"Quite legally, of course, but they nonetheless cleverly arranged their affairs so that the inherited millions of property wealth would deftly swerve the taxman's rugby tackle."
How? As their Mother is still alive there would have been no tax to pay. If their father left the house to the children in trust he must have had little regard for his wife. It makes no sense
Smearing people for doing something perfectly legal is pretty low isn't it?
So when is the Labour majority price going to crash?
We are still a long way from that David. Ed is brilliant when on the attack but very underwhelming in defence. He will have to defend again at some stage.
I don't think he is that good on the attack but he is truly terrible defending. But it does not matter. His polling is so bad that his capacity to hurt Labour further from here is modest.
The Tories have run the line this week that they have created 1000 jobs for every day they have been in office. It is an absolutely incredible achievement, especially as part of the EU which is dogged with high, structural unemployment. And where has it got them? Absolutely nowhere.
People are just not listening to them or giving the alternative the critical analysis that Labour's rag bag of policies requires. What I find increasingly bewildering is the confidence that this is suddenly all going to change in the next 90 days. It might. But then again...
The confidence of some of the Tory side is pretty amazing, and it seems too genuine to be mere bluster, but equally the lack of confidence in the other side is pretty amazing too. I know Scotland is bad for them and they probably won't reach far into areas in the south that they would want to, but the few good lines the Tories could use to their advantage don't seem to be working. Cheer up, Labour!
When Miliband is PM. A lot of people on PB are going to have to ask themselves how they can be so wrong about something they are so certain they are right about.
That should not prove difficult for people whatever the outcome. It is a key characteristic of both the political pundit and the civilian political wonk, to hold opinions of deep certainty, to the point of mocking one's opponents, and yet still be able to retain confidence in one's predictions even after those opinions are proven to be entirely incorrect.
I have no doubt I will find myself able to predict things even if my near 5 year prediction of a Labour majority is proven wrong.
So when is the Labour majority price going to crash?
We are still a long way from that David. Ed is brilliant when on the attack but very underwhelming in defence. He will have to defend again at some stage.
I don't think he is that good on the attack but he is truly terrible defending. But it does not matter. His polling is so bad that his capacity to hurt Labour further from here is modest.
The Tories have run the line this week that they have created 1000 jobs for every day they have been in office. It is an absolutely incredible achievement, especially as part of the EU which is dogged with high, structural unemployment. And where has it got them? Absolutely nowhere.
People are just not listening to them or giving the alternative the critical analysis that Labour's rag bag of policies requires. What I find increasingly bewildering is the confidence that this is suddenly all going to change in the next 90 days. It might. But then again...
@Casino_Royale. Thank you for your 12 Feb 2015 posts of 4:03pm[0], 3:47pm[1], 3:42pm[2], 3:39pm[3], 3:22pm[4], 3:10pm[5], 3:04pm[6], 2:43pm[7], 2:35pm[8]. They were most interesting. Did you manage to grab any handouts? Did they say they were going to put stuff online?
Strange decision to run a story on the front page of the Mail about Miliband's tax affairs. It looks so contrived its unlikely to be believed. First rule of advertising is preach to the semi converted.
They'd have done better if they'd run it in a few weeks when it might have looked like something had come to light. This is self evidently just doing what the Mail does...'
The Mail is probably the one remaining newspaper that still has the ability to frighten politicians and drive agendas, because it is so successful, and also so unpredictable, And because the editor is a strange kind of mercurial genius, friend of Gordon Brown, yet no friend of the Milibands.
The Mail is more *important* than Murdoch, I suspect. And I write mainly for the Murdoch press, not Dacre.
Ralphgate
Piegate
The last few times it has taken on Ed it has got its sorry arse kicked. In all fairness.
Being personally vilified by the Mail will probably improve Miliband's stock with the 40% of the voters he is aiming for. It's not as though the Mail hasn't been doing anything else ever since he became leader. I seriously doubt it sways one vote in either direction.
Britain Elects @britainelects · 22s 22 seconds ago Labour GAIN Mark Hall (Harlow) from UKIP.
Kippers really don't have much to celebrate these days. Could they end up behind even the obscure fringe party that is the Lib Dems ?
UKIP are sooooooo 2014! Seriously though, it does feel as if the UKIP thing is fading away. Yes, UKIP got some mileage by being fronted by an irreverent joker in tweeds, but I suspect that was just mid-term novelty stuff - unsustainable as a desperately tight election draws closer and minds become focussed.
Brilliantly insightful and damning comment about Cameron on PB earlier today. Someone, I forget who, said he "looked like a prime minister".
They meant it as a compliment. But it really underlines the nagging weakness about the man. He does look like a prime minister, he even sounds like one. But still after 5 years he still hasn't progressed beyond central casting.
There is no defining rough edge, no thing he really wanted to achieve. He is filling time.
@GuidoFawkes: Senior gov source: "If Ed's sanctimonious rhetoric on tax avoidance is to mean anything, he needs to stop pleading the Starbucks defence."
