All seems a bit contrived to me.

Yes, he's very wealthy (no surprise to anyone that an Eton boy may have a bit of cash, surely).
The cash was invested in a tax efficient manner (presumably on the advice of a Financial Advisor and/or accountant).
He paid all tax due.

I once sold a house I rented out, and minimised my CGT liability by cross-claiming losses I made on a business venture. Efficient. Legal. Fine, surely?

I'm all for loopholes in tax legislation being investigated, plugged (where they are proven to be dodgy), and preferably something put in place to prevent accountants just inventing new ones, and I firmly believe we should be pumping billions into HMRC to do just that, but claiming immorality is a false argument, just as it would be to claim it's immoral to either utilise your entire ISA allowance every year, or to gift your children cash to avoid eventual inheritance tax.

All in my own opinion, of course - I'm sure others will disagree.

The complete tw*t in that video went on This Week (political programme that's on after Question Time) trying to convince everyone that they shouldn't vote. He was also privately educated, nice place to have socialist views from, isn't it? BBC's wet dream. Watch Andrew Neil tearing him apart here:

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When will the left learn that the more they moan, the less appealing their cause is to the average man? It's pathetic. They think because they shout the loudest that they are winning the argument, even though time and again this is proved to not be the case.

Cameron has clearly not done anything wrong, his crime is to wisely manage his personal finances. I'd be more worried if he hadn't. Having said that, he hasn't covered himself in glory in his handling of it. Calls for him to resign are ludicrous.

Edited by We are goin up! (11 Apr 2016 11.25am)

The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.

Careful Hoof,or people might attribute your ignorance about duty free within the EU to all your views..There is no duty free for trips to France...abolished in 1999!

The key is untested schemes, which rely on obfuscation rather than necessarily fitting into the law or spirit of the law. The advice of a Financial Advisor or Accountant doesn't mean a scheme is necessarily legal. For example, an ISA is legal, as are cash gifts if you don't die within 7 years, because they're established in UK law.

A lot of tax avoidance schemes are in a grey area that they have not been tested in law, and with these offshores they also rely on obfuscation using laws in those countries that are different to the UKs. For example, a lot of these Panama exposed schemes seem to rely on fraudulent practices that would be against the law in the UK (such as fake employees and shareholders) or withholding the names of directors of a company (or using the name of someone who isn't a director to acts as the director and paying them to do so).

Yes, definitely legal, provided those cross claimed losses were on a legitimate venture. Now if that venture was specifically set up to make a loss, in order to minimalise capital gain taxes (ie the loss of the venture was lower than the savings on CGT, then it could very well be illegal, as it falls into areas of fraud).

I'm not even that draconian, I don't really have a problem where people are say adopting a scheme in the UK that reduces their tax earnings a bit, provided they're not taking the p*ss. Kind of like if someone on benefits, earns a few quid doing labour on the side, or someone occasionally does some private work to make ends meet.

I think inevitably everyone will game the system to an extent, same as when people throw a sickie for a day off, or pay someone cash for a discount.

But this isn't to make ends meet, top up or save a bit here and there, its enormous and many of them would be illegal where they conducted in the UK, where these people are resident and earning the money from. It seems a lot of them aren't about 'saving a bit' but as much as is humanly possible - and hiding it entirely.

"One Nation Under God, has turned into One Nation Under the Influence of One Drug"
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He sold the shares in January 2010, His Father died in the September . Did Dave get his inheritance early? If not surely Dave isn't telling us everyything.

Edited by nickgusset (11 Apr 2016 12.27pm)

You like bandying around the word ignorance don't you.

You must be one of these types with delusions of superiority.

Nothing like a bit of name calling and swerve to cloud an issue.