Wednesday, March 03, 2010

Ashcroft: not quite a clean breast

The Liberal Democrats have called on the Revenue and Customs to assess Lord Ashcroft’s back tax payments as his commitment to permanent residence conflicts with non-dom status.

Liberal Democrat Shadow Home Secretary, Chris Huhne has written to the Chief Executive of HM Revenue and Customs to ask for an investigation of Lord Ashcroft’s back taxes for the ten years since he made his undertakings.

Lord Ashcroft is estimated to have a personal fortune of £1.1bn. His annual tax saving is conservatively estimated to be £12.76m and he has been a member of the House of Lords for a decade.

Commenting, Liberal Democrat Shadow Home Secretary, Chris Huhne said:

“Anyone who wants to pass laws in this country should pay this country’s full taxes and not hide behind the special offshore status of non-doms.


“Non-doms have to tell the taxman that their first allegiance is to another country. No-one should be a British lawmaker whose first allegiance is not to Britain.


“On even the most conservative estimates, Lord Ashcroft has avoided vast amounts of British tax by deploying the non-dom tax dodge. If he challenges our estimate of how much tax he has dodged, then there is a simple solution: publish the figure.”



1 comment:

Aberavon and Neath Liberal Democrats said...

Today's "Independent" reports that William Hague has said that he did not know while he was leader of the Conservative Party the true extent of Lord Ashcroft's tax status.

(Hague: I was kept in dark by Ashcroft).