Some on here are wilfully it seems failing to understand the Ed M deed of variation.
It is simple.
By leaving the house to his wife entirely on his death, Dad M didn't use his IHT allowance. On Mum M's death only her IHT allowance would be available to offset against the estate = bigger IHT bill.
So I expect the Deed split the property from jointly held to tenants in common and then put Dad's share in to a Will trust using his IHT allowance and not losing it.
This was surely done and planned to save IHT on Mum M's eventual death for the Boy M's benefit.
Less known is this would also protect the boy M's inheritance from seeing the house sold to fund Mum M's care fees (should she ever need them) in so far as Dad M's share would be carved out for the Trust and not part of Mum M's wealth for funding her care.
The taxpayer would have to pick that up if Mum M's assets were run down by the care costs.
Perfectly good tax avoidance... some would see it as vanilla but would the man on the omnibus?
I can't believe the Daily Mail has gone and stuck Milly Dowler on the front page after a slightly ill judged comparison by Nick Robinson. That's one of the most vile front pages I've ever seen.
Ipsos Mori could be a low outlier for UKIP - seriously out of kilter with other polls.
The Lib Dems don't have that straw.
Mori was fascinating. Apparently based on today's poll the Greens have twice the amount of support in the South of England (12%) that UKIP do (6%). It must be the fear of fracking.............
Truly a 'bolt from the blue'.....nobody saw this coming.....
Ed Miliband was forced to defend his own tax affairs yesterday after being accused of benefiting from a controversial tax-avoidance scheme. The Labour leader has spent the week lambasting ‘tax dodgers’ in the wake of the HSBC scandal, but he now faces questions over his own family’s practices.
I can't believe the Daily Mail has gone and stuck Milly Dowler on the front page after a slightly ill judged comparison by Nick Robinson. That's one of the most vile front pages I've ever seen.
You can believe anything from the newspaper that has supported fascism for over 80 years .
I can't believe the Daily Mail has gone and stuck Milly Dowler on the front page after a slightly ill judged comparison by Nick Robinson. That's one of the most vile front pages I've ever seen.
I agree about the Mail, but I don't think it was Nick Robinson's comparison i.e. I don't think he brought Milly Dowler into the discussion
after a slightly ill judged comparison by Nick Robinson.
The comparison was made by a Miliband staffer according to the Telegraph, who also provide a name
That's a development if they are naming names and can back it up, rather than Toenails backing up the truck as soon as he tweeted the comment saying no no all a big misunderstanding.
I can't believe the Daily Mail has gone and stuck Milly Dowler on the front page after a slightly ill judged comparison by Nick Robinson. That's one of the most vile front pages I've ever seen.
I've seen worse, do you remember the Nick Clegg is a Nazi frontpage from 2010?
Some on here are wilfully it seems failing to understand the Ed M deed of variation.
It is simple.
By leaving the house to his wife entirely on his death, Dad M didn't use his IHT allowance. On Mum M's death only her IHT allowance would be available to offset against the estate = bigger IHT bill.
So I expect the Deed split the property from jointly held to tenants in common and then put Dad's share in to a Will trust using his IHT allowance and not losing it.
This was surely done and planned to save IHT on Mum M's eventual death for the Boy M's benefit.
Less known is this would also protect the boy M's inheritance from seeing the house sold to fund Mum M's care fees (should she ever need them) in so far as Dad M's share would be carved out for the Trust and not part of Mum M's wealth for funding her care.
The taxpayer would have to pick that up if Mum M's assets were run down by the care costs.
Perfectly good tax avoidance... some would see it as vanilla but would the man on the omnibus?
If you have to explain it like that, you've lost the average voter.
Most will see Miliband avoiding tax, and assume rightly or wrongly, that he's a hypocrite and at it too.
Brilliantly insightful and damning comment about Cameron on PB earlier today. Someone, I forget who, said he "looked like a prime minister".
They meant it as a compliment. But it really underlines the nagging weakness about the man. He does look like a prime minister, he even sounds like one. But still after 5 years he still hasn't progressed beyond central casting.
There is no defining rough edge, no thing he really wanted to achieve. He is filling time.
Interesting logic - Gordon Brown had more rough edges I'd suggest and when he became PM there was NOTHING after all the craving to get the gig, he had nothing as a proposition.
I can't believe the Daily Mail has gone and stuck Milly Dowler on the front page after a slightly ill judged comparison by Nick Robinson. That's one of the most vile front pages I've ever seen.
I agree about the Mail, but I don't think it was Nick Robinson's comparison i.e. I don't think he brought Milly Dowler into the discussion
Toenails seems to have rowed back on twitter about it.
I can't believe the Daily Mail has gone and stuck Milly Dowler on the front page after a slightly ill judged comparison by Nick Robinson. That's one of the most vile front pages I've ever seen.
