

 

[Vixen]

Don't forget the one-man campaign against nominative determinism - "James (Member for Braintree) Cleverley"

As many nicknames are ironic, it can be readily ascertained that the moniker, 'Mr Cleverly of Braintree' is the perfect one for this shining example of pure intellect and Prime Minister apologist. Surpasses 'Daftest Twit'.

 

[Andy_Ross]

Rishi Sunak's wife defends non-dom tax status, says she pays all the tax that is legally required.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-61017993

 

[Andy_Ross]

Pretty bold to be living in No 11 as a tax dodge.

 

[Andy_Ross]

Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng on Sky News saying "It's completely unfair" to be "attacking" the Chancellors wife as she's not a politician and Kay Burley and other journalists shouldn't be asking questions about her.

Two of her firms 'went under' in the Pandemic owing £623,000 in tax and at the same time another one got £1.3million to start up from the business support fund her husband set up.

 

[Lothian]

Rishi Sunak's wife defends non-dom tax status, says she pays all the tax that is legally required.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-61017993

Most UK taxes are self assessing, therefore her statement that she has paid all the tax that is legally required is again her own assessment.

Unless she is saying that she has been investigated by HMRC and they have closed the enquiry or that she has been in litigation over her tax affairs and a UK tribunal or court has ruled her tax paid to be correct.

 

[Filippo Lippi]

Started one in sport

It went south very quickly

Sent from my SM-G991B using Tapatalk

 

[Andy_Ross]

Ed Miliband on Sky News reacting to Tory chair Oliver Dowden blaming Labour for the UK’s “reliance” on Russian oil and gas.

"They'll make up any old cobblers..."

 

[Lothian]

It went south very quickly

Sent from my SM-G991B using Tapatalk

Yes you can't see the wood for the..... perhaps I will stop there .

 

[Carrot Flower King]

Meanwhile at the Grenfell inquiry Eric Pickles not only shows himself to be clueless about what regulations might be for, not to mention incapable of thinking through the consequences of government policies might be in the real world, but also to be a pompous, self-important, arrogant, utter arse - https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/grenfell-inquiry-eric-pickles-busy-b2052945.html

Really, we are well into the territory immortally described by the late, great Linda Smith as wanting to deprive someone of the oxygen of oxygen...

 

[P.J. Denyer]

And the wife of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who owns four houses, three here, one a holiday home in the US, lives in the flat in 10 Downing St, has two children born here & in British schools and is, once again married to the Chancellor of the Exchequer., is apparently just visiting & really lives in India.

 

[GlennB]

Rishi Sunak's wife defends non-dom tax status, says she pays all the tax that is legally required.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-61017993

And that is the parrot-cry every time a person or corporation gets away tax avoidance by shifty means.

 

[Carrot Flower King]

Meanwhile, it turns out that BlowJob and his crew have been misleading Parliament - https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...son-false-statements-parliament-b2018410.html - and not apologising nor retracting nor nowt!

I'm shocked! Shocked, I tell you, that someone fired several times for lying, who has serially lied to spouses and similar, who even high Tories like Oborne and Hastings consider to be a lying twat has been shown to be lying and then lying about the lying! Shocked!

 

[Vixen]

Meanwhile, it turns out that BlowJob and his crew have been misleading Parliament - https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...son-false-statements-parliament-b2018410.html - and not apologising nor retracting nor nowt!

I'm shocked! Shocked, I tell you, that someone fired several times for lying, who has serially lied to spouses and similar, who even high Tories like Oborne and Hastings consider to be a lying twat has been shown to be lying and then lying about the lying! Shocked!

Speaker Lindsay Hoyle has not done his job properly. He has allowed the Prime Minister to continuously and regularly evade answering the questions at PMQ*, he has allowed the Prime Minister to call female MP's 'she' instead of their correct title and he has allowed personal insults**.

*For example, recently when asked a straight question by Starmer, Johnson launched into a tirade completely on a different matter and referred to a Labour manifesto of 1997.

**Constantly joking about SNP bod Ian Blackwell's weight.

The whole thing is one comedy hour with the likes of Sunak laughing and that grunting baying idiot making honking noises, with Dorries and chums giggling like schoolkids.

It is a disgrace.

 

[Andy_Ross]

Can’t wait to hear the Taxpayers Alliance’s view on Rishi Sunak’s wife, a woman who is richer than the Queen, but uses dodgy non-dom jiggery-pokery to avoid paying tax in the UK.

 

[Vixen]

Can’t wait to hear the Taxpayers Alliance’s view on Rishi Sunak’s wife, a woman who is richer than the Queen, but uses dodgy non-dom jiggery-pokery to avoid paying tax in the UK.

Richard Murphy writing in the DAILY MIRROR believes Mrs Sunak is wrong because you can't assign yourself as non-dom, you have to apply for it. It doesn't happen just because you have an overseas nationality. Also, I wonder, if Mrs Sunak is not allowed to have joint citizenship as an Indian national, should she only be allowed to visit the UK six months a year...?

Domicile has nothing to do with a person’s nationality. Nor does it have anything to do with not being able to have a British passport because a person holds citizenship from another country. And non-domiciled status is certainly never given for that reason.

The first thing to note about non-domiciled status is that it is given to no-one if they do not apply for it. In that case the implication in Ms Murthy’s statement that she has to be treated as non-domiciled is simply wrong: she is only non-domiciled because she asked to be so.

Second, she can also give up the claim to be non-domiciled at any time. Just because she was non-domiciled when she arrived in the UK as a newly married person does not mean she has to keep the status now. So the fact she’s still non-dom is also a choice.

