Forget Sunak's seatbelt, what about Zahawi's taxes?

[noblegiraffe]

Our former Chancellor, it would seem, is only able to say that he has paid his taxes in full, because he realised the gig was up, he'd been caught and went to HMRC to sort it out.

And the reason it hasn't been a bigger story is that the litigious Mr Zahawi hired a firm of lawyers to send off threatening letters to anyone investigating, stating, untruthfully, that these letters had to remain confidential.

Calculations suggest that if he had to pay £3.7 million in back-taxes, this would imply £27 million in undeclared income, representing about a 1/4 of his net worth. This, therefore, is not small change, or a tiny oversight.

The timeline of events is worth reading, here www.taxpolicy.org.uk/2023/01/19/zahawi_story/

Not sure what the fine is for not wearing a seatbelt, but Zahawi had to pay a 30% penalty on his unpaid taxes, meaning that his claims that his taxes were filed and paid correctly is untrue.

He was Chancellor of the Exchequer while this was going on.

No wonder he was so supportive of Boris, going as far as to say teachers should remain impartial when discussing lawbreaking politicians

www.mumsnet.com/talk/_chat/4480290-Teachers-should-remain-impartial-on-matters-of-lawbreaking-by-politicians-says-Zahawi

Of course whether his tax-dodging is illegal depends on whether it counts as tax avoidance or tax evasion. No idea on that front, given how easily the rich seem to get away with this stuff.

DuncinToffee
Can you answer without whataboutery Clavinova?

I doubt it -

do you think he should still stand as an MP

That's up to Zahawi and his constituency - he hasn't been charged with a criminal offence.

Stephen Kinnock and his wife had to pay up for their tax 'mistakes' - she went on to become PM of Denmark and he is in Starmer's shadow cabinet;

www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-10856352

I doubt it

Yes me too but it's worth a try.

Do you believe Zahawi made a mistake?

It is shocking as is NZ's response.

Threads about Tories here are often jumped on by the Baaah baaah baaaht Layyyburrr flock.🐑🐑🐑

@Clavinova I take it you weren't aware that Tony Blair left office more than15 years ago. Do try and keep up.

Alistair Darling is actually a great comparison.

He got a service charge bill [billed in advance] and claimed it as an expense. Fair enough. During this six month he moved but didn't go back through his previous expense claims and unclaim (?) part of those service charges. Once this issue was pointed out he apologised, sort of, and repaid the money.
This was not tax.

NZ somehow forgot to pay millions of pounds of tax. He was aware this issue as it was being investigated. He waited until he was chancellor to do a 'deal' with HMRC, who he was in charge of.

Great comparison @Clavinova I think your point must be that Labour politicians are more trustworthy? Is that right?

Zahawi lied. That's the middle and both ends of it. Quite normal for this current Government.

And his threatening of legal suits to anyone who tried to question this was appalling.
Not sure Darling fitted into that category

The Tory party must be glad that their MPs never fiddled their expenses so at least on that issue they can have the moral high ground. Oh wait…

Zahawi himself fiddled his expenses and had to pay it back. Sorry, I mean accidentally claimed for money to heat his stables and had to pay it back.

ThreeFeetTall
NZ somehow forgot to pay millions of pounds of tax. He was aware this issue as it was being investigated. He waited until he was chancellor to do a 'deal' with HMRC, who he was in charge of

Are you suggesting that officials at HMRC are corrupt?

Fact: HMRC does not do ‘sweetheart deals’.

www.gov.uk/government/news/hmrc-responses-to-inaccurate-claims#hmrc-does-not-do-sweetheart-deals-with-anyone

Alistair Darling is actually a great comparison.
I think your point must be that Labour politicians are more trustworthy? Is that right?