Bit harsh on Miliband - he's a creep but not the vilest ever.
after a slightly ill judged comparison by Nick Robinson.
The comparison was made by a Miliband staffer according to the Telegraph, who also provide a name
That's a development if they are naming names and can back it up, rather than Toenails backing up the truck as soon as he tweeted the comment saying no no all a big misunderstanding.
I can't believe the Daily Mail has gone and stuck Milly Dowler on the front page after a slightly ill judged comparison by Nick Robinson. That's one of the most vile front pages I've ever seen.
I can't believe the Daily Mail has gone and stuck Milly Dowler on the front page after a slightly ill judged comparison by Nick Robinson. That's one of the most vile front pages I've ever seen.
I agree about the Mail, but I don't think it was Nick Robinson's comparison i.e. I don't think he brought Milly Dowler into the discussion
Toenails seems to have rowed back on twitter about it.
A spokesman for Mr Miliband said that “no one connected to Ed Miliband” used the phrase ‘Milly Dowler moment’.
However, the spokesman did not deny that Milly Dowler was mentioned while discussing the issue of Lord Fink.
It is understood that although Mr Baldwin did not use the exact phrase "Milly Dowler moment", Mr Robinson's original blog gives the "correct flavour of the conversation".
I can't believe the Daily Mail has gone and stuck Milly Dowler on the front page after a slightly ill judged comparison by Nick Robinson. That's one of the most vile front pages I've ever seen.
I believe one of the Fawkes people is suggesting it was Labour's spinnner Mr. Baldwin who made that disgusting comparison...
I can't believe the Daily Mail has gone and stuck Milly Dowler on the front page after a slightly ill judged comparison by Nick Robinson. That's one of the most vile front pages I've ever seen.
I agree about the Mail, but I don't think it was Nick Robinson's comparison i.e. I don't think he brought Milly Dowler into the discussion
Toenails seems to have rowed back on twitter about it.
A spokesman for Mr Miliband said that “no one connected to Ed Miliband” used the phrase ‘Milly Dowler moment’.
However, the spokesman did not deny that Milly Dowler was mentioned while discussing the issue of Lord Fink.
It is understood that although Mr Baldwin did not use the exact phrase "Milly Dowler moment", Mr Robinson's original blog gives the "correct flavour of the conversation".
Some on here are wilfully it seems failing to understand the Ed M deed of variation.
It is simple.
By leaving the house to his wife entirely on his death, Dad M didn't use his IHT allowance. On Mum M's death only her IHT allowance would be available to offset against the estate = bigger IHT bill.
So I expect the Deed split the property from jointly held to tenants in common and then put Dad's share in to a Will trust using his IHT allowance and not losing it.
This was surely done and planned to save IHT on Mum M's eventual death for the Boy M's benefit.
Less known is this would also protect the boy M's inheritance from seeing the house sold to fund Mum M's care fees (should she ever need them) in so far as Dad M's share would be carved out for the Trust and not part of Mum M's wealth for funding her care.
The taxpayer would have to pick that up if Mum M's assets were run down by the care costs.
Perfectly good tax avoidance... some would see it as vanilla but would the man on the omnibus?
If you have to explain it like that, you've lost the average voter.
Most will see Miliband avoiding tax, and assume rightly or wrongly, that he's a hypocrite and at it too.
@FrancisUrquhart It depends on the actual conversation he overheard, and the way it was said. On the flimsiest of evidence, some on here want to believe that it was a callous thoughtless remark. Now go back to telling me how Ed smeared Fink yesterday.
Truly a 'bolt from the blue'.....nobody saw this coming.....
Ed Miliband was forced to defend his own tax affairs yesterday after being accused of benefiting from a controversial tax-avoidance scheme. The Labour leader has spent the week lambasting ‘tax dodgers’ in the wake of the HSBC scandal, but he now faces questions over his own family’s practices.
There is likely to be a lot of interest in the "tax planning" of Labour Front Benchers. There are a fair few with substantial assets, wouldn't surprise me if a few made full use of allowances. Then there is Tony Blairs offshore earnings and Gordon Brown's charity.
I can't believe the Daily Mail has gone and stuck Milly Dowler on the front page after a slightly ill judged comparison by Nick Robinson. That's one of the most vile front pages I've ever seen.
You can believe anything from the newspaper that has supported fascism for over 80 years .
That is not even remotely true, and has about as much integrity as their headlines. Hang your head in shame.
@FrancisUrquhart It depends on the actual conversation he overheard, and the way it was said. On the flimsiest of evidence, some on here want to believe that it was a callous thoughtless remark. Now go back to telling me how Ed smeared Fink yesterday.
I can't believe the Daily Mail has gone and stuck Milly Dowler on the front page after a slightly ill judged comparison by Nick Robinson. That's one of the most vile front pages I've ever seen.
I believe one of the Fawkes people is suggesting it was Labour's spinnner Mr. Baldwin who made that disgusting comparison...
Interesting... Toenails should quote what he actually said.
