28/07/2013

TWO FACED TAX LAWS



Open letter to Jonathan Reynolds MP

Dear Mr Reynolds,
 

According to an article in The Times last Friday, it uncovered a story telling us that the Labour party paid no corporation tax last year despite being in surplus for its sixth year; this was revealed in the party’s annual accounts.


Now this revelation come a mere three months after your leader, Ed Miliband criticised irresponsible tax avoidance by 'vowing to rip up the rule book as prime minister and go it alone if there is no international consensus to tackle multinationals engaging in massive tax avoidance. 

In his speech, he also said, 'he would increase the resources of HM Revenue and Customs to strike at tax cheats!'. and 'a Labour government would engender a more responsible capitalism in the UK by changing those rules with or without international agreement'.

In the article, it explained that your party reduced its corporation tax bill from £561,000 to zero by offsetting expenses and tax losses held over from 2011

Now this may well be legal, but following on from Ed's speech, I don't think you are living up to your responsibilities.

Can you explain this?
 

Over to you Mr Reynolds.

2 comments:

  1. Is this is the same Labour Party whose MPs and Cabinet Ministers were changing designation of their residences to avoid paying tax?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Part of Gordon Brown's pernicious legacy to the UK was to leave us with the most complicated tax system in the world (the UK's tax code is now the world's longest, having overtaken India's). Brown's belief in state-directed micro-management led him to set up all sorts of schemes (allowances for investing in favoured industries such as smaller British films). Of course people then take advantage of these, and so legal avoidance rises. What this shows again is the complete lack of understanding of so many on the political left of the consequences of policies they support.

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