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How naive is the Chancellor?

April 10, 2012 8:33 am

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George Osborne tells the Telegraph:

“I was shocked to see that some of the very wealthiest people in the country have organised their tax affairs, and to be fair it’s within the tax laws, so that they were regularly paying virtually no income tax.”

Somehow I don’t believe he’s that naive – do you?

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  • Alexwilliamz

    No.

  • Dave Postles

    How does he believe that they accumulated their spare cash to donate to the Tory Party’s coffers?  What are the taxpayers’ losses are probably the Tory Party’s gains.

    • Holly

      Yes and all the taxpayer’s ‘loses’ from these scams happened mainly under the watchful eye of Labour MP’s/cabinet ministers, Bozo, Balls, and the tea boy Miliband….Would it be naive to have expected at least some of them to have known?  They were the ‘government’ if I remember rightly.
      The naivety of some people.Osborne is now on the case, and he’s made it public.Look at it this way…If Osborne sorts this out it will be one less thing the Miliband/Balls team can offer in 2015?While Osborne can claim this as a victory in starting to end tax avoidance scams on the doorsteps of Britain.

      • Dave Postles

        Actually, all he has said is that he is ‘shocked’ at how little tax they pay, but it is legal.  He has suggested a general tax avoidance rule to outlaw ‘abusive’ tax avoidance – at some date in the future if it is workable.  We don’t know which years of tax returns he has reviewed.  We don’t know if the fault rested solely with HMRC, with its allegedly maverick leadership of Hartnett.  We do know that it was the PAC and Margaret Hodge who gave HMRC a rollicking.  We also know that the Tories have relied on Ashcroft’s cash for some considerable time.  What we may well have here is a stratagem by Osborne to divert attention from and dilute the impact of his counterproductive budget.  Let’s take the long view on this one and see what he actually does.  If he has painted himself into a corner, good.  I suspect, however, that it is another Osborne strategy to counter the suggestion of a budget for the rich.  We shall see about accusations of naivety.  I’m not concerned about New Labour, although it had proposals to increase tax collection by reducing avoidance.  Who has highlighted the issue of tax avoidance from the earliest days?  It was March for the Alternative, Coalition of Resistance, and UKUncut – in all of which I have been active.  I suspect that you were sitting on your arse. 

        • jaime taurosangastre candelas

          “Who has highlighted the issue of tax avoidance from the earliest days?  It was March for the Alternative, Coalition of Resistance, and UKUncut”

          Not really the earliest days.  Those groups decided it was a good cause after Labour lost the last election.People have been talking about it and proposing remedies since well before then ….http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/apr/20/google-uk-tax-avoidance

          …the Lib Dems…
          http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/sep/21/lib-dems-pay-income-tax-cut

          …the TUC….

          http://www.tuc.org.uk/economy/tuc-17311-f0.cfm

          ….the Tax Justice Network…

          http://www.taxjustice.net/cms/front_content.php?idcatart=2&lang=1

          …even the tories…
          “We will also target tax evasion and off-shore tax havens.” from http://www.conservatives.com/News/Speeches/2009/10/George_Osborne_We_will_lead_the_economy_out_of_crisis.aspx

          ….and let’s not forget the public…

          http://liberalconspiracy.org/2009/04/14/poll-public-against-tax-avoidance/

          • Holly

            Maybe we should have ALL got together and marched…I mean sit on our arses….I mean object…I mean Let’s get the Tories into power…I mean abandon ship….I mean….MOAN really loud.

          • Dave Postles

             TUC organized the March for the Alternative.  All the rest just mumbled.

          • geedee0520

            This was fine until the dreaded Tax Justice Network (aka Richard Murphy) got a mention.

            One example – Amazon. Part of EU single market LAW is that any company based in any EU country can sell into another one. Their tax is based on the country they are based in, NOT where they sell things. You can argue this is immoral etc – but it is LEGAL and exactly what the EU wants companies to do. The UK garners lots of tax from the (hated) City for this very reason.

            Murphy has worked out some spurious numbers alleging tax Amazon should pay in the UK. This can only be achieved if the UK exits the EU treaties involved.

            Don’t believe a word he says.

        • Peter Barnard

          @  Dave P,
          The examples of massive tax avoidance that Mr Osborne has just seen kind of nail the lie that reducing the top rate of tax will encourage the affected people to engage less in tax avoidance – I’d bet dollars to doughnuts that the tax avoidances that have been brought to his attention were rife when the top rate of tax was 40 per cent.