I can't believe the Daily Mail has gone and stuck Milly Dowler on the front page after a slightly ill judged comparison by Nick Robinson. That's one of the most vile front pages I've ever seen.
You can believe anything from the newspaper that has supported fascism for over 80 years .
That is not even remotely true, and has about as much integrity as their headlines. Hang your head in shame.
You must be a Daily Mail reader , it is perfectly true .
Ralph/Ed's IHT arrangements ***COULD*** become serious for Ed were the BBC, Sky and ITV to make a big issue about it.
However, I doubt much will be said and The Rant is preaching to the converted....
I predict the BBC will be about as interested in asking Ed about his arrangements as asking him about Lord Paul or if he wanted to weaponize the NHS...i.e Ed just have to ask, there is this story in the Mail (booooooo), ask slightly different question, answer no, ok...
So 24 weeks after the Jay report and a week after Eric Pickles finally realised that he had to get off his fat arse why have Home Secretary Theresa May and Policing Minister Mike Penning still taken no action about the South Yorkshire Plods ?
Perhaps May and Penning think the SYP is 'fit for purpose'.
after a slightly ill judged comparison by Nick Robinson.
The comparison was made by a Miliband staffer according to the Telegraph, who also provide a name
I'm afraid Miliband has only himself to blame. The press gave him the benefit of the doubt when he claimed he never voiced his desire to 'weaponize' the NHS - it was just a nasty Cameron smear. Then, of course, they all learnt that a roomful of BBC executives could attest the fact. Peter Oborne excepted, Ed's geeky-but-honest routine doesn't fall anyone any more.
@GIN1138 And no one is going to compare the Millibands tax with the Camerons? Are you sure this will work out well?
But Miliband is the one who is acting "holier than thou" (as always) so if he is shown to be a tax avoiding hypocrite himself and that view gains traction in the public mind it will obviously be a serious blow for him...
But like I say, chances are this will remain a story that only"the Right Wing press" is interested in.
So 24 weeks after the Jay report and a week after Eric Pickles finally realised that he had to get off his fat arse why have Home Secretary Theresa May and Policing Minister Mike Penning still taken no action about the South Yorkshire Plods ?
Perhaps May and Penning think the SYP is 'fit for purpose'.
Does anyone agree with them ?
Genuine question, is Socrates still banned and if so why?
after a slightly ill judged comparison by Nick Robinson.
The comparison was made by a Miliband staffer according to the Telegraph, who also provide a name
I'm afraid Miliband has only himself to blame. The press gave him the benefit of the doubt when he claimed he never voiced his desire to 'weaponize' the NHS - it was just a nasty Cameron smear. Then, of course, they all learnt that a roomful of BBC executives could attest the fact. Peter Oborne excepted, Ed's geeky-but-honest routine doesn't fall anyone any more.
So when is the Labour majority price going to crash?
We are still a long way from that David. Ed is brilliant when on the attack but very underwhelming in defence. He will have to defend again at some stage.
The Tories have run the line this week that they have created 1000 jobs for every day they have been in office. It is an absolutely incredible achievement, especially as part of the EU which is dogged with high, structural unemployment. And where has it got them? Absolutely nowhere.
Perhaps because most people don't work for the joy of working but to earn money.
An economy where workers are getting good pay rises is better for votes than one where they are not and creating a lot of taxpayer subsidised low skilled jobs doesn't change that.
The Party get the income from the shares in the form of dividends, and Mills reduced his tax bill, by a whacking amount. A wizard tax avoiding wheeze conjured up by Labour advisers.
Tonight's Yougov would Ed home with a comfortable majority of 30 according to Baxter. Sleep easy tonight.
The election is not tomorrow though – Ed will have to defend again unless he can manufacturer attack themes until 7 May. The majority still looks difficult to me.
after a slightly ill judged comparison by Nick Robinson.
The comparison was made by a Miliband staffer according to the Telegraph, who also provide a name
I'm afraid Miliband has only himself to blame. The press gave him the benefit of the doubt when he claimed he never voiced his desire to 'weaponize' the NHS - it was just a nasty Cameron smear. Then, of course, they all learnt that a roomful of BBC executives could attest the fact. Peter Oborne excepted, Ed's geeky-but-honest routine doesn't fall anyone any more.
I enjoyed Oborne's piece in The Spectator, particularly his obvious mirth at witnessing Ed Vaizey having lunch with one of the leading henchmen from the Murdoch Empire.
Tonight's Yougov would Ed home with a comfortable majority of 30 according to Baxter. Sleep easy tonight.
The election is not tomorrow though – Ed will have to defend again unless he can manufacturer attack themes until 7 May. The majority still looks difficult to me.
Possibly, yes. But this inheritance tax stuff can do damage to Miliband: making him look like a hypocrite, and, maybe more importantly, reminding everyone, once again, just how rich he really is.
He owns a house worth £2.8m, his wife earns £200k a year, his brother makes £50k in an afternoon for a speech.