I wouldn't think so - a few more Labour MPs from the Brown ministry - four of them jailed for fraud/false accounting - the fifth escaped prison only because she suffered a mental health breakdown:

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-13467137
www.theguardian.com/politics/2011/jan/07/david-chaytor-jailed-mps-expenses
www.theguardian.com/politics/2011/feb/10/mps-expenses-eric-illsley-sentence
www.theguardian.com/politics/2011/mar/31/jim-devine-sentenced-expenses-fruad
www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/margaret-moran-to-be-sentenced-for-ps53-000-expenses-con-8413816.html

I'm pretty sure ThreeFeetTall was not making allegations against Civil Servants but against the corrupt politician who was in a position of power in the Treasury.

Yes I shouldn't have used the word 'deal', I apologise.

The civil service are somewhat limited by what they can say. But they have made it clear it was not an innocent error.
www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/nadhim-zahawi-tax-hmrc-investigation-b2269659.html

This thread is not about Labour. Honestly, how desperate are some people?!

it's about Nadhim Zahawi, his lies and breaking of the Ministerial code and finally about his sacking.

There's probably not a lot more to say about this unless a further scoop comes out, but let's not get distracted by other matters or parties. The "start new thread about Labour" button is that way ⬆️.

At least Zahawi is rich enough he wouldn't have had to fiddle his expenses, so that is something in his favour.

Did you know that Keir had a beer?

At least Zahawi is rich enough he wouldn't have had to fiddle his expenses

Except he did. He has a very warm horse at our expense.

Was it a female horse?
I hear he knows what a woman is.

I find this country weird, things like partygate and the seatbelt get talked about a lot but when it comes to corruption, people don't care and it just gets burried. I'm actually surprised there is no outrage here to this level of corruption, not only this but previous issues like Mone, PPE contracts etc. And then people still believe the shit that the goverment says about having no money to pay for workers. Lol. There is money but only for their mates unfortunately

Zahawi is a very shady individual. He paid a 30% penalty for his "careless" inaccuracy, which tells us a lot.

30% is the absolute maximum penalty HMRC will apply for that category of inaccuracy. In almost all cases, penalties are reduced due to mitigations - but in this case it was not.

What that tells us is that NZ did not "tell", "help" or "give access" to HMRC in the course of their enquiry, or make any unprompted disclosures.

Tbh, the level of penalty strongly indicates that HMRC almost certainly viewed the error as "deliberate" rather than "careless" but didn't have quite enough evidence to give him the "deliberate" penalty

www.gov.uk/hmrc-internal-manuals/compliance-handbook/ch82400

It is good of Clavinova to remind us that MPs did go to jail over expenses fraud rather than being dismissed to the back benches with a love letter from the PM over tax evasion

It is good of Clavinova to remind us that MPs did go to jail over expenses fraud rather than being dismissed to the back benches with a love letter from the PM over tax evasion

Zahawi was investigated by the National Crime Agency - the NCA decided to take no action against him - unlike the other MPs.

Nothing to see here.

Just that pesky Ministerial Code.

Do you think that Zahawi just made a mistake?

... and then accidentally failed to cooperate with HMRC? 😂

Honestly, a 30% penalty tells us so much about what his behaviours will have been during the enquiry. I'm surprised the media hasn't made more of it tbh.

It is genuinely pretty rare to get the maximum penalty with no mitigations.

Partygate wasn’t really about the parties. On the surface it’s about parties but the attitudes among current MPs that led to it and to defending it are the same as the ones that lead to the vast levels of corruption amongst Tory MPs and their cronies. It’s the context that made it much more tangible to the public (who personally had had to give up a lot during lockdowns to benefit society as a whole) than financial irregularities which are more abstract.

It is nice to see that being sacked for breaking the ministerial code is becoming a thing again though. Even if it does take a week of people calling for it and a completely unnecessary investigation by an ethics advisor to point out the thing that was bloody obvious a week ago.

Braverman was sacked for breaking the Ministerial code and then reappointed.

Sunak has not ruled this out re Zahawi according to his spokesperson

And accidentally got lawyers to threaten journalists and tax experts who were making enquiries?