If only Mrs. Phillip Green's wife would pay her taxes in the UK

[EggFriedRice]

I have read about Mrs.Phillip Green's wife who lives in Monaco, she is also the owner of Topshop in the UK and has been paid the biggest ever dividend in UK history, over £1 billion pounds, now what I fail to understand is why does she not live in the UK where her businesse's are located? why does she choose to live as a tax exile? Does this not lead many people to believe that she is deliberately trying to avoid paying UK tax? Yes of course we are not stupid, I have destroyed my Topshop card & will never buy another item from Topshop again, I think that Mr. & Mrs. Green are hypocrites, end of

[MerrilyDefective]

Greedy buggers really.
Surely when you earn that much you can pay your taxes.
Whatever they pay they'll fart in silk for the rest of their lives.

[bibbitybobbitysantahat]

Greed like this repulses me to the point of nausea.

[nancy75]

And Mr Green has the chhek to offer the government advice on saving money and cost cutting!

[MumNWLondon]

Yup they need a dividend withholding tax at 50% when paid to non UK payers. So greedy.

[huddspur]

Why should she pay UK tax when she doesn't live here.

[PressureDrop]

See the UK Uncut website.

Bastardly tax dodging fuckers.

I particularly like their campaign, turning the whole 'benefit cheat' posters on their head.

[MumNWLondon]

Huddspur She should pay UK tax because she only gets the dividend by virtue of being Mrs Philip Green (ie married to him) and the dividend is basically his salary for running the company. He obviously is UK tax resident as he has to be in the country to run the company.

[EggFriedRice]

I feel so sorry for all of those young people I saw today at one of the demonstrations, all they want is to do well for themselves by going to university, why are we punishing them by making them pay ridiculous amounts of money for what should be their basic right to a free fair education, I feel angry that we allow such greedy people such as the Greens to get away with not paying their fare & share of tax, I will boycott Topshop from now on, they make me sick.

[EggFriedRice]

huddspur, this coalition government are doing nothing to stop the likes of Mrs.Green exploiting UK tax loopholes, she is earning money from the UK public therefore she should pay full UK tax, she does'nt she & her family are exploiting the loopholes and making millions from the likes of YOU, students cannot exploit the loopholes, they are unjustly being targeted, it stinks.

[hermioneweasley]

i assume that the Arcadia group pays corporate tax, so they're not putting nothing back.

[sethstarkaddersmum]

A married couple can only have one address - as I discovered when I married dh before moving in with him and discovered the house where I actually lived was therefore counted as a second home .
so it must be some kind of a loophole not available to normal people

[lucky1979]

She's not a UK citizen and she doesn't live in the UK. They're really going to struggle to tax her on anything.

How would you regulate against her?

And the idea of a 50% tax on all dividends for all foriegn business owners, can you not imagine how quickly a HUGE number of foreign owned businesses would pull out of the UK? Is that shareholders you mean, or privately owned businesses? So no one can buy shares in UK based companies without a 50% tax? That sounds like a winner.

[curlymama]

It is greedy and wrong, yes.

But I'll be honest, if I was getting that sort of money on dividends, I'd probably live in Monaco as well. Then I'd stay at the Dorchester when I needed to be in England.

The companly is earning from the UK public, and they will be paying tax. And they employ alot of people, so they probably feel like they are doing their bit already for the UK.

[huddspur]

His wife is South African and lives in Monaco so she's under no moral/legal obligation to pay tax herself. Taxing divedends on shares owned by foreign investors and business would probably be illegal under European law and highly damaging in attracting foreign direct investment

[sethstarkaddersmum]

I still want to know why they are allowed to have 2 different addresses, as a married couple, when we weren't.

[BeenBeta]

Mrs Green is not resident in the UK and as she is a South African citizen she is likely not domiciled here either. As others have said, the business pays corporate tax, employers NI and VAT. The staff who work there also pay income tax and NI.

There are many UK businesses that pay tax here but their owners receive dividends overseas.

There is noting illegal or immoral in that.

[lucky1979]

sethstarkaddersmum - I thought he had one address, presumably the same one as her, in Monaco? They don't have a UK address I believe he lives at The Dorchester in the week?

[lucky1979]

Too many question mark endings!

[sethstarkaddersmum]

then he is not resident here?

[curlymama]

Really Lucky? I thought that was just me making up my dream?

[EggFriedRice]

I will not ever contribute my money to TopShop, British Home Stores or any other business that that Mrs.Green owns in the UK, she does not live here she is not a UK tax payer so she should not benefit tax free from the profits that her UK businesses make. I think it is immoral that a company can make billions and pay thier owners tax free dividends when they exploit tax loopholes, may not be illegal but imo it is immoral.

[MumNWLondon]

The extremely easy was to make her pay tax would be to impose a dividend withholding tax. All dividends paid overseas could be subject to say a 25% withholding tax unless a lower rate applied under a tax treaty. As there is no treaty with Monaco the HMRC could take 25% off when the dividend was paid.

Lots of other European countries have dividend withholding tax can't see why it would be illegal. eg France have a 25% rate, Germany have a 25% rate, ours is 0% .

If you want to look up other countries see here:

deloitte website

And look under withholding tax.

[huddspur]

Why is it immoral there are shed loads of companies that operate here that are owned by foreign businessmen and pay their dividends in another country. There are also english companies that pay their dividends here but operate abroad as well.

[EggFriedRice]

name them & I'll boycott them as well