To most people, these are stupefying, unbelievable amounts of money.
But not to EdM.
Which is why we're treated to the anecdotes of the 'ordinary people' of Dartmouth Park.
So when is the Labour majority price going to crash?
We are still a long way from that David. Ed is brilliant when on the attack but very underwhelming in defence. He will have to defend again at some stage.
The Tories have run the line this week that they have created 1000 jobs for every day they have been in office. It is an absolutely incredible achievement, especially as part of the EU which is dogged with high, structural unemployment. And where has it got them? Absolutely nowhere.
Perhaps because most people don't work for the joy of working but to earn money.
An economy where workers are getting good pay rises is better for votes than one where they are not and creating a lot of taxpayer subsidised low skilled jobs doesn't change that.
Correct. A lot of people have been forced to trade well-paid comfortable jobs for low-paid uncomfortable jobs with less attractive hours.
So when is the Labour majority price going to crash?
We are still a long way from that David. Ed is brilliant when on the attack but very underwhelming in defence. He will have to defend again at some stage.
The Tories have run the line this week that they have created 1000 jobs for every day they have been in office. It is an absolutely incredible achievement, especially as part of the EU which is dogged with high, structural unemployment. And where has it got them? Absolutely nowhere.
Perhaps because most people don't work for the joy of working but to earn money.
An economy where workers are getting good pay rises is better for votes than one where they are not and creating a lot of taxpayer subsidised low skilled jobs doesn't change that.
Correct. A lot of people have been forced to trade well-paid comfortable jobs for low-paid uncomfortable jobs with less attractive hours.
@GIN1138 And no one is going to compare the Millibands tax with the Camerons? Are you sure this will work out well?
It levels the playing field. People automatically assume the worst about Cameron / Rich Tory anyway. By most voters standards Miliband's disgustingly wealthy.
Tonight's Yougov would Ed home with a comfortable majority of 30 according to Baxter. Sleep easy tonight.
The election is not tomorrow though – Ed will have to defend again unless he can manufacturer attack themes until 7 May. The majority still looks difficult to me.
Scotland makes it tricky.
Right. I think the very best he can hope is a 10pt swingback from the SNP from current polling – I stress that's at the very top of the range for Labour. I haven't run the numbers on what that would mean in seats, but it still doesn't look great for LAB vs 2010.
And, most likely, he doesn't take 10pts back – more like 5-7pts I reckon...
Ancient story that Miliband has stupidly revived by obsessing about tax dodgers. The Milibands themselves dodged tax. Quite legally, of course, but they nonetheless cleverly arranged their affairs so that the inherited millions of property wealth would deftly swerve the taxman's rugby tackle.
They deftly swerved nothing and dodged nothing. You do realise there was no tax to pay and Mrs Miliband is still alive, and it was her decision to execute the deed of variation?
The day after Ralph died she could have passed the entire property to her children, and after surviving 7 years the entire £2+ million would now be outside of the Taxman's clutches [with partial relief after 3 years]. These are tax breaks explicitly laid down by Parliament.
So was Ralph's nil rate band, which he forgot to use. As a concession to the poorly advised, the law permits a deed of variation, either to provide for people unaccountably left out of a will, or to simply make it more tax efficient. There is nothing unusual or immoral in this mechanism.
It is scarcely different from having the right to amend one's tax return [in one's favour] retrospectively if you have forgotten to carry forward a loss, or if it would be more advantageous to utilize a loss in that particular tax year.
I can't believe the Daily Mail has gone and stuck Milly Dowler on the front page after a slightly ill judged comparison by Nick Robinson. That's one of the most vile front pages I've ever seen.
You can believe anything from the newspaper that has supported fascism for over 80 years .
That is not even remotely true, and has about as much integrity as their headlines. Hang your head in shame.
You must be a Daily Mail reader , it is perfectly true .
Im not a daily mail reader. The DM flirted with fascism in the 1930s, a pretty uncertain time, without the knowledge of the sheer horror that was about to be carried out there. It wasnt alone, flirting with an ideology that seemed to be giving Germany, a country humiliated by defeat and financially crippled as a consequence, a new future.
Once the outbreak of war all support for fascism stopped. Full stop.
What is rather shocking, is not the flirtation with fascism through ignorance in the thirties, but the flirtation with soviet communism that carried on right into the eighties, in the full knowledge of the aggressively expansionist misery, murder and mayhem that it had created, often by the very media groups and organisations that are viciously anti DM.
@TheWatcher You did read that link I posted? Cameron's father made his money arranging (legal) offshore tax schemes. It would be a fair bet he would have made some interesting arrangements....possibly?
However, the changes in 2007 mean that a surviving spouse now inherits the tax-free sum that their partner did not use. Without the deed of variation, the beneficiaries of Marion’s estate would benefit from any of Ralph’s unused allowance as well as her allowance; with it, they will only get anything that wasn’t used. So there is no tax advantage.