          • Holly

            I’ll bet you ten bob that the tax avoidances were rife for as long as Bozo, (the bestest Labour chancellor…EVER) allowed them to be. 
            Right bods, quick, back to calling Osborne nasty names.

          • Dave Postles

            Tax avoidance has been rife as long as there have been taxes. As Leona Helmsley allegedly averred: ‘We don’t pay taxes. Only the little people pay taxes.’ – and that’s the tax regime in the US. 

          • Hugh

             Yes, and there’s precious little evidence it’s restricted to those on the right.

          • Dave Postles

             That’s easy for you to say.
            “‘It is true that I vote Conservative’, pursued Mr Pembroke, apparently confronting some objector. ‘But why? Because the Conservatives, rather than the Liberals, stand for progress.  One must not be misled by catchwords.’”

        • Holly

          Do you think Osborne will keep the status quo then?
          Seems a bit daft to bring up the Labour tax scams, only to do sod all about them.You might be inferring that Bozo knew nothing of these tax scams, and it was all down to Hartnet.  Yet it is naive when Osborne was shocked about them.How ‘New Labour’ do you reckon Bozo or Balls were?New Labour were long gone…More than likely from 2005 onwards when Bozo went on his socialist hatchet job, with Balls & Miliband as ‘Advisor’/ tea boy. The tax year had already started in May 2010, so he may well have looked at 2010/11 SAR’s, but he would most certainly have looked at 2011/12 SAR’s. You mention Ashcroft but forget to mention Labour’s donors who were  doing exactly the same thing, until, yet again, the Tory lot had to sort it out, and that the Labour lot left the country to avoid paying. Nice.All that marching, for one group or another. Sort of wasted your time there mate…Thirteen years of Labour, with all those disgruntled union bods & their pilgrims for back-up, yet it’s going to be a Tory that sorts it out.Sitting on my arse, and a Tory-led government.Tee hee.  

          • Dave Postles

            It’s naive to believe that Osborne was shocked by them.  Ashcroft was a different category to the other NonDoms in terms his position in the Tory Party and his activity in the Tory Party, as well as in terms of citizenship in some cases.  Yes, I expect no substantial change in the situation because a general law against tax avoidance is unlikely, as far as I am aware, to be successful.  It’s politics by Osborne.  Tea-break over – back on your arse.

    • Hugh

      Surely  Livingstone’s not a Tory party donor. Do you think he’s the only Labour MP to minimise his tax bill?

      • Dave Postles

         Livingstone hasn’t been a Labour MP for some time, as far as I am aware.  Do you think before you commit your fingers to the keyboard?

        • Hugh

           Yes, quite right. Do you think that actually undermines the point or is there another reason you didn’t address it?

          • Dave Postles

             If you want a straight answer, every inaccuracy undermines a point – even when I make them.  Do I think that some Labour MPs minimize their tax bills?  In what way?  Would you care to be more specific?  Are you asking me if they establish themselves as limited companies to pay only corporation tax?  How can that be? 

  • Sandielunn

    He might not be naive but he must believe everybody else is!

  • AlanGiles

    If Mr Osborne is really that innocent, daddy should ride to his rescue immediately and give him the job of office boy at the wallpaper factory.

  • AlanGiles

    If Mr Osborne is really that innocent, daddy should ride to his rescue immediately and give him the job of office boy at the wallpaper factory.

  • trotters1957

    I thought George had set up a discretionary trust to hold his shares in Osborne and Little, he’s not naive. 
    Flipped his property in Cheshire, scum.

    • Holly

      Many MP’s flipped, claimed expenses, and all did it under Labour’s watch.
      Nothing I have seen, and never in my life, have I been so raging than I was at the expenses scandal….NEVER. And in my book those caught out were all as bad.
      The one’s who did not make excessive claims, yet stayed quiet are just as bad, if not worse!

      Was the trust actually set up by his mum & dad?
      Would you be as scathing if your parents had done the same for you, or for any future grand children that you may have??
      Disliking someone for what the parents legally did to help their children is the worst form of envy.
      What if you won a huge Euro lottery jackpot?
      Would you try to ‘preserve’ as much as you legally could for your family or would you hand it over to George to spend as he thought appropriate?….Remember you think he’s scum.
      All the tax grab from the interest, stamp duty, car tax, VAT etc….

    • Just_Another_Voter

       Scum? Does this apply equally to Labour MPs who flipped their homes? eg. The Cooper-Balls’ who flipped 3 times?

      • treborc

        Of course not you should know labour had no choice, it’s hard to live on the wages of an MP these days.

