Questions for Keir Starmer Over Avoiding Inheritance Tax
Sir Keir Starmer is facing cries of hypocrisy after putting a £295,000 field in a trust for his parents, legally keeping it out of their estate for inheritance tax purposes — despite vowing to crack down on tax avoidance. The Sunday Times has the story.
The Prime Minister’s decision to place a seven-acre field within the structure meant its value was excluded from his parents’ estate, of which he was a beneficiary, when they died. …
He insists the trust made no difference to the liability and that he gave them the land solely to help them. Yet No 10 repeatedly declined to say why he could not have simply given them the land, or kept it while permitting them to use it.
The field was located behind Starmer’s parents’ home in Oxted, Surrey. He bought it for £20,000 in 1996 and immediately created a trust to place it within, appointing his parents as its beneficiaries. This meant they had a right to the land while they were alive, but did not acquire the legal title. He previously told the parliamentary standards commissioner: “That remained with me.”
The Prime Minister sold the field, and a small adjacent strip belonging to his father, for £320,000 in 2022. The transaction gave the field a value of around £295,000.
Starmer says he bought the land so his parents could use it as a donkey sanctuary — he has previously spoken about their work caring for animals — and without any tax advantages in mind. The Labour leader’s mother, Josephine, died in 2015. His father, Rodney, died in 2018, at which point the trust automatically dissolved and the land returned to Starmer.Had Starmer simply given them the land as a gift, it would have formed part of the father’s estate. As executor of the will, he would have been required to have the land valued and to have submitted details to HM Revenue & Customs within a year as part of the probate process.
Yet the nature of the trust meant the land was always deemed to belong to him personally. No valuation of the land was required and it was left out of inheritance tax calculations. …
Starmer has condemned legal tax avoidance. When running for the Labour leadership, he said: “We need to clamp down on tax avoidance — by companies and individuals — which costs the taxpayer billions.” In opposition, he said: “I think it’s pretty simple: those in charge of taxation can’t also be seeking to avoid it.”
Worth reading in full.
To join in with the discussion please make a donation to The Daily Sceptic.
Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.
Two Tier Keir strikes again! Perhaps we should get some T shirts made with a Starmer peering over a wall and the slogan “2TKier woz here”
This is par for the course for commies. I remember visiting a girlfriend in Riga, Latvia a few years ago. She lived in a panelac building, equivalent to a 1960s systems built dump that were foisted upon the working classes by the Labour Fabian’s. We went out for the day to a beautiful town called Jūrmala, about 30 km from Riga. It was a really beautiful place with villa style building nearby. She explained how the Commie party officials from all over the Soviet Union used to holiday there, she hated them, they lived a life of luxury whilst everyone else were barely surviving. Reminds me of people like Starmer, Mandelson et al.
Exactly when will people wake up to their sh1t?
“Clamp down on tax avoidance”. I think he’s playing to the gallery there. Tax avoidance, otherwise known as understanding tax law and acting accordingly, is entirely legal and if he wants to “clamp down” on it then he must change the law. But he probably won’t because as Trump pointed out to Hilary when she was harping on about the amount of tax he paid, he knew the law and it was the same law that all her major donors also used to minimise the amount of tax they paid.
All true ToF.
However in this case it was to be used as a donkey field.
I think it is safe to say in this case the law is an Ass.
I’ll get my coat…
That’s an important point: Tax avoidance is not tax evasion (assuming I’m using the terms right) and if people aren’t legally required to pay a certain tax, there’s no reason why they should.
You are using the terms correctly
I am sure Starmer and all the rest of them are minimising their tax
It’s pretty smart to be honest, however it’s the holier than thou attitude that sticks in my craw…
Maybe Starmer can be put out to pasture at his donkey sanctuary when he is ‘retired’ as leader of the Labour party?
I suspect it has been built on.
Am I misunderstanding something here? Starmer didn’t pay inheritance tax on something he didn’t inherit because he already owned it. What’s noteworthy about that? He certainly also didn’t pay inheritance tax on anything else he never inherited.
Tax avoidance is legal and only possible because of tte legislation passed by Parliament.
“We need to clamp down on tax avoidance…”
So another non-crime event that needs to be stamped on.
He’s very good at “clamping down” on legal activity, whilst ignoring illegal activity like gang-rape of children, the pirates crossing the Channel intent on plunder and rape… isn’t he?
Don’t forget the special law that protects Starmer’s pension pot from HMRC’s usual rules.
How would he have gained by this? What did his paents do with the land while they had the use of it?
Says it was used as a donkey sanctuary…
Oh who cares? We all know that everyone in politics is there to make a few bob.
its about time we followed them and stopped playing by the rules.
Starmer doesn’t understand what ‘racism’ is and doesn’t know that tax avoidance is perfectly legal. How can someone so seemingly clueless be PM??
How many ordinary people have a piece of land to subdivide for this tax avoidance scheme?