By criticising tax avoidance — an entirely legal activity — Ed Miliband has opened up some of his own colleagues and donors to questions about their own tax affairs.
They include donor John Mills, who gave £1.65m to Labour in shares two years ago because it was the “most tax-efficient way of doing this”. The Labour leader may also see renewed scrutiny of the arrangements set up around the Miliband family home after the death of his father.
It's lucky Mail readers only look at the pictures. The story is feeble to the point of non existence. Though it amounts to nothing it was a foolish thing for Ralph or his wife to have done. It will have saved them precisely nothing and is usually set up by a lawyer who wants to make a few extra quid. Far better to leave the house to his wife tax free and she could have made any arrangement she wanted including giving it to them in the expectation of living seven years.
As it happens the law was changed and children now inherit the combined relief from both parents so they are unlikely to have saved anything
@TheWatcher You did read that link I posted? Cameron's father made his money arranging (legal) offshore tax schemes. It would be a fair bet he would have made some interesting arrangements....possibly?
Legal you say. And the problem with that?
As I said, that will have been priced into any assumption already made about a wealthy Tory.
(Incidentally, 'possibly'' and 'allegedly' are no defence against defamation, if you were using the former in that context)
Ancient story that Miliband has stupidly revived by obsessing about tax dodgers. The Milibands themselves dodged tax. Quite legally, of course, but they nonetheless cleverly arranged their affairs so that the inherited millions of property wealth would deftly swerve the taxman's rugby tackle.
They deftly swerved nothing and dodged nothing. You do realise there was no tax to pay and Mrs Miliband is still alive, and it was her decision to execute the deed of variation?
The day after Ralph died she could have passed the entire property to her children, and after surviving 7 years the entire £2+ million would now be outside of the Taxman's clutches [with partial relief after 3 years]. These are tax breaks explicitly laid down by Parliament.
So was Ralph's nil rate band, which he forgot to use. As a concession to the poorly advised, the law permits a deed of variation, either to provide for people unaccountably left out of a will, or to simply make it more tax efficient. There is nothing unusual or immoral in this mechanism.
It is scarcely different from having the right to amend one's tax return [in one's favour] retrospectively if you have forgotten to carry forward a loss, or if it would be more advantageous to utilize a loss in that particular tax year.
That's right – there isn't any tax advantage beyond what would normally have happened if the original beneficiary had simple used their allowance.
However, the changes in 2007 mean that a surviving spouse now inherits the tax-free sum that their partner did not use. Without the deed of variation, the beneficiaries of Marion’s estate would benefit from any of Ralph’s unused allowance as well as her allowance; with it, they will only get anything that wasn’t used. So there is no tax advantage.
The tax rules have made Milibands redrawing of the will obselete, but he could not forecast that at the time.
So Ed (and family) attempted to avoid Inheritance tax, but wound up not saving a penny, and no doubt paying M'learned friends and hanging an albatross around his own neck.
Ed really is pretty crap to have managed that. He is even crap at dodging tax!
@TheWatcher I know, I was using them ironically. There is no problem in that. Where it really starts is that if he arranged tax affairs for others offshore, he could make a pretty good job in his own will rather than the one Ed's father left? This apart from a perception that offshore accounts might not be moral? You know how the public are?
However, the changes in 2007 mean that a surviving spouse now inherits the tax-free sum that their partner did not use. Without the deed of variation, the beneficiaries of Marion’s estate would benefit from any of Ralph’s unused allowance as well as her allowance; with it, they will only get anything that wasn’t used. So there is no tax advantage.
Ah right, he gave his family a millionaires tax break? Which is how labour would play it if the roles were reversed.
People don't get angry when politicians do the same things they do themselves.
And inheritance tax planning (to avoid care home fees) and tax avoidance on income (salary sacrifice into pensions for example) are increasingly widespread.
But people do get angry when politicians do the things they're not able to do themselves.
So mentions of Swiss bank accounts and tax havens are treated differently.
"They deftly swerved nothing and dodged nothing. You do realise there was no tax to pay and Mrs Miliband is still alive, and it was her decision to execute the deed of variation?"
Anyone who has lost a member of their family or been an executor of a will will know this. i'd expect one or two lawyers to be on TV and radio scratching their heads at the Mail story tomorrow
"They deftly swerved nothing and dodged nothing. You do realise there was no tax to pay and Mrs Miliband is still alive, and it was her decision to execute the deed of variation?"
Anyone who has lost a member of their family or been an executor of a will will know this. i'd expect one or two lawyers to be on TV and radio scratching their heads at the Mail story tomorrow
Well quite. You might as well argue using Childcare Vouchers is tax avoidance.
And inheritance tax planning (to avoid care home fees) and tax avoidance on income (salary sacrifice into pensions for example) are increasingly widespread.
You do know that the average price of a house in the UK is £100,000 below the tax free IHT limit, don't you?