  • Peter Barnard

    Just wondering (George Osborne and naivete) : is it constitutional – or, indeed, proper – that the Chancellor of the Exchequer (ie, a politician) should have sight of an individual’s tax record – a record that’s supposed to be confidential between the individual and the HMRC inspector?

    Perhaps – a “public interest” justification where “the ends justify the means?” I dunno – it seems that an awkward precedent could be being set here …

    • Peter Barnard

      Another thought – isn’t this somewhat inconsistent with what we are always being told that “the top one per cent pay nearly 30 per cent of all income tax?”

      • GuyM

        Apparently official figures indicate the top 1% pay 27% of income tax.

        Of course if you have a better “official figures” source I’d be happy to look at them.

        I believe also that the 40% band takes up a huge chunk of the % recovered as well, with the lower reaches providing very little, just as well we’re “all in it together” eh?

        • Alexwilliamz

          This being the top 1% based upon tax payments rather than actual income one presumes?

          As to your comment: Mark 12:41-44

      • Hugh

         No.

    • Holly

      No names were given to Osborne, just good examples of ways the rich got richer under Labour.
      Maybe the writer of this post could have be a smidgen ‘happier’ that Osborne is at least bringing this to our attention instead of bleating how ‘naive’ Osborne is. Or suggesting that he is ‘not to be believed’, when he says he was ‘shocked’ by the blatant take up of Labour’s tax dodging schemes. 
      Maybe he ‘suspected’ this, but first had to get a bit more proof that the rich got richer under Labour….SAR’s for the tax year 6 April 2011- 5 April 2012. 
      It would be quite ironic if a ‘hated’ Tory chancellor cut the loopholes enjoyed by rich bods under Labour’s tax rules.
      Maybe we should be turning our anger on the bods who let this happen, losing the treasury revenue to fund the public services instead of all the borrowing that went on from 2005-2010.
      Just a thought.

      • treborc

        We will see, but if he does something about it by ending it, what a vote winner, well from some, and what a donation loser for them.

    • Hugh

       ”The Chancellor personally studied the “anonymised” copies of the tax returns
      submitted by some of the country’s wealthiest citizens …”

      • LordElpus

         Brings a whole new meaning to redacting information!

  • http://twitter.com/gonzozzz dave stone

    I wonder, did the far-sighted Tony Blair introduce these no-tax-for-the-rich arrangements?

    • treborc

      Seems Chancellors are easily shocked these days, but it would be a feather in the Tories hat if they ended tax avoidance and I would need to be taken to hospital if they do. Heart attacks can be brought on by shocks.

    • Dave Postles

        ‘intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich as long as they pay their cab fares’

  • John Ruddy

    I think he’s shocked because HIS accountant didnt manage to get his tax bill down by that much….

  • Mike Murray

    Blimey, what next? Bears defecate in the woods?

  • Robert_Crosby

    No, I don’t think he’s naive.  I believe he is a liar.  He lives amongst these same scumbags.  He is artificially now trying to align himself with a populace incensed by the tax cut he brought in the other week for his mates.

  • Dave Postles

    ‘Has George Osborne turned into Claude Rains? I only ask because the notion that the chancellor is shocked by the tax avoidance of the rich is about as convincing as Captain Renault’s explanation for shutting down Rick’s American bar in Casablanca.In
    one of the best scenes from the film, Rains says he is “shocked,
    shocked” to find gambling going on in the establishment, only to be
    handed his winnings by a member of Humphrey Bogart’s staff.’
    (Larry Elliott)

    • Trudge74 as alexwilliamz

      Looks like newsnight have picked up on this

  • Dave Postles

    ‘In London, Barclays shares fell by 6% to 206p and were the
    second-biggest faller in the FTSE100 amid fears about its troubled
    Spanish operation. In February Barclays borrowed €6bn from the ECB’s
    cheap loans scheme to pour into its Spanish operations.’
    Here’s something for Osborne.  The news arrives just in time for the revolt of the shareholders about Diamond’s remuneration, if PIRC and the ABI have predicted correctly.  The banks are still dropping us in it.

  • Amelinixon

    We’ll he can put this all to rights then: tunswblog.blogspot.com.au/2012/03/real-estate-4-ransom.html?showComment=1334125981719

  • Amelinixon

    Read today that he has taken away tax breaks for charitable donations. These benefited the rich. I guess this his idea of equity. He will take it off the rich, but the poor  and those providing cultural enrichment to the citizenry also have to take a hit. I confess I do not understand the tuck shop treasurer.

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