To think that David Cameron should resign?

[deeedeee]

Presiding over a government that is trying to spin doctors and teachers into militants ,

Supporting a chancellor that has failed to reduce the deficit by his own standards and has delivered two hated and u turning budgets in a row, over the death of the British Steel Industry, is attacking renewable energy in times of climate change, is taking support from the ill and disabled is and NOW he has admitted benefiting from TAX AVOIDANCE????!!!!
This is all wrong. How many more years of this?

Of course he has benefitted from his fathers actions his father was very wealthy and tax avoidance made him wealthier but he was not breaking the law

Do I know the ins and outs of my dad finances no neither do I ask him

It does make Cameron look like a bit of a spiv.

If it had been Jeremy Corbyn in this position then the Tories would be all over him like pit bulls. Labour need to step up a bit now.

And as for all the discussion about Conservatives and empathy .

The whole Tory party is founded on the 'I'm alright Jack' attitude which usually accompanies a total absence of empathy. That's not exactly news to anyone.

I was listening to DC on the radio the other day 'answering' the question re if he has benefited from the money his father sheltered in Panama.

All DC did was list his UK assets (house, savings account etc...). Interesting answer I thought.

Did he benefit from the sheltered assets? I don't know, but I hedge he did (perhaps...)

• cash gifts
• deposit on house
• school fees (himself/kids)
• standard of living growing up with access to education/lifestyle benefits - tangibles/non tangible argument.

I suppose what I'm trying to say is we are not responsible for how our parents conduct their affairs. However, we are responsible for how we benefit from them as adults, especially when those people are politicians apparently legislating for 'tougher rules for tax dodgers'.

See George Osbourne - also fudging the questions re offshore family trusts.

I would question the underlying reason anyone would take their assets offshore. What can that offshore company do for you (your money) that a UK based company can't.

Answer: hide assets/hide names of beneficiaries.

Apologies for repeating myself. This is what I wrote on another thread. "Feeling like a mug"

Going further...

1. DC sold his shares just before becoming PM.

Meaning he didn't have to declare them.

1. The shares were sold for about £Xk just under the amount you have to declare to HMRC.

1. The shares are in a family trust. Not in an investment vehicle into which you or I can buy into.

a. Who did DC sell the shares back to? Realise proceeds back to trust or sell to family member? b. Were the shares sold at market value? Hard to value illiquid shares that only exist to benefit one client - 'the family'.

So the shares just happened to be worth just under the HMRC value for non disclosure...

1. Will DC be buying back those same shares when his term as PM comes to an end?

Inscestuous buying/selling. Not open market buying and selling. That's the difference between DC and you or I.

And most people's pensions/ISAs etc... investments are fairly vanilla. You may hold foreign stocks/shares/units but these will be subject to UK tax rules or reciprocle UK agreements. Your fund will likely be UK based, but investments can be foreign.

Holding investment vehicles offshore in places like Panama allows you to circumnavigate UK financial/regulatory rules. Which normally you or I would not do, nor would most UK financial advisors advise us to do, as we have legal protection.

So again, why would anyone loose legal protection to take assets offshore?

Can someone clarify what Cameron is supposed to have done wrong?

I've only read the first half of one web site news page, and it said he owned some shares in an off-shore investment trust set up by his father, and made a small profit when he sold them.

The "set up by his father" bit is presumably irrelevant with regard to any wrong-doing.

An investment trust is (usually) nothing like the trusts generally used for tax planning, it's just one of several ways to create a basket of investments, like the ones everyone with savings has in the ISA/pension accounts.

As far as I know there's not much tax-avoidery about owning shares in an off-shore investment trust. Such holdings are taxable on the holder in exactly the same way as local ones. The trust will hold assets in "real countries", as opposed to tax havens, and those countries will generally tax the underlying profits, so it doesn't really avoid tax much. (I generally expect to pay more tax on non-UK investments, as unlike local investments they have deductions for withholding taxes.)

