Dissembling on Defence spending ...

This article in this morning's Independent is pretty damning ... and it is accompanied by the cartoon that I reproduce from the same newspaper.

The conclusion reached by Bruce Anderson mirrors a conclusion that I reached some time ago - that the Labour Government is responsible for a breach of the covenant that exists between the Government and those that serve in the Armed Forces and in particular in the Army - what is referred to as the Military Covenant. 

More alarming still for Gordon Brown is the fact that his evidence before the Chilcott enquiry has been condemned as 'dissembling' and 'disingenuous' by a former Chief of Defence Staff - see the report in the Times last week here.  Look up those words and you will find that the synonyms include 'concealed' and 'hidden' and 'insincere', 'lacking in candour' and 'dishonest'.  Those are very strong words for a recently retired Crown servant to use ...

It is simply not good enough ... and it is one of the reasons why I am cynical when I read about the Prime Minister's visit to out troops in Afghanistan.

The abuse of words ...

'Progressive' is used by Labour and its supporters to mean anything they support ... and anyone opposed to their proposals or who campaigns against them must therefore be 'regressive' or even extreme.

Look at this article on Will Straw's Left Foot Forward ...

Roger Helmer opposes the absurdly named 'Robin Hood Tax' and responds to an email from supporters of that tax that is sent to everyone.  Yes, it may well be that by responding, he highlights the event again, but all he is doing is reminding everyone of his opposition to the proposal.

Shamik Das interprets this as an email sent out in the name of a 'hard right cause' ... what stupidity,  what nonsense!  To oppose a new tax that most people who work in financial services that I know consider to be both dangerous and extremely damaging to global economic prospects is in some way extreme ...

The abuse that is coming from the Labour supporting websites is clear ... they will use every opportunity to bend language to breaking point and beyond.  This is already the most absurd election campaign that I have been part of ... and the absurdity is only increased by the silliness of 'evidence-based blogging' such as that contained in Will Straw's website.

Two thoughts ... the Electoral Commission's decision on Bearwood and a 21-hour working week!

The electoral commission has produced a report on the donations to the Conservative Party by Bearwood Corporate Services - you can access the summary report from the press release that you will find here.

The BBC is reporting this report and concentrates rather too much on the comment of the Chairman, Jenny Watson that, "We had concerns, based on some of the evidence, about the degree of certainty within the Conservative Party about the identity of the donor".

It seems to me that this is rather a silly comment by the Chairman, because the summary report accepts that the Treasurer of the Conservative Party was certain and 'had no doubt' about the identity of the donor before complaining that the Commission had no powers to compel an interview.  In effect, the real complaint is that the Commission wants more power to compel attendance for cross examination - and it seems to me that any such power would be accompanied by a requirement for people to be represented and so further increase the costs.

Will Straw's Left Foot Forward publishes a call for Britain to introduce a 21-hour working week -see here.


The absurdity of this proposal is contained in the article itself - the 35-hour working week in France 'had mixed results' is an understatement and the motivation appears to be that typical mix of 'we know best' dictatorial nonsense that usually comes from the extremes in politics.

More worrying would be the effect on the poorest and those stuck in jobs paid by the hour.  Ironically, rather than promote economic prosperity and increase opportunities for those at the bottom, I suspect that it would be yet another drag on inequality. 

What is it about the people who promote these sorts of daft ideas that makes them believe that they can reduce inquality through the creation of structures that dictate the hours that people work?  The real motivation is contained in the statement to the effect that the lifestyles our people enjoy must change to meet the requirements that these people want to impose ... frankly, I am very sceptical of people who proselytise in this sort of way.

Aschroft - has Labour completely lost the plot?

Until recently, I had a reasonably good impression of Ben Bradshaw - after this, I have sadly come the conclusions that he's a prize berk!

Will Straw's Left Foot Forward blog has written a number of articles filled with artifice and artificial figures that only have to be thought about for a moment to realise just how silly they are - see here and here.