In other words, the claims made in the statement issued by Ms Murthy are wrong, and as evidence, just because a person has Indian citizenship will never automatically grant them non-dom status in the UK. It might help, but never be enough.

That’s because non-dom status is about where a person’s natural home is. Essentially, it is a test based on the evidence that they are only temporarily resident in the UK because they retain the intention to return to another place, which is their natural home.

From what I remember of my tax exams is that you can choose where your principal residence is and it strikes me that if Mrs S has chosen to be non-dom [whether or not verified] then her principal residence cannot be in the UK for tax purposes.

ISTM she may be tax evading rather than tax avoiding.

Then there is the issue of all that money she gets from her Russian investments.

And also claiming furlough during the pandemic, when many self-employed people got no help at all, even if they needed to pay staff.

 

[Planigale]

Rishi Sunak's wife defends non-dom tax status, says she pays all the tax that is legally required.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-61017993

There is an interesting moral question about where she should pay tax. Which is the wealthier country, India or the UK? In which country is the money made?

Morally it would seem the correct thing would be for an Indian citizen to pay tax on earnings made in India to the Indian government. Most politicians seem to object to off-shoring of profits. This is what it would be if the taxes were paid in the UK rather than India.

No-one seems to know whether the taxes in India are less than if she had tax efficient UK residence for tax purposes. What seems clear at present is that there is not some sort of tax shelter like Jersey, IoM or RoI being used.

As someone from a South asian background it is common for families to have members who are Indian or Pakistani citizens with official residence in country of citizenship but right of permanent residence in the UK. It is common for people to have business interests in both countries.

I personally feel that this is verging on being racist. Any moment I expect the cricket test to be introduced. There are vibes that brown people can't be trusted, that they are not properly loyal to the UK. That she isn't paying her dues. Yet, I think there is a very good case that India is the right country to get the benefit of her taxes on Indian earnings not the UK.

 

[Vixen]

There is an interesting moral question about where she should pay tax. Which is the wealthier country, India or the UK? In which country is the money made?

Morally it would seem the correct thing would be for an Indian citizen to pay tax on earnings made in India to the Indian government. Most politicians seem to object to off-shoring of profits. This is what it would be if the taxes were paid in the UK rather than India.

No-one seems to know whether the taxes in India are less than if she had tax efficient UK residence for tax purposes. What seems clear at present is that there is not some sort of tax shelter like Jersey, IoM or RoI being used.

As someone from a South asian background it is common for families to have members who are Indian or Pakistani citizens with official residence in country of citizenship but right of permanent residence in the UK. It is common for people to have business interests in both countries.

I personally feel that this is verging on being racist. Any moment I expect the cricket test to be introduced. There are vibes that brown people can't be trusted, that they are not properly loyal to the UK. That she isn't paying her dues. Yet, I think there is a very good case that India is the right country to get the benefit of her taxes on Indian earnings not the UK.

Tax is based on rules, so people pay good money to tax advisers on how to minimise within legal boundaries how much tax is payable. If Sunak's wife is within the rules then it is not illegal. The issue seems to be an ethical one with the argument that as her husband has one of the great offices of state, as Chancellor of the Exchequer of the United Kingdom, she should 'muck in' as it were and contribute her fair share, which she could do by opting out of the non-dom status.

Probably not racism, more a case of good old fashioned British envy.

In this case, it might be understandable, given the average Brit is being hammered by her husband's policies ATM and cannot go abroad without visas for more than 90 days at a time to a maximum of 180 days a year.

 

[jimbob]

There is an interesting moral question about where she should pay tax. Which is the wealthier country, India or the UK? In which country is the money made?

Morally it would seem the correct thing would be for an Indian citizen to pay tax on earnings made in India to the Indian government. Most politicians seem to object to off-shoring of profits. This is what it would be if the taxes were paid in the UK rather than India.

No-one seems to know whether the taxes in India are less than if she had tax efficient UK residence for tax purposes. What seems clear at present is that there is not some sort of tax shelter like Jersey, IoM or RoI being used.

As someone from a South asian background it is common for families to have members who are Indian or Pakistani citizens with official residence in country of citizenship but right of permanent residence in the UK. It is common for people to have business interests in both countries.

I personally feel that this is verging on being racist. Any moment I expect the cricket test to be introduced. There are vibes that brown people can't be trusted, that they are not properly loyal to the UK. That she isn't paying her dues. Yet, I think there is a very good case that India is the right country to get the benefit of her taxes on Indian earnings not the UK.

It's not racist to expect the spouse of the holder of effectively the second highest office in the country (deputy PM doesn't count) to actually claim residence in the country which their spouse is serving. Especially when the role includes deciding on taxation and there are huge differences in the household's tax bill as a consequence.

This is not the same as the spouse having a separate nationality but residence in the UK.




https://www.gov.uk/government/publi...ce-note-for-statutory-residence-test-srt-rdr3

You’ll be resident in the UK for a tax year and at all times in that tax year if:

• you do not meet any of the automatic overseas tests
• you meet one of the automatic UK tests or the sufficient ties test

if you’ve been in the UK for less than 183 days in the tax year go to step 2
if you meet any of the automatic overseas tests you will not be resident in the UK for that tax year. If you do not meet any of these tests go to step 3
if you meet any of the automatic UK tests or the sufficient ties test, you will be UK resident for that tax year. If you do not meet any of these tests you will not be UK resident for that tax year