And inheritance tax planning (to avoid care home fees) and tax avoidance on income (salary sacrifice into pensions for example) are increasingly widespread.
You do know that the average price of a house in the UK is £100,000 below the tax free IHT limit, don't you?
But if the elderly owners have to go into a care home they might be forced to sell their home to pay the fees.
So ownership is transferred a few years beforehand to the next generation.
Ancient story that Miliband has stupidly revived by obsessing about tax dodgers. The Milibands themselves dodged tax. Quite legally, of course, but they nonetheless cleverly arranged their affairs so that the inherited millions of property wealth would deftly swerve the taxman's rugby tackle.
They deftly swerved nothing and dodged nothing. You do realise there was no tax to pay and Mrs Miliband is still alive, and it was her decision to execute the deed of variation?
The day after Ralph died she could have passed the entire property to her children, and after surviving 7 years the entire £2+ million would now be outside of the Taxman's clutches [with partial relief after 3 years]. These are tax breaks explicitly laid down by Parliament.
So was Ralph's nil rate band, which he forgot to use. As a concession to the poorly advised, the law permits a deed of variation, either to provide for people unaccountably left out of a will, or to simply make it more tax efficient. There is nothing unusual or immoral in this mechanism.
It is scarcely different from having the right to amend one's tax return [in one's favour] retrospectively if you have forgotten to carry forward a loss, or if it would be more advantageous to utilize a loss in that particular tax year.
In the current febrile atmosphere (whipped up partly by Ed Miliband) I'm not sure the fact's of the matter really count's for much...
Comments
I have no doubt I will find myself able to predict things even if my near 5 year prediction of a Labour majority is proven wrong.
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Piegate
The last few times it has taken on Ed it has got its sorry arse kicked. In all fairness.
Conservatives HOLD Bar Hill (Cambridgeshire).
And that's the end of tonight's council by elections.
Mark Hall (Harlow) vote result:
LAB - 586
UKIP - 353
CON - 334
GRN - 55
LDEM - 47
Suzy at a Stride on those numbers
Con 787
UKIP 251
LD 238
Lab 235
Green 200
They meant it as a compliment. But it really underlines the nagging weakness about the man. He does look like a prime minister, he even sounds like one. But still after 5 years he still hasn't progressed beyond central casting.
There is no defining rough edge, no thing he really wanted to achieve. He is filling time.
It is simple.
By leaving the house to his wife entirely on his death, Dad M didn't use his IHT allowance. On Mum M's death only her IHT allowance would be available to offset against the estate = bigger IHT bill.
So I expect the Deed split the property from jointly held to tenants in common and then put Dad's share in to a Will trust using his IHT allowance and not losing it.
This was surely done and planned to save IHT on Mum M's eventual death for the Boy M's benefit.
Less known is this would also protect the boy M's inheritance from seeing the house sold to fund Mum M's care fees (should she ever need them) in so far as Dad M's share would be carved out for the Trust and not part of Mum M's wealth for funding her care.
The taxpayer would have to pick that up if Mum M's assets were run down by the care costs.
Perfectly good tax avoidance... some would see it as vanilla but would the man on the omnibus?
Ed Miliband was forced to defend his own tax affairs yesterday after being accused of benefiting from a controversial tax-avoidance scheme.
The Labour leader has spent the week lambasting ‘tax dodgers’ in the wake of the HSBC scandal, but he now faces questions over his own family’s practices.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2951553/Red-Ed-tax-avoider-Property-merry-rounds-Milibands-changed-cutting-inheritance-tax-liability.html#ixzz3RZmURXnn
The Daily Mail is attacking Ed?
I am shocked, I may join the Labour party just so I can rip up my membership!
Most will see Miliband avoiding tax, and assume rightly or wrongly, that he's a hypocrite and at it too.
However, the spokesman did not deny that Milly Dowler was mentioned while discussing the issue of Lord Fink.
It is understood that although Mr Baldwin did not use the exact phrase "Milly Dowler moment", Mr Robinson's original blog gives the "correct flavour of the conversation".
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/ed-miliband/11409156/Miliband-criticised-over-aides-comparison-of-tax-row-to-Milly-Dowler-case.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/energy/11407745/Hinkley-Point-new-nuclear-plant-faces-further-delays.html
or oil refineries:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/energy/oilandgas/11407764/French-oil-giant-Total-to-slash-UK-jobs-at-Lindsey-refinery.html
when the UK now has the high productivity hand car wash industry.
He absolutely butchered her.
It depends on the actual conversation he overheard, and the way it was said.
On the flimsiest of evidence, some on here want to believe that it was a callous thoughtless remark.
Now go back to telling me how Ed smeared Fink yesterday.
http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-22793181
Be careful chucking that sort of mud.
However, I doubt much will be said and The Rant is preaching to the converted....
Nuclear power is extremely expensive (not to say dangerous), so cough up those government billions in subsidies if you like to be blown up.
Story B.
