Alistair Darling On Finding A Good Tax-Avoidance Accountant
GOOD old Chancellor Alistair Darling, Chancellor of the Exchequor, for supporting the accountancy industry by paying an accountant public money to complete his tax return.
MPs then - possibly - asked the same accountants about capital gains tax, if a porn film is tool of the trade and to explain tax loop holes.
Chancellor Alistair Darling is among nine Cabinet Ministers who paid accountants public money to complete their tax returns, it has been reported.
The Chancellor tells us:
“Like many MPs I employed an accountant to prepare tax returns for each of the years in question to ensure that the correct amount of tax was paid in respect of my office costs.”
The story in the media is that Darling has been billing the taxpayer for his personal accounts. He hasn’t. This is work in the service of parliament. The amazing thing is that there is no accountant already employed by the Treasury that can do the job for less. And what of these nine:
Communities Secretary Hazel Blears, Transport Secretary Geoff Hoon and Jacqui Smith are also among those accused of claiming for accountancy bills on their expenses in The Daily Telegraph. and Home Secretary
The others are Foreign Secretary David Miliband, Environment Secretary Hilary Benn, Work and Pensions Secretary James Purnell and International Development Secretary Douglas Alexander, the paper said.
Seven.. plus Darling… Eight… the only people worse at maths than politicians are hacks.
Image: The Spine
Exclusive: New Witness To MPs Expenses Claims Tells All
Posted: 25th, May 2009 | In: Photojournalism, Politicians Comments (11) | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed: RSS 2.0 | TrackBack | Permalink
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May 29th, 2009 at 4:26 pm
The final payments to MPs leaving their posts just prior to election-
Salary and expense payments - now to then
Pension entitlement thereon
Winding up Allowance
Service payments
My understanding is that an MP leaving at time of new election is treated much
better than an MP just leaving in terms of amounts.
Talk about salt in the wound from the 12 embezzlers !
May 29th, 2009 at 12:01 pm
…and the blood-spilling shouldn’t stop there - just who are these anonymous grandees who have authorised all these payments? who said it was OK to claim money for duck houses and moat cleaning and signed the cheque?
as the poor little MPs who have been caught are so fond of saying: “it was confirmed/authorised/passed by the Commons Fees office”….
these faceless morons must also be outed, shamed and kicked into touch.
what was the reason for this blatant side-stepping of the rules? are we getting into backhanders now perhaps…???
May 29th, 2009 at 10:56 am
Today’s papers made my blood really boil as I wait for some proper (police)
action to take place over some of these claims.
I was made aware that MPs resigning at next election will qualify for all sorts of special payments probably in excess of £160K each.
This needs to be widely circulated and those seen to have abused the system made to go now - with no compensation
Moderator - Clive I have fwd this to Anorak, hopefully he will enlarge on it
May 29th, 2009 at 10:23 am
Clive - no problems - I just find it incredible that so many of them are claiming “absent-mindedness”, “accidental” submission of claims which were not valid, or just that they “made a mistake”….?? for most working people, this kind of slipshod attitude would result in at best, a warning and at worst, dismissal for not being up to the job.
the overall impression given is that they are only holding their hands up (with the exception of the likes of Kirkbride and Moran) because they have been caught and that if the person who leaked the information had not done so, they would to this day still be ripping the taxpayer off for as much as they could trouser.
what also sticks in the craw is the bleating of some of them that they have apparently been concerned about and questioning this system for years!!!! not shouting very loudly, obviously….
I do feel sorry for those few MPs who are not on the gravy train, as they are all now - in the general public’s eyes - tarred with the same brush.
for the first time ever, MPs have actually replaced estate agents as the profession at the bottom of the dung heap - and they only have themselves to blame.
May 29th, 2009 at 10:15 am
Found this, it’ll be handy for all of us who are not MP’s ( and it’ll stop people asking freebies from Clive)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8067929.stm
May 29th, 2009 at 9:54 am
Dairy
You are right - I have also now read the rules and this expense, as for all of us, is explicitly excluded.
I think when I wrote my comment it was following the revelations of serious fraudulent expense claims and this area seemed almost a non-event by comparison.
I was wrong and happy to be corrected
May 29th, 2009 at 8:58 am
Clive - it has become increasingly clear over recent weeks that in fact the rules are explicit, in that MPs are only supposed to claim for things which directly relate to their parliamentary work.
if they are not intelligent enough to understand that particular statement, how can they possibly be fit to understand the complexities of the laws of this country and make decisions accordingly…??
no problem at all with professional accountants, but June is right, everyone else has to pay for their services, why should MPs be able to get it for free?
these people earn more doing this job in one year, WITHOUT expenses, than many will earn in THREE years.
it seems to me that the public anger arises from the fact that the MPs seem to have been more concerned with fiddling the system than doing the job which they are paid extremely well for.
May 25th, 2009 at 2:10 pm
June
Maybe my viewpoint is biased as I am an accountant !
The way I see it is that MPs ( and I cover MPs, MEPs and MSPs)
can not tell the difference between an expense reclaim and an allowance.
A lot of press reports seem to have a similar problem.
By their rules, which also apply to the rest of us, an expense must be
“wholly, exclusively and necessarily incurred” in course of business.
That is why I could accept those fees but not cleaning moats, building duck-
houses, etc.
What I find really sad is that it is spread across all the parties.
May 25th, 2009 at 1:25 pm
Clive
I agree completely , BUT why can they not foot the bill themselves, why should we?
May 25th, 2009 at 1:05 pm
I think a lot of MPs have proved themselves to be thieving bastards but I can not say
that I would have a problem in using professional accountants to ensure my
returns were properly made, all income reported and all allowable expenses
properly deducted. An MP’s affairs are more complicated than an individual in most cases, so this would be a reasonable action.
May 25th, 2009 at 12:10 pm
We should really take this opportunity and send politicians some of our bills