Dennis the 'Bloody Peasant'
14th June 2012, 14:13
Seems George is easily shocked.
The Treasury has released a copy of the illustrative examples which left George Osborne "shocked" about wealthy tax avoidance and led him to introduce his since-abandoned plans to cap tax relief on charitable donations.
In April the chancellor told the Daily Telegraph (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/georgeosborne/9194558/George-Osborne-Im-going-after-the-wealthy-tax-dodgers.html) that he was "shocked to see that some of the very wealthiest people in the country have organised their tax affairs... so that they were regularly paying virtually no income tax."
He explained that he was talking about people with multi-million pound annual incomes and added: "I'm not allowed to be shown the names of the individuals but I've sat with the most senior people at the Inland Revenue, the people who run some of the high net worth units there. They have given me examples, anonymised examples, and so we are taking action."
Mr Osborne was justifying his controversial plan in the Budget in March to limit all tax reliefs, including for charitable donations, to an annual maximum of £50,000 or 25% of an individual's income, whichever was greater.
Following a freedom of information request from the BBC for a copy of the "anonymised examples" shown to the chancellor, the Treasury has now disclosed one sheet (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/14_06_12_caponreliefs.pdf) setting out three "illustrative" cases provided to him.
This shows:
an individual with an annual income of £15m paying nothing at all in income tax, largely due to charitable donations of £10m
an individual with an income of £10m also paying no income tax, due to a mix of reliefs including £4m given to charity
an individual with an income of £20m paying an average income tax rate of only 15%, largely due to charitable donations of £8m
(More at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-18434832)
The Treasury has released a copy of the illustrative examples which left George Osborne "shocked" about wealthy tax avoidance and led him to introduce his since-abandoned plans to cap tax relief on charitable donations.
In April the chancellor told the Daily Telegraph (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/georgeosborne/9194558/George-Osborne-Im-going-after-the-wealthy-tax-dodgers.html) that he was "shocked to see that some of the very wealthiest people in the country have organised their tax affairs... so that they were regularly paying virtually no income tax."
He explained that he was talking about people with multi-million pound annual incomes and added: "I'm not allowed to be shown the names of the individuals but I've sat with the most senior people at the Inland Revenue, the people who run some of the high net worth units there. They have given me examples, anonymised examples, and so we are taking action."
Mr Osborne was justifying his controversial plan in the Budget in March to limit all tax reliefs, including for charitable donations, to an annual maximum of £50,000 or 25% of an individual's income, whichever was greater.
Following a freedom of information request from the BBC for a copy of the "anonymised examples" shown to the chancellor, the Treasury has now disclosed one sheet (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/14_06_12_caponreliefs.pdf) setting out three "illustrative" cases provided to him.
This shows:
an individual with an annual income of £15m paying nothing at all in income tax, largely due to charitable donations of £10m
an individual with an income of £10m also paying no income tax, due to a mix of reliefs including £4m given to charity
an individual with an income of £20m paying an average income tax rate of only 15%, largely due to charitable donations of £8m
(More at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-18434832)