"Lincolnshire refinery production will be halved and jobs lost after Total posts heavy fourth quarter loss on oil price slump"
Blame the Americans.
And with that, goodnight.
And no one is going to compare the Millibands tax with the Camerons?
Are you sure this will work out well?
Perhaps May and Penning think the SYP is 'fit for purpose'.
Does anyone agree with them ?
But like I say, chances are this will remain a story that only"the Right Wing press" is interested in.
Not me....
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/david-cameron/9218119/David-Camerons-inherited-family-wealth-based-in-foreign-tax-havens.html
And I humbly apologise for the brain fart I had downthread getting David Cameron's father's name mixed up with Ed's.
An economy where workers are getting good pay rises is better for votes than one where they are not and creating a lot of taxpayer subsidised low skilled jobs doesn't change that.
https://twitter.com/search?q=Daily Mail front page&src=tyah
Counters the Record's propaganda line neatly.
Which is why we're treated to the anecdotes of the 'ordinary people' of Dartmouth Park.
And, most likely, he doesn't take 10pts back – more like 5-7pts I reckon...
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/feb/12/did-ed-miliband-avoid-inheritance-tax-parents-home-deed-of-variation
The day after Ralph died she could have passed the entire property to her children, and after surviving 7 years the entire £2+ million would now be outside of the Taxman's clutches [with partial relief after 3 years]. These are tax breaks explicitly laid down by Parliament.
So was Ralph's nil rate band, which he forgot to use. As a concession to the poorly advised, the law permits a deed of variation, either to provide for people unaccountably left out of a will, or to simply make it more tax efficient. There is nothing unusual or immoral in this mechanism.
It is scarcely different from having the right to amend one's tax return [in one's favour] retrospectively if you have forgotten to carry forward a loss, or if it would be more advantageous to utilize a loss in that particular tax year.
Once the outbreak of war all support for fascism stopped. Full stop.
What is rather shocking, is not the flirtation with fascism through ignorance in the thirties, but the flirtation with soviet communism that carried on right into the eighties, in the full knowledge of the aggressively expansionist misery, murder and mayhem that it had created, often by the very media groups and organisations that are viciously anti DM.
You did read that link I posted?
Cameron's father made his money arranging (legal) offshore tax schemes.
It would be a fair bet he would have made some interesting arrangements....possibly?
However, the changes in 2007 mean that a surviving spouse now inherits the tax-free sum that their partner did not use. Without the deed of variation, the beneficiaries of Marion’s estate would benefit from any of Ralph’s unused allowance as well as her allowance; with it, they will only get anything that wasn’t used. So there is no tax advantage.
By criticising tax avoidance — an entirely legal activity — Ed Miliband has opened up some of his own colleagues and donors to questions about their own tax affairs.
They include donor John Mills, who gave £1.65m to Labour in shares two years ago because it was the “most tax-efficient way of doing this”. The Labour leader may also see renewed scrutiny of the arrangements set up around the Miliband family home after the death of his father.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/b005e9e8-b2ca-11e4-b234-00144feab7de.html#ixzz3RZvH94oq
As it happens the law was changed and children now inherit the combined relief from both parents so they are unlikely to have saved anything
As I said, that will have been priced into any assumption already made about a wealthy Tory.
(Incidentally, 'possibly'' and 'allegedly' are no defence against defamation, if you were using the former in that context)
So Ed (and family) attempted to avoid Inheritance tax, but wound up not saving a penny, and no doubt paying M'learned friends and hanging an albatross around his own neck.
Ed really is pretty crap to have managed that. He is even crap at dodging tax!
I know, I was using them ironically.
There is no problem in that. Where it really starts is that if he arranged tax affairs for others offshore, he could make a pretty good job in his own will rather than the one Ed's father left?
This apart from a perception that offshore accounts might not be moral?
You know how the public are?
What happened in 2007, after the Deed was created is a red herring.
People don't get angry when politicians do the same things they do themselves.
And inheritance tax planning (to avoid care home fees) and tax avoidance on income (salary sacrifice into pensions for example) are increasingly widespread.
But people do get angry when politicians do the things they're not able to do themselves.
So mentions of Swiss bank accounts and tax havens are treated differently.
"They deftly swerved nothing and dodged nothing. You do realise there was no tax to pay and Mrs Miliband is still alive, and it was her decision to execute the deed of variation?"
Anyone who has lost a member of their family or been an executor of a will will know this. i'd expect one or two lawyers to be on TV and radio scratching their heads at the Mail story tomorrow
It avoids answering its own question....and it keeps the story going.....
Did the Milibands avoid tax?
Yes.
I'm not criticising them for it, but Ed would appear to......
Pedantically speaking, he is.
More recently Ed's "Cost of Living crisis" has tipped us into deflation!
He really has the negative Midas touch!
So ownership is transferred a few years beforehand to the next generation.
I shop in Duty Free - something that apparently is 'not acceptable' to the people of the UK, according to Ed....