UKIP Call on HMRC to Investigate Hodge the Dodge
UKIP economic spokesman Godfrey Bloom has gone after Margaret Hodge, demanding that HMRC “investigate unanswered questions from C4 News, Sky News and Guido Fawkes about her ‘knowledge’ of the tax affairs of her family trust”:
“It beggars belief that Hodge stated that her family company paid ‘every penny’ of the tax it owed although later she admitted that did not know how much tax it actually paid. Yet, this woman is chairman of the House of Commons Public Affairs Committee. Hodge comes in at No 15 on the Times’ Politicians Rich List, with a mere £18m tied up on the family business, which is in a family trust so there is no inheritance tax to pay. One rule them and one for the rest of the plebs? I call on HMRC to investigate.”
Always one to help expose tax hypocrisy, here are a few questions HMRC should ask:
Why Hodge claimed that “I am a tiny, tiny, tiny shareholder” in Stemcor when her direct shareholding is worth £1.8 million.- Why Hodge holds several million pounds more worth of Stemcor shareholdings in trusts.
- For what purpose Hodge holds these shareholdings in trusts other than to reduce the risk of a future tax liability.
As Hodge the Dodge said herself last week, “I think what we are going to have to do is order somebody to come who can give us answers to the questions…”
In 2010 AOL UK Limited, HuffPo’s esteemed owners, had a revenue of £78 million. Despite that they paid just £122,000 in corporation tax, cleverly moving £30 million out of the reach of the UK tax authorities by “repatriating” a dividend payment to a tax avoidance special purpose vehicle (SPV) AOL Europe Sarl, registered in the tax haven of Luxembourg. This meant, despite returning 38% of revenue to shareholders, they had an effective tax rate of less than 1%. Guido looks forward to Ed’s article attacking AOL and HuffPo for “going to extraordinary lengths to avoid paying taxes”. 
“I appreciate attention to my proposal, but many of the praise comes from the wrong side. Look, I’m an economist and, like most economists, an advocate of free trade. Moreover, I support the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the World Trade Organization — everything that these movements are attacking. They’re misusing my name… I feel that I’m being misunderstood and that my name has been wrongly co-opted for other people’s priorities. The Tobin tax offers no platform for the reforms that these people are seeking. But what can I do? Their intentions are good, I assume, but the proposals are badly thought out.”
Dave dodged the opportunity to ask Google supremo Eric Schmidt about his company’s commendable methods of legally maximising their shareholders’ profits when the pair met 
“Well, I think what we are going to have to do is order somebody to come who can give us answers to the questions we ask. We will order somebody to appear before us who does that. It is just not acceptable. I don’t know what you take us for, but we need proper answers to perfectly proper questions, which are trying to establish the economic activity in this country, and therefore what would be a reasonable corporation tax due. That is our job. The idea that you come here and simply do not answer the questions, and pretend ignorance, is just not on. It is awful… I cannot believe you have come without the information-or they have deliberately sent you. We will order somebody who can answer the questions, in public… Dear, dear. Well, we will have to come back to this.”
Today’s Guardian 
