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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Back at GE2010 polls from the second half of Feb 2010 prov
politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Back at GE2010 polls from the second half of Feb 2010 proved to be pretty good pointers to the result
With so many polls coming out as we get closer to the big day I thought it might be useful to check back at the regular pollsters from the last election to see how their surveys from the second half of February compared with the actual result.
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Of course they could be avoiding tax engaging in legitimate tax planning.....
"Red Ed the tax avoider: Property merry-go-rounds and how the Milibands changed a will, cutting their inheritance tax liability.
* Miliband family used a a tax-avoidance scheme follow their father's death
* The family home was split between Ed and David and their mother Marion
* They used a controversial tax loophole called a 'deed of variation'....
"Deeds of variation were described as ‘tax abuse’ by Gordon Brown when he was Chancellor."
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2951553/Red-Ed-tax-avoider-Property-merry-rounds-Milibands-changed-cutting-inheritance-tax-liability.html
http://youtu.be/KvHSbGRALHI
Towards the end he started talking about the 2020 election.
Tax Avoidance is legal. Anyone who has an ISA or pays into a pension fund, or salary sacrifices for childcare vouchers is avoiding tax.
Tax Evasion is illegal arranging of your affairs so as to evade tax that you should rightly be paying.
Best not to accuse people of Tax Avoidance when the only reason they can do it is because Parliament frames the laws in such a way that it permits them to. Especially when you were in power and passed budget legislation for 13 years as it will probably come round and bite you on the backside.
Think this is gonna be a very dirty election campaign.
We're in for a filthy campaign.
I seriously doubt that. The old chestnuts " this will be the dirtiest election ever" and " the most important election of our generation" are wheeled out with as much regularity as " last chance to save the NHS". They're as predictable as turkey at Christmas. With the exception of Scotland where it could be a real election of a lifetime, it's the same old same old.
I suspect this will be a pretty boring election. The lead players are as dull as dishwater, not a spark of life between them, they're all shit scared of doing anything controversial and to cap it all off they're all in an austerity auction.
I rather suspect we'll have 2 months of stupid stunts and minor announcements being made to sound significant while the major ones will be stuff they promised ages ago and which are retreads. Ed's promise on class sizes is simply the first out of the block.
Any interest will come only from the secondary characters ( bring on Prescott ) and people going off script. As for policy I doubt there will be much new.
"Of course the past is no predictor to future performance."
My ARSE begs to differ and the evidence since 2005 is there for all to see.
The most noteworthy thing was that Lab and Con totalled virtually the same number of votes as in the main council election last May, but half of UKIP's May vote didn't bother voting yesterday.
Being so well documented the ARSE has, so to speak, more bottom.
However I have to say all the evidence suggest that OGH hasn't seen the days of a cheap suit since Burnley FC last won the FA Cup.
When will the Tory press begin to suggest that Ed Milliband is not fit to be PM because he fathered two bastards?
I think you will find that was Ralph Miliband
I should admit that I am a tax avoider. Do it every Sunday, when I donate money to our church in a Gift Aid envelope. Do it when I go to a duty free shop or put savings into a pension pot or buy an ISA.
Gary Gibbon from Channel 4 asked if Labour would return any tax-efficient political donations.
‘Oh GOD!’ groaned the Labour crowd. ‘Not again!’ Mr Miliband’s answer was smudged.
And the BBC’s Robinson (a rigorously impartial reporter) wondered if the Miliband family itself had not once done a nifty bit of tax avoidance when David and Ed were handed a property fortune. Mr Miliband was prepared for that one. So what did he do? He landed his mother in it!
First he adopted a victim pose, explaining to the audience that Robinson’s detailed question was an attack on his brave self. Sob sob. Then he said: ‘This is something my mother did 20 years ago.’
Sorry, mum, you’re expendable. Twang. Over the citadel walls she flies in her catapult bucket.
Hey, once you’ve stiffed your older brother, it’s nothing to announce on TV that your elderly mum is, to use the new technical term, a ‘Fink’.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2951599/Ed-victim-pose-landed-mum-QUENTIN-LETTS-Yesterday-Parliament.html#ixzz3RbnAlm2O
There is another category of tax allowance that exploits loopholes in the law which clearly hasn't been designed for that purpose and is often closed when HMRC catches up with the smart people who device these schemes for their wealthy clients.
