The true cost of Ashcroft tax debacle
In his interview with Evan Davis on the Today programme this morning, William Hague admitted he now regrets writing to then-Prime Minister Tony Blair in 1999 to say:
"Mr Ashcroft is... committed to becoming resident by the next financial year in order properly to fulfil his responsibilities in the House of Lords. This decision will cost him (and benefit the Treasury) tens of millions a year in tax yet he considers it worthwhile."
Note that the benefit to the Treasury would not just have been "tens of millions", in tax, but "tens of millions A YEAR".
By my simple reckoning that would have brought the Treasury HUNDREDS of millions of pounds in Ashcroft tax in all over the years since 1999.
And the UK National Debt would be therefore now be hundreds of millions of pounds lower.
Now it's just possible that Lord Ashcroft has been paying "tens of millions a year" in tax on his UK earnings, but I doubt that very much.
And I doubt if anyone else really believes that.
I imagine that Lord Ashcroft's UK earnings are pretty insignificant. And that his UK tax payments are therefore pretty small, by his standards anyway.
He can correct me if I am wrong.
So Mr Hague's 1999 letter was quite a substantial and potentially lucrative promise. And it's been an extremely costly failure that nobody followed it through properly.
A failure not just by Mr Hague and David Cameron (and Tory leaders in between) but also by Mr Blair, Gordon Brown, and officials working for the Cabinet Office under Labour.
I'm Michael Crick, and I'm Newsnight's political editor. My guiding rule is that in any story there's usually something the politicians would prefer the world not to know. My job is to find that out. Follow me on
Comment number 1.
At 18th Mar 2010, JAperson wrote:If it gets through ....
Please see my post on 'From the web team' No 10 today.
At 1:12pm on 18 Mar 2010, JAperson
AKA ...
I couldn't agree with you more.
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Comment number 2.
At 18th Mar 2010, stevie wrote:This whole Ashcroft thing is starting to unravel bigtime for the Tory party and just when you thought Labour was on the backfoot over Charlie Whelan and Unite.....little Willie didn't know the full facts or he was hiding something but the Lord of Belize confused a lot of people especially his own party's frontbench.....so who do you believe? The Unite workers fighting for their jobs, trying to engage a bolshy employer in talks, the Murdoch press lined up against them or a Lord who slaps an injunction willy nilly even against our own dear Auntie and blocks Panarama...I say print and be damned Aunt...I will be behind the barricades with you as the truth will out.....
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Comment number 3.
At 18th Mar 2010, jauntycyclist wrote:tacitus would love all this.
it is not beyond the realms of reason to suppose the reason why the govt do nothing about the chinese currency manipulation is that they see it as some kind of 'redistribution' of wealth. even though the uk is bankrupt and such redistribution means a very real drop in uk living standards.
leaving aside the 'fighting fascists around the world agenda' the govt pursue mass migration where new manual jobs are unlikely to be open to 'english as a first language' manual labour class [potential bnp voters] and international redistribution of wealth via chinese currency manipulation.
ie lots of things for other people other than british.
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Comment number 4.
At 18th Mar 2010, stanilic wrote:Also it seems a manifest failure of the Official Secrets Act. I for one will never seek to have correpsondence with the Cabinet Office. Not so much a leak as a veritable torrent. Only one group of people have benifited from this so we can be reasonably sure that it is not the Tories.
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