David Cameron's father 'ran offshore fund that paid zero UK tax for 30 years'

Good for him, income tax is too high


Posted from TSR Mobile

[video="youtube;Pb5fnWwczTE"]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pb5fnWwczTE[/video]

So when asked if he benefits or will benefit from offshore funds in a tax haven, Osborne refuses to answer the question.

A simple no would have done.

If you have nothing to hide Gideon...

Calling for somebody to resign over something their father did? Utterly pathetic.

Solid 2015 article from Toby Young breaking down the confused arguments against tax avoidance.

http://www.spectator.co.uk/2015/02/i-dont-know-why-im-against-tax-avoidance-and-i-bet-you-dont-either/

Bogus argument really.
We have a two tier system where if you have lots of money you can pay no tax but if you're poor you have to.

And I'm sure your argument is 'blame the laws not people who exploit them' but when it's pointed out that the same firms who benefit from tax avoidance pay the tories to write tax codes, it's oligarchy. You seem to think it's okay for big corporate firms who directly benefit from tax avoidance to write the tax laws rather than have impartial experts do it.

Your argument just keeps shifting the goalposts. You say you blame the system not the people but then you also support the system which allows corporate firms who benefit from tax avoidance to write our tax laws.

And the strangest part is that you'll never be rich enough to use one of these schemes that you're currently funding.

We are regularly told we have to cut public services and make cuts to the disabled because there's no money left yet we allow this loss of hundreds of millions per year.

David Cameron a few years ago called tax avoidance immoral, wonder what he thinks of his father now.

Bogus argument really.
We have a two tier system where if you have lots of money you can pay no tax but if you're poor you have to.

A Prime Minister reaping rewards from a large-scale tax avoidance scheme, in a time of austerity no less, is a total disgrace and a glaring conflict of interests.

Who gives a ****, labour destroyed this country beyond recognition with diversity and multiculturalism

Good for him, good for TERRORISTS!!!11!!

What on earth are you talking about?

For a start this case was about profits, not income tax.

But besides that point, comments and threads like this make me despair.
We get very angry at exploitation at the bottom. We get furious when people spend benefit money on fags and beer. We go apesh*t when he hear of cases of benefit fraud. We demand harsh and big action against abuse at the bottom.


Yet when the ultra wealthy exploit the system, to find loopholes to avoid paying the lawful taxes that everyone else does they are met with a mixture of indifference and support.
We are regularly told we need to go after and reduce benefits because it costs so much. Yet we lose a hundred times more in tax avoidance. Our public services are in dire straits and in desperate need of funds yet we do nothing about one of the major sources of lost revenue.

It's a two tier system, it's abhorrent when those at the bottom exploit and abuse the system but fine when those at the top do it.

I note that you haven't explained where the article's reasoning fails -- I suspect because you didn't bother to read it, which is a little odd given you chose to respond to my post, although it would explain why you've just rehashed every post you made to me on the first couple of pages of this thread. The truth is that you haven't been able to produce in any of your posts any coherent argument as to why people should be considered morally obliged to pay more tax than the law requires them to.

A Prime Minister reaping rewards from a large-scale tax avoidance scheme, in a time of austerity no less, is a total disgrace and a glaring conflict of interests.

You clearly do not understand what a conflict of interest actually is.

The Icelandic PM had a conflict of interest. He was involved in determining the proportions in which the losses of Icelandic banks would be borne by different classes of persons who had dealings with those banks, at a time when he and his family were secretly members of one of the affected classes. His personal position might have swayed his political judgement.

Any benefit which Cameron's father or Cameron himself had derived from the off-shore investment fund had been received long before Cameron advocated a clamp down on tax avoidance. Whatever position Cameron took on future tax avoidance would not make a penny piece difference to his or his late father's accumulated wealth.

It isn't a direct conflict of interest, but it's a conflict of cultures, Cameron clearly belongs to a family that believes this kind of behaviour is all fine and dandy and not only that, he defends the mechanisms that make it work at an EU level, whilst odiously and hypocritically claiming in the House that he's busy clamping down.

However, you are only supposing that Cameron has no direct gain and I suspect more will be revealed on that in due course.

As for why 'people should be morally obliged', well the law intends them to pay 45% of tax or the relevant amount of corporation tax. It purposely allows for some exceptions such as ISAS which are intended for people to save. But these tax avoidance schemes are not expressly provided for or intended. It's taking advantage of a legal loophole.