Tag Archives: evasion

The news in tweets: Sunday, June 4, 2023

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Rishi Sunak: he’s not known for being a Vox Political reader, but will he still be smiling if he chances upon this article?

Here’s this sunny Sunday’s info-dump  – and This Writer hopes it doesn’t cast a cloud over your mood.

Rishi Sunak won’t give public money to UK schools but with his wife has given $2.4 million to a wealthy US college

There will be more on ‘Eat Out to Die Out’ in another Vox Political article later today (June 4, 2023).

Is pre-election tax cut plan the reason for Rishi Sunak’s current war on sickness and disability benefits?

Tory MP begs Rishi Sunak to quit the European Convention on Human Rights – confusing it with the EU

For information: Andrea Jenkyns is a Tory MP who is currently deputy chairwoman of the Brexiteer European Research Group (ERG). Her claim that other Tories got the leader they wanted in Rishi Sunak suggests a developing schism among Tory MPs that could split the party as it grows – and let’s hope it does.

She certainly seems to be trying to undermine Sunak, with a letter that confuses the European Convention on (and Court of) Human Rights with the European Union and European Court of Justice.

For information: UK citizens have never – at the time of writing – voted to relinquish their rights to a free and fair trial, democratic elections, freedom of association (that is, the right to meet anybody we want to), privacy, or any of the others that the Convention upholds.

TWITTER catches Boris Johnson lying about the reason for London police station closures

DWP and police target criminal gangs involved in benefit fraud. What about those involved in tax evasion?

The video has been released after the Daily Telegraph published an online calculator to show readers how much of their salaries is being used to pay social security benefits in what many have dubbed an act of Nazi-style hate crime.

The argument against these acts by the government, police and media is simple: tax evasion costs the UK far more than benefit fraud and error but is investigated by far fewer people and nobody (to This Writer’s knowledge) has ever been arrested in a video clip. Here are some facts:

Corporate profits have nearly doubled since 2019 while average wages are lower than in 2007. Why are the government, Bank of England and bosses blaming wage rises for inflation?

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The taxman has 55 BILLION items of our data from social media spying. What about data protection?

HMRC: it’s using artificial intelligence to gather information about you. But is it gathering too much?

This does not seem right:

The taxman has been using its own data system for years to snoop on taxpayers.

HMRC holds billions of our data items, including email and bank records, as part of its system used to target taxpayers for investigations.

It has revealed that there are now 55 billion items of data relating to taxpayers in its ‘Connect’ system, which was launched to tackle the growing tax gap, according to tax investigation insurance experts PfP.

The tax gap is the difference between the tax that should be paid and the amount HMRC actually collects and last year the figure stood at £32billion.

The article goes on to say that Connect has been in use since 2010 and its database has now grown to 6,100 gigabytes of taxpayer data.

The implication is that none of the information about any of us has been discarded – and it seems to me that this is in breach of the Data Protection Act.

The fifth data protection principle states that information should not be kept longer than is required for the purpose for which it was collected.

No specific time limit is given but HM Revenue & Customs’ own guidelines suggest that six years is the reasonable limit.

That means, by its own measure, HMRC may have retained seven years’ worth of information illegally.

Source: Taxman is snooping on emails and social media – and now holds 55 BILLION items of our data on its AI system in a bid to tackle tax evasion

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Rishi Sunak asks ethics advisor to investigate Nadhim Zahawi’s tax affairs

Here’s the current situation: Rishi Sunak has asked his (so-called) independent ethics advisor to “fully investigate” whether Nadhim Zahawi complied with the Ministerial Code in failing to make correct tax payments at the appropriate time.

This will be a big test for Sir Laurie Magnus. Smart thinkers say the purpose of an ethics advisor is to whitewash dodgy behaviour by ministers; if that doesn’t happen, if the decision goes against those in power, then the ethics advisor doesn’t last long in the post. We’ve seen that in recent years.

