Labour are branded hypocrite tax avoiders

£12 million in stamp duty is avoided by Labour Council shenanigins.

The Bootle Labour Party and their ultimate boss, Jeremy Corbyn have both been accused of hypocrisy after Sefton Council have been revealed to have used offshore companies to avoid paying millions in tax in the recent Bootle Strand purchase.

For in response to the ‘Paradise Papers’ leaks of tax avoidance, Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn said the Queen should apologise if £10 million of her personal fortune had been invested offshore to avoid paying tax in Britain.

In May, Sefton Council bought the New Strand shopping centre in Bootle through a Luxembourg company for £32.5 million – saving £1.6 million in stamp duty. Warrington Labour bosses have copied them in July to buy Birchwood Park business centre.

Councillor Ian Maher, Leader of Sefton Council, said:

“It is true that one of the important considerations for purchasing the company rather than the asset is that the council would not have to pay stamp duty land tax. This is widely-accepted as an accepted tax-efficient way of completing the purchase.”

With the backing of Liberal Democrats, in 2013 former Chancellor George Osborne created a levy to prevent ownership of residential property from being kept in offshore companies by former chancellor George Osborne – but this levy was not applied to commercial property. That leaves the owners of the likes of the Bootle Strand shopping centre free to hold their property overseas.

Lib Dem national leader Sir Vince Cable hit out at Labour in response to the news that they were playing it both ways on tax avoidance.

He said that “It appears somewhat hypocritical” for the party’s leadership to attack tax avoidance schemes without keeping “their own house in order”.

Sefton Council said that it had not intended to avoid stamp duty using the purchasing scheme, which is not illegal. The Council says it bought the shopping centre’s offshore holding company because the previous owner was only willing to sell the holding company, not just the shopping centre itself – so the Council had no choice but to avoid the tax.

 Labour are branded ‘hypocrite’ tax avoiders as it’s revealed Sefton Council used offshore firm to buy Bootle Strand shops.

https://www.otsnews.co.uk/southport-mp-blasts-hypocritical-labour-party-after-local-authority-is-named-in-tax-avoidance-scandal/

Pressed by journalists from ‘ The Times’ newspaper, national Labour spokesperson said that Labour remains committed to “tackling tax avoidance”.