Another Hypocrite Labour Grandee

[lindapalmara]

Margaret Hodge, who savages tax avoiders as the Chair of the Public Accounts Committee found to be avoiding tax!!

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3060029/Labour-s-Hodge-1-5m-shares-offshore-tax-haven-Senior-politician-accused-hypocrisy-following-earlier-fierce-criticism-tax-avoidance.html

This is also the woman who turned a blind eye to child abuse at Harringay council.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/jimmy-savile/10747257/Margaret-Hodge-sorry-as-council-she-led-told-to-investigate-Savile-abuse-allegations.html

[Canary42]

The biggest tax avoiders include the likes of Lord Rothermere, Barclay Twins, Rupert Murdoch, Richard Desmond, all press barons and all non-coms so they produce a plethora of propaganda in their newspapers to try to prevent Labour getting in for fear of having to start paying tax on the profits they get from the mugs who buy their newspapers.

[lindapalmara]

Well that's what they do Canary. All as bad as each other. I doubt if Labour would be any harder on them though, they got away with murder under Blair.

It's like the Sun, having backed the Conservatives since 2010 and the English edition still does. However the Scottish Version has now gone SDP. Anything to sell newspapers.

[Gromit]

Murdoch has always backed the likely winner. Which is why his papers backed Tony Blair in 1997.

[naomi24]

Gromit, //It is difficult to see how she could have done anything different?//

The article gives a pointer. //she should have used the example to bolster her attack on avoidance.//

… but she didn’t. She kept quiet.

Linda, you’re welcome.

As for the Scottish Sun newspaper, they are well aware that the Conservatives have no hope of winning in Scotland, therefore they are going with what they think will be the popular vote. As Linda says, they are in the business of selling newspapers.

[Gromit]

// she should have used the example to bolster her attack on avoidance. //

I don't understand that.

The family (not Hodge) set up the Trust 45 years ago. It was money taken out of Germany when the Jewish family fled. The Trust was wound up (not sure by whom). She brought the money back to the UK legally and paid tax on it. I cannot see what her crime was or how otherwise she could have repatriated the money legally?

[naomi24]

She hasn’t committed a crime.

//Ms Hodge became one of the UK’s best known politicians in the last parliament by denouncing businesses and individuals over their tax arrangements, and criticising Revenue & Customs for its handling of avoidance. But she has previously made no public statement about the use of offshore vehicles or the LDF associated with the family shareholdings.//

Yet another example of Labour’s usual “Do as I say, not as I do” philosophy.

[ludwig]

I think the point being made is not that there's something dubious about her tax affairs, but that she's a hypocrite.

Lots of people avoid tax, but they don't all bang on about how immoral it is at the same time.

[ludwig]

..going off at a tangent slightly, but I deliberately changed to a very fuel efficient car to reduce the money I spend on fuel. Considering most of the cost of fuel is tax, does that make me guilty of tax avoidance?

[naomi24]

Don't know, but I hope it doesn’t run on diesel.

http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/cars/article-3062179/The-death-knell-diesel-cars-Drivers-targeted-Supreme-Court-rules-Government-tackle-air-pollution.html

[Peter Pedant]

// Ms Hodge said she had not been a beneficiary of the Liechtenstein foundation until the shares were brought onshore using the LDF in 2011, and that she had not played a role in setting up or running it. //

OK she wasnt a trustee and not a beneficiary so what was her interest ( = connection ) in the Liechtenstein tax vehicle ?

well read carefully - she had a future interest ... as a result of the trusts actions ( bringing it onshore ), she acquired an interest, later.

So is a future interest, an interest ?

Yes (I think) Lord Ellenborough's case 1903 tells us it is.

That is, when she said she didnt have an interest, er she did ?
Looks a tho yes in which case the criticism is justified