Last night Ken promised on Newsnight to publish his accounts. He further said this morning “I will set out income to my company over the last four years, how much my wife and I received and how much tax was paid.” Instead we got a partial view of what he decided to pay tax on. Ken also claims that an accountant has signed these figures off, yet provides no evidence for this unlike the other candidates. He has still not published his company accounts and the clock is ticking.
Guido’s been speaking to bean counters today who are slightly puzzled by what Ken has put out. One writes:
“a) no book-keeper, let alone an accountant, has been near this – you never date down the left hand side – you run left to right;
b) Corporation Tax is paid on profits, not dividends – massive f**k-up here – tells you all you need to know about the integrity of these accounts.”
The meta-data on the .PDF document shows that it was drawn up not by an accountant, but by Mark Watts- Ken’s old Climate Change Adviser at City Hall. He got one of the crony pay-offs in 2008.
Apart from the 14.5% effective income tax rate – which Matthew Hancock points out is less than a City Hall cleaner pays – the main take-away from the part-publication is that by paying himself in dividends he is avoiding paying National Insurance, which employees have to pay. If you are employed you pay it at 12%. If you are self employed you pay it at 9%. If you are Ken, you don’t pay it at all.
He cannot say he is paying his fair share when he is avoiding paying National Insurance, which is the tax that pays towards the NHS. The question for Ken is a simple one. Why are you paying yourself in dividends rather than salary? There is only one answer. To avoid tax.
Boris’ figures have the accountants signature on them and Paddick has put his actual returns, plus a few personal details, out. Why so dodgy Ken?
Labour have often denied they use command and control techniques on Twitter, yet strangely their Shadow Ministers, MPs and activists always end up singing from the same hymn sheet. Guido has long suspected this unity is fake and that lines to take are pushed out by spinners. Well it turns out that hunch was right:
From: “Tom Copley KenLivingstone.com”
Date: Thu, 5 Apr 2012 13:47:37
Subject: Ken’s tax and income: urgent online engagement███████ —
Details of Ken’s tax and income – signed off by his accountant – is now online here:
http://www.kenlivingstone.com/ken-releases-details-of-incometax
This shows that last year he paid the full income tax required on all his earnings at a rate of 35%. This is higher than Brian Paddick but lower than Boris Johnson because unlike Johnson Ken does not fall into the 50p tax bracket.
Guido Fawkes is using dodgy maths to try and claim that Ken only paid 14.5% in income tax last year:
This is deliberately misleading. They’ve calculated this figure by dividing the amount Ken paid in tax on dividends by all the money in the company. This is ridiculous – Ken does not own the whole company and money in the company was used to employ other members of staff. Ken has paid the full income tax required on all the money he has taken out of the company as shown in the accounts.
The truth on Ken’s taxes, from that “left-wing stalwart” the Spectator (of which Boris Johnson was a former editor) – is here:
http://www.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/7766343/how-much-tax-do-the-mayoral-candidates-pay
We need you to urgently engage @GuidoFawkes, @MrHarryCole, @DaveMorgan25, @BackBoris2012 and @Boris_Backer on Twitter to rebut their lies. Please tweet the link to the Spectator article too.
Best wishes,
Tom Copley
Digital Campaigns Coordinator
Ken Livingstone for London
How’s that urgent engagement going?
UPDATE: Well badly is the answer. The Spectator have now updated the article that Labour were so keen to push:
“It seems Ken’s campaign is trying to use our chart as proof that he isn’t avoiding tax. It isn’t. Our figures for Ken are simply the amount he’s declared he pays in tax divided by his declared personal income. It’s what he claims his effective tax rate is, not what we claim it is.”
Urgent engagement required.
Ken has released information on the income that he decided to pay tax on, while simply choosing to ignore the rest. When Silveta Ltd’s numbers from all of his media earnings are included, the true picture of his company wheeze becomes clear. If the Silveta Ltd had actually done anything Ken might have had a leg to stand on, but it did nothing in that time bar employ his wife to write a book. He’s a tax avoider…
He claims his income from employment last year was £5,700? LBC must be slave masters!
Ken earned £755,778 from media appearances and his books according to Silveta’s Company House filings. It’s not looking good…
UPDATE: Ken paid 14.5% of his gross income in tax last year. He brought in £238,646 via Silveta Limited and paid £34,661 in tax. He’s a tax avoider…
UPDATE II: Boris’ numbers were signed off by a respected firm of accountants and Paddick has gone the whole hog and actually released the bits of paper. What proof do we have that this page of numbers rushed out by Ken is legit? It isn’t even signed off by his accountant…
After a morning of obfuscating and spinning, we now hear that Ken will be releasing the numbers and has sent them to the Standard.
https://twitter.com/#!/PippaCrerar/status/187874924201914368
In that time Ken earned nearly three quarters of a million and put it through Silveta Ltd. On the back of a fag packet that looks like about 15% of his earnings going on tax. No wonder he was trying to wriggle today – that’s below the basic rate of income tax…
“Good, that’s easy.”
Just hours after declaring that he would release his income details Ken has shattered another promise.
