Rayner-I know people will think “she would say that, wouldn’t she…”

If you’re involved in a trust in any way you know you have to get detailed, specialist tax advice. She was - or so the ethics enquiry found I believe- expressly advised to obtain that specialist advice on more than one occasion, by the solicitors acting for her in the house purchase (since they were not specialists in tax& trusts).

Yet she chose not to do so.

One can only assume this was because she really did not want to find out what the true tax position was.

What other explanation is there?

The enquiry fell over itself to be charitable to her and still found she had breached the Ministerial Code of Ethics (bit of a joke concept really, Ministers and Ethics in the same sentence).

Wilful blindness is not an excuse.

Of course, she’s not alone in politics in being a shameless, unprincipled grifter out for all she can get. She’s been exposed on this occasion for a reason- probably to either promote Wes Streeting, or to cause chaos & increase the likelihood of an early election before the Greens under Polanski & the new party establish themselves- ie to increase Reform’s chances of winning next election. This fact does not make her any less contemptible.

She has to know that claiming one house as main residence for council tax while simultaneously saying a second property is her only property stinks like a kipper

Hence the good advice to get specialist advice. Which for some reason she chose to ignore.

Which she still claimed as her constituency home and main residence for council tax purposes.

Whichever way you cut it, something doesn't work. At least in the spirit of the law.

But it wasn’t that straightforward was it? There was the complication of the first house being in a”trust” for the child.

@MissyB1

The SDLT calculator on the gov.uk website asks all the questions necessary to correctly calculate the amount of stamp duty to be paid, but relies on the answers given to be truthful.

For a £800K house the figure is £30 if it’s your only property. If the purchase of the £800K means you have 2 or more properties the stamp duty payable is £70K.

This is where AR was untruthful. She attempted to hide the known fact that she had more than one property.

100% - a bit of tax dodging is standard fare for British MPs. The real scandal here is that she's Labour Party, not Tory, and therefore held to a higher moral standard. I like the woman personally, think it's a shame.

You can make a tax mistake unknowingly, admitting it and paying it back doesn’t mean you did it deliberately 🤷‍♀️
Dh and I went to live in NZ for 6 months as he was doing a locum job at a hospital there. Before we went we asked our accountant who does dh’s tax if Dh needed to pay tax in the UK on his earnings in NZ, as well as paying his NZ tax. Accountant absolutely assured us no we only had to pay NZ tax. Got back to UK after 6 months to a tax bill from hmrc, accountant had talked bollocks 🙄 obviously we paid up immediately, no way had we tried to dodge tax, we are paranoid about getting tax bills right. Needless to say we got a new accountant!

Yep.

But add a subtlety to the second option: must be able to discern the quality of advice as you describe and whilst doing so, must not be tempted into wilful ignorance by her own personal best interests or ideology.

That is not unpleasant. It’s a very normal way to use medical compensation for security and future care.

That’s not quite what you said tho is it? You included in the ‘unpleasantness’ the ‘use of her child’s pay out’ which is different.

Sounds like she used three different advisors to deflect blame if it came out she had paid the wrong amount. ie it was premeditated.

I have placed a property in Trust for my son, but it remains my property to live in until I die.

Aged well 😀

It was only a matter of time before the media found labour’s skeletons in their closets, it’s basically what the media do as soon as any party comes to power.

They did it to the Conservatives too and labour, including Rayner were quick to put the knife in, so what goes around comes around.

i think the media probably have a lot up their sleeves in terms of stories which they will drip feed to get rid of labour, then it will switch onto whoever is next in power.

Basically it seems very few politicians are to be trusted and are in the job for the wrong reasons, which is sad but hardly surprising.

Either she knew she was doing the wrong thing and thought “if I’m caught I’ll blame bad advice and get away with it.” In that case she’s a liar and deserves to be sacked.

Or she has such poor judgement that she didn’t know that the advice she obtained was flawed. In that case she’s not a fit person to be Deputy PM or an MP as she must be able to discern what is “good advice” from experts, what is “bad advice” from people pretending to be experts, and what is inadequate advice because she has approached the wrong people or asked the wrong question .

Her conveyancing solicitor is saying in the Sky report that they didn't advise her on tax and they are being made scapegoats. This will all have to come out still as the press won't leave it alone until they've tested whether what she has said so far is truthful.

How about using the sad and unfortunate fact of having a disabled child as some form of justification for tax avoidance.

Which for the record she has admitted not paying the correct amount and on which the conveyancing firm she used stating that they didn't give her any tax advice.

😂😂😂

I am so not a supporter of Labour, but this is the worst you've ever witnessed? You must be very young then, because Boris Johnson managed more scandals and fuck-ups on his own than the Labour front bench all together.

But then Tories would prefer that all that was forgotten. And then there's Kemi's apparent economy with the truth:
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/sep/01/politicians-urge-badenoch-to-come-clean-after-doubts-cast-on-us-medical-school-claim
or her bullying (and not the only allegations of bullying either)
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/jul/30/kemi-badenoch-accused-of-bullying-and-traumatising-staff

I'm sure she knew exactly what she was doing. Unfortunately, she got caught.

A quick google and it’s very clear that even houses held in trust count for the purposes of second home stamp duty.

She’s claimed to have sought advice from ‘three people’ not using a calculator.

Apparently it was bad advice from them, this is very unlikely and more likely to be a lie.

Why is it unpleasant for her and her husband to use the medical compensation payment to ensure housing was in place and in trust for their child?

Anyway, I imagine this thread will go round in circles so I will leave it there.

She’s admitted it now, that she didn’t pay whay she should have, the whole thing is really unpleasant, inc the use of her child’s pay out, but then so is the free clothes, use of a flat and holidays that Labour and their spouses have been lining their pockets with since day 1. Seems they are all standing behind her now too, it’s jist so bad, the economy is in a shocking state, they are taxing the arse off of people and basically stuffing their pockets at the same time. I don’t think anyone could have guessed just how distasteful it would be. I’ve seen some shit behaviour from politicians in my time, but this on the take behaviour from Labour is the worst I’ve witnessed.

Also - I would imagine the calculators have similar disclaimers for “non standard” situations.

There were a couple of long running threads from a poster where the outcome of the CSA calculator indicated she was owed CM when it was pretty clear to all on the thread that she was not.