Capital Gains Tax
Capital Gains Tax
This relates specifically to MPs and their 'expenses'.
Capital Gains Tax is a tax on capital 'gains': if you sell or give away an asset and it has increased in value, you may be taxable on the profit, the 'gain'. This doesn't apply when you sell personal belongings worth £6,000 or less or, in most cases, your main home.
This suggests that ('in most cases' - the technical disclaimer that will possibly distinguish 'Them' from 'Us') CGT is payable on the profit made from a second home and when this property is subsidised either partially or totally by the taxpayer then the gain is made, quite literally, at taxpayer expense. This implicates the distinction between tax avoidance and tax evasion.
Allegedly, Hazel Blears is 'supported' by Gordon Brown. The claim made by Brown is that the law and the parliamentary rules have not been broken. Blears allegedly defined her second home as the main residence for HM Revenue & Customs tax purposes and as the sale of a main home does not attract CGT none was payable. However, as far as the Fees Office was concerned, the second home was defined as the same property thus allowing claims to be made funded by the taxpayer. This property was subsequently sold at a profit of £45,000. Property that had been subsidised by the taxpayer. Consequently, any financial gain (profit) does not belong to Blears or certainly not in its entirety.
In this example, tax avoidance or evasion ('avaison' or 'evoidance') both implicate technical fraud: flipping addresses for the attraction of financial gain, either by the 'avoidance' of CGT as would be declared on a tax return or acquiring ACA (second home). If nothing has been accepted as breaking the law, why was the behaviour unacceptable? What was so unacceptable that was legally acceptable according to Brown's (undefined) interpretation? This all sounds like rhetorical mushroom feeding jargon.
'Capitalism Is Good' - The New Mantra
Allegedly, Hazel Blears is 'supported' by Gordon Brown. The claim made by Brown is that the law and the parliamentary rules have not been broken. Blears allegedly defined her second home as the main residence for HM Revenue & Customs tax purposes and as the sale of a main home does not attract CGT none was payable. However, as far as the Fees Office was concerned, the second home was defined as the same property thus allowing claims to be made funded by the taxpayer. This property was subsequently sold at a profit of £45,000. Property that had been subsidised by the taxpayer. Consequently, any financial gain (profit) does not belong to Blears or certainly not in its entirety.
In this example, tax avoidance or evasion ('avaison' or 'evoidance') both implicate technical fraud: flipping addresses for the attraction of financial gain, either by the 'avoidance' of CGT as would be declared on a tax return or acquiring ACA (second home). If nothing has been accepted as breaking the law, why was the behaviour unacceptable? What was so unacceptable that was legally acceptable according to Brown's (undefined) interpretation? This all sounds like rhetorical mushroom feeding jargon.
'Capitalism Is Good' - The New Mantra
posted by Louis Brothnias @ 10:30 pm
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