A few years ago I had most of my pension investments in property companies listed on the London stock exchange. Every single one of more than 10 companies I owned shares in was controlled from channel islands, presumably for tax reasons. These were bog-standard investments that anyone in the UK with a stockbroker dealing/ISA/pension account might have invested in. Note that the rental profit on the properties these trusts own will all have been taxed in the UK, so any savings from being off-shore will have been very minor.

I'm hoping I'm missing something, as a lynch-mob pursuing someone for holding some shares in an investment trust is operating on about the same intellectual level as the mob who couldn't tell the difference between a pediatrician and a pedophile.

Tax Avoidance is legal though... Why do you think Starbucks has got away with it? It's tax evasion that's illegal.

I do think he needs to resign though, over all these cuts (disability, education, housing, the NHS, steel works). He's nothing but a prat (I'm being generous here).

If it had been Jeremy Corbyn in this position then the Tories would be all over him like pit bulls. Labour need to step up a bit now.

They won't because they can't guarantee they are all squeaky clean either.

I think it can be summed up as

If he had morals he would resign.

But if he had morals he wouldn't be letting people with disabilities bear the brunt of austerity measures.

So he should resign but he won't.

But time is ticking for him and I'm not sure why he's hanging in to be honest.

Tax Avoidance is legal though

That's a pretty low benchmark for someone who is prime minister, 'he hasn't broken the law'. All kinds of morally dubious and hypocritical things are legal.

He lost all morals when he stuck his knob in a pig's mouth if I'm honest!

Saint Vincent of Cable is gunning for him now.

Thank you, Theoretician , for your clear-sighted comments.

I don't understand this lynch-mob mentality either. Cameron has done nothing illegal, or even immoral, as the tax lawyer on Breakfast Time this morning explained so much more clearly than I could.

These are truly the politics of envy.

I have now increased my knowlege of this scandal to 1 news article in total, by reading half a BBC one. The following commentator seems to have similar views to me.

But James Quarmby, a specialist in tax planning and wealth structuring at law firm Stephenson Harwood, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme there was a "massive misunderstanding" about what Mr Cameron had invested in.
He said it was a hedge fund that was "about as boring as it gets for investments", adding that it would not be used for avoiding tax.
"It's no different from Mr Cameron investing in a UK stock," he said.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-35994283

It's still legal (didn't say it was right however)... It's like a 16 year old being a relationship with a 50 year old, it's legal but very wrong!

Theoretician

Legally DC has done nothing wrong.

But DC has made public comments about people who chose to legally offshore tax plan (avoidance) as being morally corrupt/bad for UK.

Glasshouses, stones and all that.

Cameron has done nothing illegal, or even immoral, as the tax lawyer on Breakfast Time this morning explained

The key bit in this quote being ' a tax lawyer said'. To misquote Mandy Rice-Davis 'well hecwould say that wouldn't he?' And when have we looked to lawyers for authoritative comment?

Continued.... look to lawyers for authoritative comment on what is morally right or wrong. Their business is what is legal, not what is ethical.

Yes.

Politicians seem to think it's ok to lie by omission, cheat their expenses and generally live very nicely because of this ethos. Meanwhile they attack or disregard those in our society that need help or genuinely scrape by.

The rich get richer and the poor while with any luck just disappear. Our politicians sicken me.

Can people not see the plain difference between money to survive and money beyond all personal need?

Can people not see the plain difference between money to survive and money beyond all personal need?

Can people not see the plain difference between money to survive and money beyond all personal need?

i have no idea why that posted three times before I had finished writing it.

i have no idea why that posted three times before I had finished writing it.

:-D

Envy?

Not all of us are afflicted with envy or jealousy.

I am afflicted with wanting social justice though.

I don't envy DC. I like my own life too much.

All this oh it's legal though is so boring.

It may be legal but it's not right.

It's dishonest.