The silliness of the Mirror figures (see here) in which they estimate both the returns and the capital gains they claim will have been made on the Times's estimate of Lord Ashcroft's wealth and convert them into figures so that they can claim a particular figure for tax allegedly avoided is obvious to anyone with the slightest knowledge of the taxes they make their claims about.  What they ignore is that the returns could be very substantially smaller and the gains would only give rise to a liability to tax when realised - so the figures are not just speculation, they are disingenuous nonsense put out for politicial purposes.

As to the claims that it is Lord Ashcorft's money that has been spent in the marginal constituencies - the money that is referred to as 'Ashcroft money' by the party are the funds that are controlled centrally and are used by local candidates to carry out specific tasks in their constituencies - and as far as I am aware, most of that money has not come from Lord Ashcroft or any of his companies, rather it is from funds adminsitered by him for the purposes of the marginal seat strategy.  There is no secret about this.

This is a Westminster village story - filled with the usual partisan cries that are no more than demonstrations of hypocrisy.  If Labour thinks that this is a 'winning' strategy, they take the public for fools and ignore the real problems that people face outside the Westminster village - I do hope that they continue on this vein, as I believe it demonstrates just how bankrupt Labour is (and not merely financially)!

Domicile and residence

The discussion about Lord Ashcroft's tax status in the newspapers and between partisan politicians is getting me down a bit - so I thought I would set out some thoughts about domicile and residence. 

Before I go further, what I write here is a picture postcard of the laws of domicile and residence - it is not legal advice and cannot be taken to be such or relied on as such by anyone whatsoever.

In English and Welsh law, domicile is not the same as residence or nationality and should not be confused with either.  Generally, an individual's domicile is the country that he or she regards as his home - it is where he or she has the closest ties and, when he is away, it is the place to which he intends to return (although he or she can be away for a considerable period of time).  Domicile is not specifically defined for tax purposes(you won't find a statutory definition either), but takes its meaning from the general law which has developed over a very long period of time - and possibly finds its origins in the concepts relating settlement which in turn were affected by the Poor Laws (look them up in Wikipedia if you want to know more).

Domicile of origin is the most important type of domicile.  It is acquired by birth and usually by reference to the domicile of the father at the time of the birth.  A domicile of origin is maintained unless it is abandoned by the acquisition of a domicile of choice.  A person cannot have no domicile and so, if they abandon a domicile of choice without making a further choice of domicile, it is probable that the domicile of origin revives.

Domicile of choice is acquired by physical residence in the chosen territory combined with an intention to permanently or indefinitely reside in that territory.  The second of these tests is subjective and we have seen recently that even people who depart and change their lives in significant ways can be found by the court not to have succeeded in removing themselves from the UK for the purposes of domicile - see here, but remember that the case turned on questions of domicile not residence!

Residence and ordinary residence are also not defined in statute and as a result the dictionary definitions are usually adopted by the courts - ignoring any mental element whatsoever.  A person can be resident in more than one country at a time - so a person who winters in Spain and summers in the UK can be resident in the UK and in Spain at the same time.  A person can even have no residence - contrast that with domicile.

For residence, HMRC have adopted rules based on the numbers of days that a person is resident in the UK - if a person spends more than 183 days in the UK in any tax year, then he or she will invariably be resident in the UK for tax purposes in that tax year.  If a person leaves the UK for a permanent residence abroad but spends 91 days per year or more in the UK then they are treated as continuing their UK residence.

Residents are liable to tax on their UK earnings - people resident here but domiciled abroad are not liable for earnings abroad so long as their earnings are not remitted here.  So a non-dom is someone who pays tax on their UK earnings and on sums brought into the UK for their use.  So to say that a non-dom is not taxed on their world-wide earnings is not quite true - because if they live here and have no income here but bring money in from abroad, they are liable to tax on the money they bring in.

Various proposals have been made to reform the laws of domicile and residence for UK tax purposes.  What is remarkable is that the Labour Government's only significant reform of this area has been in 2008 when the £30,000 charge was made for registered long term residents who retained a domicile that was not the UK - it should be noted that the liability to tax on money remitted to the UK remains.  Most other jurisdictions tax income on a residence basis - the quesiton I want to ask any Labour politician who complains about non-doms is this - why wait until now to complain and why did you not put in place the reforms you appear to have wanted at the beginning of your 12 years in power?