To think that surely Rayner has to go.

[Blankscreen]

Well well well.

So now it emerges that Rayner rearranged her property affairs and declared to HMRC that her new flat in Brighton is her main residence and saved £40k on the SDLT bill as a result.

She has then apparently declared to the local councils the complete opposite.

I'm sure slimeball Kier will defend and say it was perfectly legal blah blah blah.

Not to mention she has a grace and favour house funded by tax payers in London as her constituency office is so far away. Yet she 'lives' in Brighton - surely she could just commute that distance like may others do every day.

Surely she has to go.

i doubt the left of the party will be supporting her they don’t take kindly to so called socialist taking advantage of such tax dodging

I'm so far on the left of the party they threw me out through the left side door, and I honestly don't give a shit. The whole point about laws - including their so-called "spirit" - is that the same ones apply to everybody. Those of us who campaign for laws to be different aspire to exactly that: different laws to apply to everybody. In the meantime, everybody has to make do, support themselves and their kids and get along under the laws we have. Socialists and idealists of whatever stripe are not duty bound to place themselves in positions of personal disadvantage in order to support theoretical laws that neither they nor anybody else is seeing the benefit of.

And let's be honest - the amounts of money we're talking about here are hardly 1% territory, much as the Tory press try to paint it that way as if it's the same as Sunak's non dom wife and her multi multi millions. People really need to get over themselves.

I actually think the attack thing is quite disgusting. We live in a society structured around the most obscene inequalities of wealth, privilege and opportunity. Nobody bats an eyelid about it when it involves the Duke of Westminster not having to pay a penny on passing down his estate or the extraordinary unearned birthright of the royal family. But a working class single mum rises to a middle class position by working at something she's good at, works entirely within the structures laid out for her to arrange her financial affairs as effectively as possible, and OMG - HOW DARE SHE!

👏👏👏

Do as I say not as I do is not a good look for anyone, least of all the left.

Major’s Tories got very rightly ridiculed for promoting ‘back to basics’ and then being caught with their underwear down.

All left wing politicians get rightly roasted for wailing about tax avoidance and then avoiding it themselves.

It’s ultimately not - just - about the law.

Tell me what tax she’s avoided. She’s put half of a £600k house in trust for her children. She could have given it directly to them with no tax implication unless she died in the next seven years. She’s then bought an £800k flat, paid full stamp duty and is paying double council tax on it. Her estate is liable for considerably more IHT than it was before.

So, once again, what tax is being dodged?

So when she comes up to Ashton for her constituency work (assuming she does) then will she be paying rent on somewhere ...

Let’s be clear, it’s Rayner herself that coined the phrase ‘dodged tax’ to apply to perfectly legitimate tax planning tools. Most of what she has used are legitimate tax planning g tools. Tools that she was vehemently against in opposition.

She could have given her share to the children, but there is a huge tax implication if she (as she claims) calls it her primary residence. As that’s a gift with reservation and is ignored for IHT purposes. The seven year rule would not apply. Even if she doesn’t call it her primary residence, the children are subject to CGT on its increase in value. In a trust they are not. Or rather, the trust pays tax in 10 year slices. But to be clear, in opposition she was against these tax planning tools and so, by her own definition, it’s a dodge.

In summary, using her own definition, she has dodged IHT by using a trust to shelter capital for her children. She has used a trust to dodge stamp duty on behalf of her children, who otherwise would have to pay stamp duty when they purchase a property in the future. She’s used a trust to dodge CGT for her children who would otherwise have paid that had her share of the property been transferred to them instead of into a trust.

To be clear, all of the above is legitimate tax planning. It’s just that she decided, in opposition, that use of such tools was dodging tax. You reap what you sow.

Then there is the matter of council tax. It appears as if for parliamentary expenses purposes her primary residence is in Manchester somewhere. For capital gains tax purposes her primary residence is in Brighton. And for work purposes her primary residence is in London.

She doesn’t own or occupy a property in her constituency, so she should she paying council tax in London and in Brighton. She’s paying the correct amount in Brighton, and nothing in London.

I’m not sure it could be any clearer.

It’s the very tax dodging that Rayner has shouted about for years

the average person on the average wage would not be signing over properties in trust and then buying (of course it will raise questions when miles away from her constituency) the average person has to pay the tax that is owed it maybe less in percentage but it’s the amount owed without going through ways of avoiding less

that being on a higher wage, paying more tax on your asserts/wage it’s standard socialism (Rayner is a socialist as she has said on many occasions) these ways to pay less tax is the very essence that the left of that party has always declared unfair

This is the very essence of her politics, the different rules, the unfairness. Well it was

if you are claiming it never was then you are being disingenuous as AR is

The London property isn’t her primary residence. It doesn’t even belong to her, she can claim the council tax on that as expenses - it’s comparatively low anyway because it’s in Westminster. She’s paying 200% council tax in Hove.