This is the story so far:

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Nadhim Zahawi’s tax ‘error’ could topple Rishi Sunak’s Tory government

Most people cannot avoid paying tax; it is taken from them automatically, or they face the threat of hefty penalties if they fail to file their tax return properly.

So when they see government officials getting away with apparent tax evasion with only a metaphorical slap on the wrist, they get very angry indeed.

Members of Rishi Sunak’s Tory government have closed ranks around Nadhim Zahawi, claiming that his tax affairs are perfectly in order – even though we know they haven’t been in the recent past.

And ‘Seatbelt’ Sunak himself hasn’t covered himself in glory lately either.

Will the Zahawi affair sink the government? Consider – and enjoy Maximilien Robespierre’s pronunciation of Zahawi’s surname:

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Nadhim Zahawi and tax: remember this

Nadhim Zahawi: waving the flag and (allegedly) fiddling the figures?

If you’re not familiar with the story, here it is.

This comment is well worth adding, though:

Have YOU donated to my crowdfunding appeal, raising funds to fight false libel claims by TV celebrities who should know better? These court cases cost a lot of money so every penny will help ensure that wealth doesn’t beat justice.

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Former Tory Chancellor ‘underpaid’ millions in tax. Isn’t that a crime?

It looks like tax evasion to This Writer – and that would indeed be a crime.

Have a look at the video clip by A Different Bias, to get familiar with the story:

Phil Moorhouse gives some interesting information, but I think he’s mistaken on a couple of points.

Firstly, tax avoidance isn’t a crime; it’s the legal rearranging of a person’s financial affairs in order to pay as little tax as possible.

In this case, former Chancellor and stable-heater Nadhim Zahawi appears to have used Gibraltar-registered family trust Balshore Investments to hold shares in the polling firm YouGov.

That would be perfectly acceptable legally – it’s tax avoidance. I should make clear that Zahawi himself has claimed that he does not have, and never has had, an interest in Balshore Investments and he is not a beneficiary.

The stake in YouGov, worth more than £20 million, was sold by 2018, with the proceeds transferred to an unknown recipient.

Think tank Tax Policy Associates has estimated that this should have incurred capital gains tax of about £3.7 million.

It seems Zahawi had not paid it. That would be tax evasion, which is a crime – if, indeed, he had had an interest in Balshore Investments and had been a beneficiary.

But now it seems he has agreed to pay the money to HM Revenue and Customs. Why would he do that if he didn’t owe it?

The maximum penalty for tax evasion in the UK is seven years in prison or an unlimited fine.

Zahawi has not been fined. For that to happen, a court trial would have to have taken place. He has merely (we’re told) agreed to pay the money.

And this, as Phil said in the clip, is odd. If anybody in the general population had committed a benefit-related crime, they would have faced severe penalties.

So, if he did commit tax evasion, one would have to wonder how this former Conservative Chancellor of the Exchequer has managed to get away with it.

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Is time running out for ‘evasion’ politicians like Nadhim Zahawi?

Nadhim Zahawi: this is from 2016, but relevant to today, when he appeared on TV to defend prime minister Boris Johnson’s weird financial arrangements in the run-up to local elections.

Vaccines minister Nadhim Zahawi was on ‘morning media junket’ duty today (May 5) and duly toured the studios showing us how the BBC toes the Tory line rather than doing anything useful.

He made a big thing of the possibility that everybody over 50 could have a third Covid-19 vaccine injection by the autumn (I’m still waiting for my second, although I know autumn is still a long way away), but became the world’s biggest ignoramus when asked about anything else, such as Boris Johnson’s weird finances.

The performances – or rather,  the public reaction to them – suggested more than he wanted, though:

They suggested that time is running out for this kind of evasion. People are wise to it and, through the social media, we are making other people wise to it too.

Consider the following. Here’s how he started out:

And here’s the commentary on it:

Notice that Zahawi had an easy ride on the BBC in comparison with elsewhere:

Ultimately, all the minister achieved was to get people to examine his own record – and it was found wanting:

So it seems the game has been given away and Zahawi’s selfish politics is on the way out.

