London mayoral candidates publish tax records

heathcote123

A._Badger wrote: »

You mean like he did his support for the IRA and radical Islamists?

Why is anyone surprised? How much does it take?

Sorry I was still editing.. on reflection I can indeed believe it.

heathcote123

Joe_Bloggs wrote: »

Ken is 65 soon to be 66. He is of pensionable age hence there are no national insurance payments.
The salary for the Mayor of London is £143,911, Clearly the mayoral role is a part time occupation for Boris.
J_B.

The NICS bit is a bit of a red herring - though it looks like he should have been paying it for 2010/2011. Accumulating capital under a service company and saving it for distribution in later quieter years (such as I suspect Ken will have soon) and hence avoiding the 50% tax bracket is a bigger issue here.

There is absolutely no way on earth this was not calculated to avoid paying 'his fair share'. I know, I do it too, and achieve a tax rate of somewhere around 20% - I suspect his is somewhat lower.

The important bit here is what you are not seeing - his 'full disclosure' was nothing of the kind - you need to see the company books for that.

I have no problem with anyone minimising their taxes legally (I'd go as far as to say its your duty to yourself & family)- it's the hypocracy of it that has fortunately been his downfall.

Joe_Bloggs

Actually Ken is 66 years 9 months. Politicians in waiting have to be conservative with their money. It is the prestige of the title that they relish coupled with the influence they can project.

Mayoral politics in the UK is still in its infancy I would like to see more cities give it a try.

J_B.

vivatifosi

heathcote123 wrote: »

The important bit here is what you are not seeing - his 'full disclosure' was nothing of the kind - you need to see the company books for that.

I have no problem with anyone minimising their taxes legally - it's the hypocracy of it that has fortunately been his downfall.

Exactly. You can't say that people who minimise their tax burden shouldn't have the right to vote and then not only minimise your own tax burden and hope you'll get elected by the population, some of whom you've already said shouldn't have the vote and hope no-one would notice and then get caught and then only make a partial disclosure that still leaves you swinging and hope a bit more that you'll still get away with it.

The scary thing is that there could be a backlash against the use of dividends following such stories, which would be very bad news for small companies.

heathcote123

Joe_Bloggs wrote: »

Actually Ken is 66 years 9 months. Politicians in waiting have to be conservative with their money. It is the prestige of the title that they relish coupled with the influence they can project.

Mayoral politics in the UK is still in its infancy I would like to see more cities give it a try.

J_B.

OH good lol - I'm sure you'd be saying the same if it was Boris paying 14% and red ken paying 45%.

And apparently it's kens age at the start of the tax year that defines whether NI's should be paid - but its all a bit academic because he chose to use a service company to avoid paying tax on all his earnings, so NI was out anyway.

heathcote123

vivatifosi wrote: »

Exactly. You can't say that people who minimise their tax burden shouldn't have the right to vote and then not only minimise your own tax burden and hope you'll get elected by the population, some of whom you've already said shouldn't have the vote and hope no-one would notice and then get caught and then only make a partial disclosure that still leaves you swinging and hope a bit more that you'll still get away with it.

The scary thing is that there could be a backlash against the use of dividends following such stories, which would be very bad news for small companies.

Spot on, and yes that is a worry. I'm finally getting to earn some proper money now, and would be really !!!!ed off if the likes of Ken !!!!!! it up for me!!!

chewmylegoff

Whilst someone over 65 may not pay employees NI, the company paying their salary has to pay 13.8% NI on their salary regardless of age so paying out dividends avoids the eer's NI.

julieq

The good old BBC have chosen not to mention much of this at all.

Meanwhile a little banner saying that Milliband thinks Cameron has something to hide was sitting on the front page of the BBC news site for nearly a week after everyone had forgotten what that story was about.

chewmylegoff

Joe_Bloggs wrote: »

Ken is 65 soon to be 66. He is of pensionable age hence there are no national insurance payments.
The salary for the Mayor of London is £143,911, Clearly the mayoral role is a part time occupation for Boris.
J_B.

It's wl documented that he gets £250,000 for writing a newspaper column (chickenfeed, he called it...). Doubt it takes him that long to do that. Just cos he earns more for other things doesn't mean he spends more time on them.

I doubt livingstone spent any more time and deport doing 'mayoral things' when he was in charge.

Generali

Ken Livingstone is also claiming that he earned £33 in interest in 2010/11.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/05_04_12income_tax.pdf

I'm with vivatifosi here: this is a pretty crass thing for Ken to have done. He said that people that pay themselves in this way should not have the vote.

Ken's company is called Silveta Ltd. A quick Google shows that Silveta had £250,635 in cash in the bank at the end of financial year 2010/11. That money will presumably have had Corporation Tax paid on it at 20% but no income tax or national insurance paid on it.

If that money is paid out as a dividend, income tax will become payable (with a credit to reflect that Corporation Tax has already been paid) but no employers or employees NI.