I can give an example. Banks could put multi-million bonuses for their top bankers in off-shore trusts "for the benefit of employees" so no national insurance was payable. It was also allowable against corporation tax. Good for the Bank. But it gets better. The trust, which typically would have a life of 120 years, would make a non-recourse, non-interest bearing multi-million pound loan to the top bankers. No tax or NI was payable as it wasn't income, it was a loan. The loan would be for 120 years. So in effect the banker got to spend the bonus and avoid tax. This loophole has now been closed.
I would argue that exploiting this tax avoidance loophole, though legal at the time, was morally repugnant and to be condemned, unlike using ISAs and deeds of variation for the purposes intended by the legislation.
Government tries to close down these loopholes but the smart guys are always one step ahead. These smart guys are often the best ex-HMRC tax experts seduced away by much bigger rewards in high level tax consultancies.
Tax free allowances, ISA, putting money into your pension fund, annual gift allowance, even annual CGT allowances. spouses transferring allowances etc. were created by Parliament and intended that they be used as such. Even making use of trusts which Parliament specifically allows like a Disabled Trust is not tax avoidance.
Tax Avoidance is making use of "constructions" which allows tax not to be paid where otherwise it would be paid. In other words, Parliament was "agnostic" about it. Parliament did not intend for such avoidance to take place and Parliament can and does close down such loopholes.
Did the Miliband family (potentially, as Mum is still with us) avoid tax with the deed of variation?
Yes, but, but, but.... it wasn't 'Tax avoidance'.......
Vanilla planning.
First they came for the Bankers..
Don't fancy england one iota myself.
Was the method used created by Parliament ? If YES, then it is NOT Tax Avoidance
Gonna be the dirtiest campaign for a long long time.
And further to my post re the claw back of bankers bonuses, my advice to a banker would be..take the dosh and get it offshore, then make plans to follow it.
She made EXACTLY that point on This Week last night, she said people should note that it is Ed M making the running and that Ed B despite it being in his 'area' is saying absolutely nothing and she said we should note that.... very curious what she meant by that.
A tiny niggle Mr Dodd – I’d clarify that statement with ‘legal steps’ – but otherwise agree.
oh what a tangled web we weave, when we attempt to conflate evasion with avoidance.
"First they came for the Bankers.. "
Clawing back bonuses after ten years seems the cult of the mob with pitchforks.
I've no love for bankers - they are scum on the pond of life. Banking should merely oil the wheels of industry, an administrative necessity, not a key to making a fortune. And they do themselves no favours by squealing that they'll clear off elsewhere if we dare to tax their ill-gotten gains.
But clawing money back after ten years? Childish, vindictive and unworthy of a grown-up political party.
The campaign hasn't started yet. This is just the warm-up.
Interesting after May 7 to compare results and see how good the fit is between your ARSE and my... I think we'll leave that one there.
"I would define tax avoidance as the use of tax reliefs in a manner of which the person addressing the subject disapproves."
I think this a better explanation.....
"Several readers' letters published in the Times today also point to the venality surrounding these schemes - with correspondent Richard Gunning proclaiming: "To describe this arranging as 'morally repugnant' is extreme, but there is a moral dimension to paying a just amount of tax. Rather like a lawyer 'arranging' the defence of his client, perhaps to avoid the truth, 'arranging' one's tax affairs via artificial schemes smacks of cynicism. It also smacks of greed…""
This terrible for the Tories.
Oh, wait...
French press find original 2008 email to HMRC. Gordon was saving the world, and sacking people for losing Child Benefit disks, and the then Chief Exec of HMRC, Dame Lesley Strathie, is no longer with us, though she replaced her predecessor in November of that year.
Mr. Flag, it's not the deed, it's the hypocrisy.
"Lord Fink did something entirely legal in order to reduce his tax bill!" wibbled Miliband.
"Like you, then?"
"Mum did it, not me."
Very heroic.
The constituency threat to Labour in places like Great Grimsby - if it existed at all - is probably receding. Could boost the Tories nationally though.
