AIBU to forget DC gaffe but to be appalled by T Blairs tax payment or lack of

[OldMumsy]

Just read this
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/tony-blair/8999890/Tony-Blair-and-the-8million-tax-mystery.html

Tony Blair and the £8million tax 'mystery'
Former Prime Minister Tony Blair channelled millions of pounds through a complicated web of companies and paid just a fraction in tax, The Sunday Telegraph can reveal.

By blood pressure is through the roof and my piss is boiling!!!

Just like all good socialists. If this bothers you I suggest you avoid looking at david looking at david millibands tax avoidance arrangements

I think I might faint from surprise

Do as I say, not as I do and all that.

If what he's doing is legal, I don't have a problem with it. If I earned that much and worked as hard as he has done, I wouldn't want to give it all away either.

In that article, it talks about him 'cashing in' on his time in Downing Street. It's ridiculous, don't we all use the experience we gained in our previous jobs to help us get our next one? There's nothing at all wrong with that.

I think it's more the point that many in the Labour Party are complaining about big corporations not paying enough tax after following, equally legal, tax avoidance policies. However, now that one of their own is following a similar line they seem to have gone a tad quiet.

Surely if they really felt that strongly about tax avoidance being wrong or immoral then they would have changed the legislation?

Working hard? 100k for a speech! And it is not his money he is giving away, its his company abusing loopholes his government created. I pay 30% why shouldn't he? He is the useless pray that built up a client state requiring so much tax payers money.it is disgusting that a man ego espoused 'progressive' taxation doesn't want to pay his share.

ffs, Blair's an arse. He and Cherie have always been greedy, greedy, greedy. Remember the Mandelson quote about being 'seriously relaxed' about the super-rich?

(I would just like to give an honourable mention to my parents, who tried to save the Labour party and country from T Blair. As a young would-be candidate, he came to a selection meeting in their constituency, and they turned him down - my Mother says 'I didn't trust him'.)

I'll be watching how this progresses with interest. I imagine Ian Hislop and his Private Eye people are investigating even as we speak.

Iusetoo much - even if it is legal, it doesn't make it ethical, and an awful lot of people (especially bankers and MP's) have had to endure lots of criticism over slightly seedy money-making tactics like this. It would be a shame if those who are happy to criticise the Tory's and business-men over matters like this were to lose their objectivity simply because this time it is a Labour person involved.

Oh FFS... They're nearly all bloody millionaires who will be doing everything legally possible to pay as little tax as possible. Do you think Cameron is likely to be any different?

I agree Diablo, you are right. But I also think that people are taxed too highly, and if they weren't, people wouldn't go to such lengths to try and avoid it.

They are all doing the same thing doesn't make it right.

This has nothing to do with being taxed too highly. It doesn't matter how much they are being taxed, they would avoid taxes just for the fun of it.

For us mere non millionaire mortals, avoiding tax isn't as much fun.

Blair and his horrible wife are totally beyond the pale as far as I am concerned.
I am sure they went into politics to line their own pockets and the Labour party were/are so stupid thay gave them the means. Labour seem to stagger between electable spivs and unelectable earnest losers like Millipede and Bruin.
I think UK Uncut should home invade all of the Bliar properties like the Top Shop protest.
Well they would if they weren't just a bunch of socialist hypocrites.

Its Tony "do as I say not as I do" Blair what do you expect

He is on a £2.5million annual retainer with American investment bank JP Morgan, a £500,000 annual salary advising finance company Zurich, and earns at least £2million a year from his commercial consultancy Tony Blair Associates, which advises foreign countries.

Read more: www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2083827/The-12m-tax-mystery-Tony-Blairs-earnings-soar-42--pays-315-000-HMRC.html#ixzz1iur8ywFc

Would love to know what he advises these foreign countries....maybe how to bomb the fuck out of another country and get away with it, or how to suck up to midle eastern dictators so they give you lots of money for doing sod all.

Really? What about Thatcher? What did she do after she'd destroyed the manufacturing base in the UK and started the mess we're in now?

And, since we're talking legally not paying tax, perhaps Her Majesty and other members of the Royal Family might like to pay at the full rate? That really is obscene.

At least the Royal Family generate income for the country, via Tourism. Can't really say the same about Blair!

Only the queen and prince charles dutcht of cornwall are exempt from tax but both choose to pay income tax and capital gains tax on a voluntary basis.

Neither tries to hide the income either and all reports are available on the web for all to see unlike Blair.

I think the double standards are quite breath taking and yet unsurprising.

And not all high earners try to avoid tax. I wish people would stop spouting that. It just adds to the atmosphere that it is ok.
Tax loopholes for high earners and companies should be shut.

The newspaper reports are totally misleading. TB has organised his affairs mostly through a series of partnerships (according to reports). Partnerships don't pay tax. The individual partners in a partnership are responsible for their own tax bill, which is not disclosed in the accounts of the partnership. Partners will either be companies (whose corporation tax will be clear in the accounts) or individuals. In terms of TB, he is a uk domiciled person, as his wife. There is no where to hide from his tax responsibilities, I am pretty certain that he is paying 50% tax on his income, as is Cherie. Dull explanaition, but probably closer to the truth.

The accounts show a turnover of £12.005 million and administrative expenses of £10.919 million, leaving Windrush Ventures with a profit of just over £1 million, on which Mr Blair paid tax of £315,000. The tax was paid at the corporate tax rate of 28 per cent.

Of those expenses, £2.285 million went on paying 26 employees at an average salary of almost £88,000. Windrush Ventures also pays £550,000 a year to rent Mr Blair?s offices in Grosvenor Square, a stone?s throw from the US embassy in Mayfair in central London and a further sum of about £300,000 on office equipment and furniture. But those costs amount to a little more than £3 million, meaning almost £8 million of ?administrative expenditure? is unexplained in the accounts.

So clearly not the case of a partnership as corporate tax has been paid, but where has the other 8 mill gone?

Cherche the £8,000,000 in other words. And BelleDameSansMerci Thatcher was a long time ago and it doesn't excuse T Bliar.

At the risk of raining on the parade, this is all utter bollocks.

The margin Blair's company is making is about what I'd expect for a professional business. No company discloses all of its admin expenses in its accounts - it would be far too long and dull - but HMRC will expect and can demand a full breakdown. But it doesn't take an expert to work out that the expenses will include depreciation, travel and hotels, entertaining (not tax deductible), interest and other financing charges, the costs of hiring expertise from people who aren't employees, and any number of perfectly legitimate costs.

Blair has already explained that he was advised to set up the partnership structure not by tax experts but by security people. Blair is still one of the highest profile terrorist targets in the world. Partnerships are not required to disclose as much information as companies, so its more secure for his fees to go through partnerships. This is all a matter of record.

Finally, although not relevant to this travesty of an article, remember that as and when Blair takes money out of his company, he'll be taxed on it personally.

Good explanation, CinnabarRed, but far too bland for the Blairstalkers, who will stick with the Daily Mail's tax-evasion-conspiracy no matter what.

There was a programme a few months back on TB and his acquired monies. Various dealings out in the Mid-East are blocked from scrutiny. One could also ask how Mark Thatcher became a millionaire - it certainly wasn't from his day job as I recall