Labour’s hypocrisy on tax avoidance
But Ed and David Miliband used a ‘Deed of Variation’ to reduce the inheritance tax exposure on their parents’ home.
David Miliband has his own company to avoid paying income tax.
Ed Miliband has appointed former tax exile Andrew Rosenfeld to a senior advisory position within Labour and has accepted a £1 million promised donation from him.
Ken Livingstone has attacked tax avoiders as ‘rich bastards’...but Ken Livingstone has avoided an estimated £50,000 tax....
Harriet Harman has attacked inheritance tax cuts but she and her family took steps to reduce the amount of inheritance tax she paid.
The tax gap rose under Labour
Labour is the party that let the tax gap grow and investigations into companies fall. It is the party that has appointed a tax exile as a senior adviser. It is the party whose business secretary’s family home was reportedly bought using a Jersey-based trust. We will not take lectures from Labour on tax avoidance.
This Government has taken action. In this year’s budget alone, £1 billion has been saved. Among many other measures, we have reinvested £900 million in HMRC to boost compliance work, which will bring in an additional £7 billion by 2014-15. We are introducing a general anti-abuse rule, to stop people who are abusing the system. This Government has been clear that aggressive tax avoidance is morally wrong, and this Government does not tolerate it.