News
Louis Dor
Apr 08, 2016
If you're on Twitter, you may have seen an errant tweet from George Osborne stroll across your timeline from two years ago.
The tweet from October 2014 involves the Chancellor of the Exchequer's views on tax evasion, tweeted on the same day that he and representatives from fifty other countries signed an agreement in Berlin to share data, as coordinated by the OECD, to crack down on tax evasion.
What should be noted is that the wording refers to evasion, which is illegal, not avoidance, which is legal but can be seen as immoral.
Given the prime minister's poorly-received recent admission that he benefited to the tune of £31,500 from the 2010 sale of his holdings in his father's offshore unit trust fund, Blairmore Holdings Inc, which David Cameron and his wife bought in 1997, this tweet has become a bit of a focal point for anger on Twitter.
Blairmore itself was not subject to UK tax although UK citizens receiving dividends or selling shares in it were liable for UK tax on their gains.
Cameron old ITV News on Thursday:
I was keen in 2010 to sell everything – shares, all the rest of it – so I can be very transparent. I don’t own any part of any company or any investment trust or anything else like that.
I paid income tax on the dividends... it was subject to all the UK taxes in all the normal way.
But people have been quick to criticise what they see as the government's double standards:
We wonder if he'll have the same moral outrage about David Cameron's 2010 tax arrangements? Seems unlikely after he repeatedly refused to provide an answer to the question:
Do you now or will you in the future benefit from any offshore shares sale?
Remember, we're all in this together.
Picture: Ben Pruchnie/Getty ImagesMore:The five statements that led to a PR disaster for David Cameron
More from the Independent:Panama Papers: George Osborne repeatedly dodges questions on family's tax affairs then ends interview
More:The other people connected to David Cameron who are linked to tax avoidance
Top 100
The Conversation (0)