Ashcroft shows who makes the rules on tax

Disillusioned tory non-dom donor Lord Ashcroft may regret his judgement in backing an ungrateful David Cameron but he has lost none of his shrewdness when using measures to avoid paying tax. 

BBC’s Panorama is tonight revealing how the Conservative peer, who is about to resign as the party’s deputy chairman, transferred his £17 million stake in a company to his children on 5 April this year. A day later, legislation came into effect which forces members of the House of Lords to pay tax on their worldwide income and assets. His cynical actions denied the exchequer an estimated £3.4 million.

more tory tax avoidance?

The Beeb highlight that Ashcroft is said to have backed the new tax rules for the House of Lords and told interviewers on election night that he was to become a full UK taxpayer.

This was ten years after he had been permitted to take his seat in the Lords on condition that he agreed to take up permanent residence in the UK and pay tax on his worldwide income. At the time, the [then] opposition leader William Hague claimed the newly created peer would be paying the treasury tens of millions of pounds a year. Instead he paid virtually nothing and this year confirmed his non-domiciled tax status.

There is no mention if Ashcroft will be targeted in the crackdown on tax avoidance & evasion action announced at the Lib Dem conference last week and which will cost £900 million according to party sources. We’ll just have to watch the programme to find out.

Update: The scheduled Panorama programme was withdrawn for "legal reasons". More to follow?