The Guardian doesn’t get to cast the first stone on tax evasion/avoidance having squirrelled away the profits from its sale of Auto Trader in 2008 into a Cayman Islands bank to avoid HMRC taking a cut.
Anyone that doesn’t believe that every single one of our ruling elite aren’t all urinating on our heads while they tell us it’s raining needs to give their heads a wobble.
Also know as the truth.
Any source for that Tim? Sounds like a lot of investigators to me. Plus it’s a pointless exercise, the UK’s largest 2,000 companies will be doing their dodgy stuff in the BVI or somewhere else in the large and accommodating UK tax avoidance/ evasion industry.
What I find extraordinary is that a man too stupid to organise a tax fiddle in a country renowned for world class (as Johnson would say) tax fiddles was made chancellor at all. A real piss up in a brewery moment.
and what of the “nature” of the investigation? Much of it probably doesn’t even exist except on paper and in the minds of the politicians so they can can claim “we are chasing tax avoidance/evasion” . Laughable and pathetic in equal measure 
You’re probably right, including good ol’ Toby 
He’s some boyo though, isn’t he? 
` Eugenics, misogyny, homophobia, coke head and his ever popular Covid misinformation.
Plus, from the little research I did on the more recent sale (I never knew they owned Autotrader 
) the Guardian was clocking up a £30M+ annual loss at the time, so not too much room for taxation there. Anyway, the tax free reddies they prudently salted away seem to have been put to good use.
Ah… that’s just the one you know about.
Just posted this in another thread - but seems more appropriate here…
"The solution is plain for all to see. You, our global representatives, have to tax us, the ultra rich, and you have to start now…There’s only so much stress any society can take, only so many times mothers and fathers will watch their children go hungry while the ultra rich contemplate their growing wealth. The cost of action is much cheaper than the cost of inaction – it’s time to get on with the job.”
As long as it’s pitched at the right level I think most people would be in favour.
@tim17 - have a read of this and let me know whether you still think Zahawi has done no wrong?
What you or I think is irrelevant.
If he’s committed tax evasion or any sort of crime then he should prosecuted like anyone else but at the moment all we have are allegations from people such as Dan Neidle who incidentally has a personal on-going spat with Zahawi, lets see what HMRC have to say as they will have to comment at some point.
Well except you were questioning what he had done wrong, don’t try to wriggle out of that one.
Completely agree.
Part of which was his evasion over the YouGov thing.
They won’t - the details of settlements like this are confidential.
Billy, I asked what he had done wrong and as yet the answer is still nothing, there are allegations (which most on here treat as the gospel truth) but in reality no more than that.
You say HMRC won’t comment but given Labour and the mass media won’t let this drop they can’t remain silent for ever.
I don’t care a jot what happens to Zahawi or the Tories as they’ll be gone next year and then Labour (as they’ve promised) can ensure that everyone pays all the tax that’s due.
In this case they are (unfortunately) going to remain just that - allegations. But there’s a lot of smoke blowing around for there not to have been a fire.
They can, that’s how it works - as far as HMRC is concerned he’s come clean and paid the bill, job done.
I hope that you are right. I’m not as comfortable as I’d like that the Tories won’t pull a fast one somewhere, they are already trying it on with Voter ID. They also don’t actually have to call an election until Jan 2025 so we could have two more years of this shitshow.
Correct, however that would mean campaigning over Christmas/New Year and that would just add to the anger against the Tories.
May/June 2024 would be plausible - or December which would put it 5 years after the 2019 election (and avoid campaigning over Christmas, as you say).
Could the Nation return the Tories to power for another 5 years, by all the gods I hope not but we’re probably at peak anti-Tory right now. Their support has collapsed down to the sort that would vote for a toad if you stuck a blue rosette on it. That’s a long time for Labour to maintain the momentum - especially as every time Starmer says anything in public he seems to drive home the impression that life under Labour would be no different really - just a bit less sleaze.
But that’s the reality Billy, there is no magic way out of the mess other than years of fiscal prudence with maybe the odd extra tax for the wealthy.
“Fiscal Prudence” in the middle of a recession tends to make it worse.
trouble is though, any fiscal imprudence the markets perceive will make the FX value of the £ tank even faster, harming anyone using UK income to pay expenses in another currency.
Look what happened when Truss/ Kwazi did their thing.
Then taxes and borrowing will have to rise, Labour have said they’re not going to do that.