An Islington parliamentary candidate has attacked tax avoiders, describing them as “immoral” despite the recent revelation her party has received significant donations from an alleged tax avoider.
Green Party councillor Caroline Russell condemned a culture of wealthy individuals and businesses avoiding tax in the UK and defended the party’s star donor, Dame Vivienne Westwood, saying “of course she pays tax”.
It was alleged earlier this week that the British fashion designer paid £2m a year to an offshore company in Luxembourg, depriving the treasury of an estimated £500,000 in tax revenue.
Vivienne Westwood responds to tax-avoidance accusations: http://t.co/dDjsb0o1ik pic.twitter.com/dOWbO8FwN3
— VOGUE.CO.UK (@BritishVogue) March 11, 2015
Ms Russell claimed the “Greens refuse donations from people who don’t check out”, raising the question over whether the Green party had completed due diligence when it accepted £300,000 from Dame Vivienne.
According to the party, loopholes in the tax system should be closed so that any business that makes a profit in the UK pays tax on it, even if it means transnational corporations being taxed twice – in the UK and abroad.
“We need to clamp down on [tax] avoidance,” Ms Russell said. “We need to be making sure we have a tax regime that ensures that if people have done really well out of our economy in this country, they should be paying their way and putting money back in.”
“To avoid inheritance tax is morally wrong”
Speaking exclusively to Islington Now, the councillor for Highbury East claimed that although people who earned large sums of money should not avoid tax, it was an acceptable practice for those who weren’t as well off.
To avoid inheritance tax or anything like that is morally wrong. The dodgy film companies that get set up in order for people to specifically avoid tax.
Broadly speaking, you are not talking about someone who has worked as a teacher or a social worker making sure they put their money into an ISA or whatever. That is efficient from a tax point of view.
Her comments followed a strongly-worded assault upon the government’s austerity programme, in which she claimed that “even the governor of the Bank of England said that austerity doesn’t work, that it is economically illiterate”.
In addition to closing tax loopholes, the Green Party have said that if elected, they would end austerity in Britain and renationalise key public services. They claim that this in turn would create one million jobs that pay a living wage of £10 per hour.
The party said that the jobs would be funded through a wealth tax on the top one per cent and a Robin Hood tax on the banks.
The super-rich and people earning over £100,000 need to be taxed so they are paying their fair share. The Green Party is not afraid to say that we think tax is a good thing, we are proud of paying taxes.
The amount that gets lost to the Treasury in terms of benefit fraud is miniscule in comparison to what is lost in tax fraud. It is wrong that people just use our workers and country to make money and then just don’t pay their fair share of taxes.
Ms Russell attacked tax avoiding companies that took from the taxpayer without giving anything back, and challenged the worth of the jobs that they created in the UK.
“They are not contributing to the country’s upkeep”
She continued: “Do they provide proper jobs or are they just zero hour contract jobs? This is much of the problem with these big corporations.
“The problem is that they avoid corporation tax and that they set up their tax affairs to do so. This means they are taking workers who are educated and brought up using the UK taxpayer’s money, but they are not contributing to the upkeep of the roads or the healthcare or the education of their employees.
“It is just morally wrong not to pay taxes and contribute to the provision of services.”
When challenged over her remarks, it emerged that Mark Carney, who was appointed Governor of the Bank of England in 2013, has never been quoted referring to Britain’s austerity measures in such terms.
In response to the allegations of tax avoidance, Vivienne Westwood’s company said:
Vivienne Westwood Limited is part of an independent international group of companies. Latimo SA is the holding company of this group. Vivienne Westwood Ltd pays regular royalties to Latimo SA pursuant to a licence agreement.
All British entities based in the UK paid the required taxes. Within the UK, Vivienne Westwood Limited paid £780,228 of taxes in 2013 and £1,250,858 of taxes in 2012.