Wow that was dramatic
FWIW nothing original I am afraid, NOM but couldn't say who will be PM yet, too much to play for in the next few weeks.
I think a good phrase to identify this is "abusive tax avoidance schemes" - abusing the legislation.
The government is tackling this with GAAR - the General Anti-Abuse Rule which makes abusive tax avoidance schemes illegal.
See https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/tax-avoidance-general-anti-abuse-rules
There is a lot of politically motivated hot air on this subject where people try to conflate normal legal tax mitigation practices such as deed of variation with abusive schemes, which under GAAR are actually illegal tax evasion. It is important to keep the distinction if we are to tackle the abuse.
Anthony Wells has a good piece on the trend in UKIP support. It's gone from a peak of 16.1% in October to 15.2% in January, a glacial rate of decline.
I'd still expect UKIP to be on 11-13% on the day.
Nick Robinson still being weirdly vague about whether or not that was an actual quote
....Does it worry you that the money the Tories pay you to scour the internet and twitter for stories denigrating their opponents has probably been paid out of tax avoided money?
@DPJHodges: If Labour saying Ed's deed of variation not for tax purposes, what was it for.
Some helpful reading here on definitions of tax avoidance:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/tempted-by-tax-avoidance
"You are entitled to plan your tax affairs in a way that makes sure you do not pay
more tax than you have to. There are many legitimate ways in which you can
save tax, for example by saving in a tax-free ISA, making donations to charity
through Gift Aid, claiming capital allowances on assets used in your business
or paying into a pension scheme. But there is a big difference between using tax
reliefs and allowances in the way in which they are intended to be used, and
trying to bend the rules to avoid tax."
One of the main legislative authorities for a definition of avoidance (a little more user-friendly than case law, although actually a generously narrow definition. It's been tightened up a lot in subsequent amendments to these regs)
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2006/1543/regulation/5/made
And a discussion from way back in 2001 including input from one Edward Troup, head of Tax Strategy at a major law firm. I'm sure that name's familiar.
http://www.tax.org.uk/tax-policy/tax-adviser-articles/2001/tax-avoidance-discussed
The final link is interesting in that it shows there's certainly not a clear line dividing avoidance from planning the most tax-efficient way of implementing a commercial transaction; but it also shows that no credible professional or tax official would get into squawking "oh,oh... but ISAs! ISAs!" like a befuddled moron while discussing the ambit of avoidance.
I'm not sure where this leaves dear Ed's deed of variation. Most practitioners would not consider this to be avoidance, unless one considers the act of making a will while bearing in mind IHT allowances etc as avoidance. As far as I know, neither HMRC nor HMT currently do.
https://twitter.com/PopulusPolls/status/566157225006485504
And most GAAR systems include an 'Advance Ruling' procedure. If you are not sure about your proposed scheme, you can submit details to the Authority and if they OK it, you are safe.
Powerful what ? There appears to be a subject missing from that sentence.
I'm really baffled by these abour haters tactics. All they seem to be doing is massively increasing the profile of someone previously thought of as an incompetent dork.
This can be doing him notthing but good. They need to get the Saatchis on board before they blow it compleely. Calling Scott. Take a time out and get on the blower. Tell them you heard it from a well-wisher
https://twitter.com/PopulusPolls
That is what we are reduced to. The facts matter not one jot.
I'd agree with that. Yet considerably higher than my last "revision" which placed UKIP GE2015 at 8-10%.
You don't need a solicitor. It doesn't even have to be a witnessed deed. You simply write a dated letter within two years of the death making clear what the variation is and that the provisions of the 1984 Inheritance Act shall apply. If any other beneficiary is disadvantaged they also need to agree in writing. But DYOR.
"This variation is made by me Barnesian of [address]. Mrs Barnesian of [address] died on 12 February 2015. In her will she left me a legacy of £10,000. I redirect that legacy to my son John Barnesian. I intend that the provisions of section 142(1) of the Inheritance Tax Act 1984 shall apply to this redirection of that legacy.
Signed ….................................................................
Barnesian
Date …..................................................................."
You file the letter with your will and other financial papers. That's it. It is not a complicated technical scheme that abuses legislation. Section 142(1) of the 1984 Act is specifically for this purpose.