Margaret Hodge
It turns out that Labour MP, Margaret Hodge, is a tax avoider too.
You couldn’t make it up. The newspapers revealed, not long ago, that two senior managers at HMRC were putting their salaries through Limited Companies to save tax. This was whilst they were hunting down genuine contractors who were doing so.
They have now revealed that the Hammer of Google, Facebook, Starbucks etc., Labour MP Margaret Hodge, has a share in an offshore fund as well and is an offshore tax avoider.
The newspapers revealed that Chancellor Osborne is an offshore tax avoider and has an offshore family trust worth £4.5m. They also revealed that David Cameron’s father Ian was an offshore tax avoider He made most of his money (and David Cameron’s inheritance) from offshore funds.
The new revelation is that the Chairperson of the Committee which looks into tax affairs and tax avoidance has a share in an offshore fund. Margaret Hodge is an offshore tax avoider too.
Stemcor Offshore Company
She has a shareholding in Stemcor – which paid just 0.01% tax last year. Google and Amazon would be proud of that. Hodge claimed in a grilling, by Michael Crick, that she just had a small shareholding in the company run by her brother who is an offshore tax avoider.
However it turns out that her shareholding is 1.26% of the company. That would mean that she would have been paid out £56,939 in dividends last year. Her shareholding is now worth £1.8m. That’s hardly a tiny, tiny amount as she claimed.
Stemcor have confirmed that it doesn’t even include shareholdings in her children’s names. It turns out that she owns several million pounds worth of shares when you include her children’s shareholdings. They will now pay no inheritance tax on it.
She was asked to explain what other purpose that there could be other than avoiding tax for her share in the trust? She hadn’t replied so far.
It’s always been the case that those in the know have been using these tax avoidance schemes. It’s to save paying their full whack of taxes.
The top Tories have been offshore tax avoiders for a long time. Now it looks like Labour MPs are at it too. They are using them while bashing multinational companies and genuine contractors who now use offshore umbrella companies.
To see some examples of offshore umbrella companies for contractors see Offshore Umbrella Companies