She’s already in a negative IHT situation by buying the Hove flat. So essentially the tax loss is some hypothetical CGT her children would pay on any increase in the value of their share of the Ashton house between now and the time they withdraw it. Obviously without the trust her ex could remarry and her kids - one of whom is disabled - could end up with nothing.

So you can’t tell me what tax she’s dodged either? Facts are really unpopular on this thread.

She hasn't evaded any tax obligations.

You mean you are choosing to avoid them. I have clearly set out the taxes she’s dodged, using her definition of dodging. So, insofar as they are measured against a definition she coined, she has dodged them.

Some of her dodges are legitimate tax planning. But she chose to say that the use of legitimate tax planning tools was tax dodging, so she should, surely, be judged against those standards?

The council tax avoidance looks more like expenses fiddling of the sort I thought MPs had been dissuaded from following the last change to the rules however.

If the Admiraltry Arch flat was her primary residence she would normally have paid council tax there herself and not claimed it on expenses. Brown certainly personally paid council tax on Downing street when he was PM, it’s a matter of record on Hansard.

So before the Hove flat she wasn’t paying council tax in London because she said the house in the north west was her primary residence…..in which case the taxpayer picks up the bill for council tax for the London flat.

However she was adamant that the Ashton house was her primary residence and that she shared it with her ex husband who she separated from in 2020. Sorry, but I smell a massive rat. Especially when the neighbours say they haven’t seen her for 4 years. Of course unless her ex drops her in it it’s pretty much impossible to prove. I don’t believe anyone who lives in London, works in London, has a new boyfriend who lives down south is still shacked up with their ex for the majority of the time.

And then very conveniently as soon as it’s more financially beneficial for the Ashton property to not be her primary residence all of a sudden it isn’t and she saves a load of stamp duty.

I’m sure it’s legal to remove your name from the deeds of a house you no longer live at (and haven’t for 5 years). I’m sure it’s legal to employ a wealth management company to help you exploit every loophole going. But when you have spent years shouting about that sort of behaviour it just stinks. Snouts in the trough the lot of them.

It would be interesting to know where she actually has been staying when (if) she been to up Ashton in the last 5 years. I suspect it’s not the old family home.

She can’t claim the council tax for Admiralty Arch, unless she's paying council tax for a constituency home. And she no longer has one of those as her share is in a trust. So, unless it transpires she is paying council tax on a property she doesn’t own or live in, in or near her constituency, she should be paying council tax for Admiralty Arch and Brighton.

Frankly, as long as the taxpayer isn’t footing the bill, where she stays when she’s in the constituency is nobody’s business but hers.

One hopes, for the benefit of the electorate, that she has been to her constituency in the last 5 years. I’m sure you can get there and back in a day by train though..or in a ministerial car ;)

It is if she’s been lying and avoiding council tax in London due to that lie.

She can’t claim the council tax for Admiralty Arch, unless she's paying council tax for a constituency home.

She can’t claim the council tax for Admiralty Arch, unless she's paying council tax for another home.

That’s included in “the taxpayer footing the bill”.

If that was the case (which it’s not) why is she paying the 200% uplift on the Brighton flat? She could just call Brighton her primary residence for council tax and capital gains tax.

You’re complaining because she’s paying too much tax now? Why would she pay CGT on a property she’s only just bought?

You are being deliberately obtuse, rather than address the matter of tax dodging. Where have I said she had to pay CGT?

The council tax obfuscation is just an expenses fiddle. No more and no less. She should be paying for admiralty arch, but she isn’t. Though it now transpires that she is unable to explain her housing situation because of a court order, so the plot thickens.

Still, vote Labour for less sleaze :)

Yes. And before she bought the Brighton flat she was saying the council tax she paid was for the house in Ashton.

im less bothered by what her current arrangements are to be honest and more bothered about her historical arrangements when she was saying the house in Ashton was her primary residence. Because I don’t believe that’s true.

I don’t think she has any hope of reelection in the Ashton seat, sounds like the locals are sick of her. Maybe she’s hoping for a safer seat in Brighton and Hove. Hopefully the residents there have more sense.

Explained above ^

we all know and no one can possibly deny this if this was the Tory deputy PM doing this Rayner would have been shouting from the roof tops

She is obviously a closet capitalist