Labour are totally toast in Thursday’s elections

[Nicewoman]

I can’t wait for Thursday. Labour are finished. Not a single moment too soon. Happy Dayz

It was set to be completed/resolved before the May elections but that doesn’t look likely now.

See my post above. She should work it out herself (with specialist tax advice) and pay it if owed. Pretty sure there's no actual obligation to wait.

100%

Interest will be accruing - 8% per annum plus potential fines premised on wilful conduct (or similar).

Yes, I don’t understand this. It was reported that before she admitted she owed the tax she received advice from a specialist tax barrister. So why not just pay the amount advised?

I suppose HMRC might be considering whether to impose a penalty (I would find it hard to believe a prosecution is in mind). But even that must be broadly possible to calculate.

I don’t know much about tax. There may be more to it than that. But I really can’t see what the hold up is.

The penalty could be decided / dealt with with after she'd paid it. I think she's probably stalling due to not having the money to hand (that's my best guess, anyway).

I know a bit about tax, and for what is a fairly simple issue, the silence is curious. She may well have made a further unprompted disclosure or done so during scrutiny from HMRC.

If there is a political edge to this, where HMRC are treating her leniently, for example, all hell will break loose once the DT gets hold of it. It has also occurred to me that the DT are sitting on other stuff, and waiting for the right moment to release it into the wild, as it were.

I am confident there is more to this than is in the public domain.

Interesting! Thank you, @Hallowedturf.

It really doesn't matter if the investigation is completed or not. She should have paid stamp duty, she didn't, and will have to pay it. Why on earth should everyone else have to pay but she claims that she didn't know she had to? And not knowing is no excuse.

i just drove through an area which at the last local election was full of Green placards,
today, Reform

She did pay stamp duty, though. The issue is she paid it at the wrong rate. She alleges that this is because the situation was complex and she was incorrectly advised. HMRC have not yet concluded their investigation so we cannot know yet if these claims stand up to scrutiny.

But her later and expert legal advice was that she underpaid.

I just don’t get it. Why did the ethics guy conclude that she’d breached the code and why did she resign or be sacked if there’s doubt about her tax position?

If it’s an argument about the sum to be paid, surely she gave all the details to the specialist tax KC she consulted (reportedly) and his view would be essentially definitive.

I thought the advice had all been published. And that advice, including the KC advice, was she should consider consulting someone more specialised to be certain of her position. She didn't do so and that was her big mistake.

That’s not my understanding. I may be wrong, but I thought Rayner had her conveyancing done by a small firm who didn’t give tax advice, and disclaimed any tax approval, and she just went ahead in good faith.

When the tax situation was challenged she then got a KC’s view (via Starmer, but again that’s just my understanding from the press) who said she’d underpaid. It was all connected to assets in trust for her son, I believe.

I am scratching my head about why this would drag on. I’d expect a decent high street solicitor to be able to advise on this, let alone a megabucks KC.

And yet HMRC seems to be taking an interminably long time to reach a conclusion, so one can only presume that it isn't quite as straightforward as it might look at first glance.

Or they have a backlog and they're working in date order, so haven't got to her yet.

She tried to throw her conveyancer under a bus. That firm was forced to speak out publicly to say that they'd told her to get specialist tax advice, but seemingly she chose not to do so.

The rule is actually very clear, from what I remember somebody posting at the time: if you hold a property as a trustee for somebody else, you're deemed to be the owner for stamp duty purposes. I'll try to find it...

Well, maybe. Why is it taking so long? It’s not a Cayman Islands, shell company, non-dom etc complicated situation. It’s a UK resident buying UK property with the additional matter of a trust for a child. It’s hardly unusual.

Here we go: it's very simple indeed really; she owes the tax.

www.gov.uk/guidance/stamp-duty-land-tax-buying-an-additional-residential-property

HMRC can't even bring themselves to give me an answer to a simple question about my tax return, so maybe it is not so surprising!

I agree that Rayner and Burnham are who the members/supporters seem to want. I don't think they will be who the PLP will want.

And I definitely don't think that combo will win the next election for Labour

Delay and inefficiency I can certainly believe.

I’m going to find it difficult to vote for labour, but fearful of reform and greens. Labours big policy locally is to promote their support for the renters rights bill, a policy which for various reasons as a tenant is catastrophic for me personally, and which I know is causing havoc for many local families.

@Winnerofbigprizesi thought it offered renters more rights?

@keepswimming38 in theory. But in reality just means landlords are selling up or dramatically increasing rents, leaving many families unable to find affordable homes near work/school.