Or is it?

The only reliable yardstick of public opinion is the result of an election, and we have a huge series of polls across the UK tomorrow (May 6).

On the basis of what they have done, the Conservatives should go down like the proverbial lead balloon.

But will they?

Or are there still enough drones out there – who will vote for them no matter how corrupt they prove to be – to see them through?

I fear the latter. The BBC has to be preaching to someone, after all – and it has the lion’s share of the news audience.

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By-election candidate supports tax avoidance for the rich – but hammered the vulnerable with the bedroom tax

Chris Davies: He supports tax avoidance and evasion, according to his voting record.

If you were reading This Site yesterday (July 30), you’ll be aware that a friend on Facebook has been looking at the Parliamentary voting record of Chris Davies, the former MP and current Conservative candidate in the Brecon and Radnorshire by-election – and it makes grim reading.

The same friend has now finished researching Mr Davies’s record on taxation and the results speak for themselves. Amongst other decisions…

• Davies voted against a series of proposals intended to reduce tax avoidance and evasion.
• Davies voted against an investigation into the banking industry’s failure to prevent tax evasion.
• Davies voted against requiring multinational enterprises to publish a country by country tax strategy including information on their attitude to tax planning (this could have established evidence to show how companies avoid paying tax).
• Davies voted against giving the Financial Conduct Authority and Prudential Regulation Authority duties to combat abusive tax avoidance arrangements.
• Davies voted not to support the publishing full details of the Government’s tax settlement with Google and for an international agreement to implement country-by-country reporting of company accounts.

So you can see that Mr Davies is a big fan of tax avoidance and evasion by corporations and the very rich. Conversely:

• Davies voted to ensure that victims of domestic abuse would have to pay extra charges – the bedroom tax – if they were provided with a secure tenancy that incorporates a spare room.

So he’s against tax fairness; he would let corporations and the rich get away without paying a huge amount of tax that would hugely contribute to public services, but he’s happy to hammer the vulnerable with an unfair and random tax that affects people according to the accommodation that is allocated to them (which in turn is based on what is available).

I hope the people of Brecon and Radnorshire pay attention to this abysmal record – while also remembering that Mr Davies is himself a convict, having been found guilty of faking expenses claims earlier this year.

Mr Davies should never have been voted into Westminster. It is time to kick him back into the political wilderness.

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POLL: Are John McDonnell’s plans to revolutionise the economy feasible?

The shadow chancellor is planning to revolutionise the financial sector.

Take a look at the video in John McDonnell’s tweet, below:

Mr McDonnell rightly states that the finance sector should be the servant of the nation’s economy, not its master – that its responsibility is to generate the wealth we need to pay for the advances we want – and I hope nobody reading this would disagree.

He goes on to make several suggestions about how to make this happen – a financial transactions (“Robin Hood”) tax and tackling tax evasion are top of the list.

But will his ideas work? Let’s have a poll.

[polldaddy poll=10110122]

I would appreciate your detailed opinions as well – please send them in as comments.

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No prosecutions: Were Tory tax evasion laws to protect their friends rather than prosecute OUR enemies?

Draw your own conclusions from this report by Left Foot Forward:

Not a single person has been jailed or even prosecuted for tax evasion since the Tories brought in what they claimed were “tough” new measures against tax dodgers, it was shown today.

Two new laws criminalising corporate tax evasion came into force last September, but not a single person has faced prosecution, it’s been revealed, despite tax dodging amounting to at least £7bn last year alone.

Responding to a written question, Mel Stride, Secretary to the Treasury admitted:

“To date no prosecutions have been either brought to court or completed under the ‘failure to prevent the facilitation of UK and foreign tax evasion’ clause of the Criminal Finances Act 2017.”

And it was revealed in February that the Tories’ tax avoidance measures since 2010 are raising billions less than the amounts first promised.

Source: Revealed: not a single person has been prosecuted under the Tories’ offshore tax evasion laws | Left Foot Forward

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