Sturgeon vow as party chiefs reveal tax return documents
First Minister will publish yearly figures as Panama Papers row continues
THE leaders of four of Scotland’s main political parties have now published their tax returns in the wake of the Panama Papers controversy.
At the weekend in light of the Panama Papers leak, Prime Minister David Cameron made public a summary of his taxes after facing criticism about shares he held in an offshore fund set up by his father Ian, a Scottish stockbroker.
Kezia Dugdale, the Scottish Labour leader, and her Conservative counterpart Ruth Davidson made their tax returns public on Saturday.
Ms Dugdale said she was making the financial information public as a result of the Panama Papers scandal and called on the other party leaders to do the same.
Nicola Sturgeon published her tax return yesterday as did Scottish Liberal Democrats’ leader Willie Rennie. Ms Sturgeon promised to do the same each year she remained as First Minister.
Ms Sturgeon’s return for 2014-15 revealed she had a total income of £104,817 and was charged £32,517 in income tax.
An SNP spokesman said: “The First Minister’s only income is the salary she receives as an MSP and First Minister.
“Nicola Sturgeon pays tax on her full salary entitlement but only draws her salary at its 2008/09 level; the balance is automatically paid to the Scottish Government for use in general public spending.
“As a result, in 2014/15 the First Minister paid around £3000 into the Scottish Government consolidated fund (its bank account),” added the spokesman.
Mr Rennie’s papers for the same year showed his income was £52,283 and he was charged £10,480.20 in income tax.
Making his financial details public, Mr Rennie said: “Compared with certain other party leaders, my tax returns are rather dull but here they are anyway.”
Ms Dugdale’s documents showed she had an income of £57,465 in 2014-15 and was charged £11,250.40 tax. A total of £5242 was classified as “profit from self-employment” through her newspaper columns although the cash went directly to charity MND Scotland.
A Labour spokesman said: “The Panama Papers showed the rich elite are playing by different rules from the rest of us. Following the shocking revelation that the Prime Minister has benefited from money hidden away in tax havens, it’s more important than ever for all political leaders to be transparent about their finances.”
Ms Davidson’s tax return revealed she earned £52,223 in 2014-15 and paid £10,513 in tax.
Meantime, Jeremy Corbyn, who made clear he too would publish his tax return, suggested that not only senior politicians but also journalists in the public eye should be expected to reveal their financial details.
The Labour leader argued that there should be “the greatest sense of openness” over money and influence around politics following the Panama Papers’ row over offshore finance.
Asked if the UK was now moving to a position where anyone in public life should reveal their tax affairs, Mr Corbyn said: “We are moving in that direction; it is probably a good thing if we move generally in that direction so that everybody knows what influences are at play.”
Mr Corbyn added: “Money and politics have to be treated with the greatest sense of openness possible so you know what influences are at work on any individual, on what- ever political or any other decisions they make.”
Elsewhere, LibDems’ leader Tim Farron said he too would publish his own tax papers this week as he warned that trust in politicians was “taking another hammering”.
He said: “It is essential British people have full confidence in our leaders and that when decisions are made and budgets are written there is not even a slightest hint of a conflict of interest or personal gain.”
IT MAY not surprise you to learn that they do things differently in Norway. On top of its social democracy and sovereign wealth fund, since 1814 the Scandinavian country has been publishing the earnings and tax receipts of all its citizens.
It started when Norway won its (partial) independence and needed to establish a central bank. Taxes were raised, and to make sure everyone was paying their fair share all the details were made public, first at local civic centres and, more recently, online.
I was in Bergen as the David Cameron story reached its peak amid continuing fallout from the Panama Papers scoop. Now perhaps I wasn’t fully engaged as a result, but even reading up on it as I returned to the UK yesterday, I couldn’t quite see what the fuss was about.
Of course everyone repeats the important caveat that the Prime Minister hasn’t actually done anything illegal, thus the implication becomes that he’s committed a moral misdemeanour. But the trouble with that is a) “morality” and politics rarely mix and b) charges of “hypocrisy” are only sustainable if the accusers are squeaky clean themselves. And as Iain Duncan Smith remarked a few weeks ago, I’ll leave morality to the clerics.
It seems to me the best that can be laid at Mr Cameron’s door are inconsistency (for having criticised comedian Jimmy Carr for using tax avoidance schemes) and bad PR, which is quite surprising given he’s a former professional in that field. Not for the first time, a senior politician has made an embarrassing situation worse by forgetting that full disclosure is the only sensible course.
And mostly it’s a story that doesn’t tell us much that’s terribly new. We already knew, for example, that the Prime Minister’s late father Ian worked in finance, and it seems his son’s handling of his inheritance was above board. And as many have pointed out, the fund in question was “conventional” to the point of not even being particularly interesting.
Yesterday’s Sunday Times, meanwhile, splashed on Mr Cameron’s “hidden wealth”, but the most surprising thing to me on reading about his rental and Prime Ministerial income was that he wasn’t even wealthier. And did he really hide it? An original bequest of £300,000 was made public at the time and he’s never exactly hidden the fact he’s an Old Etonian from a wealthy background.
As the writer Thomas Macaulay is supposed to have remarked: “We know of no spectacle so ridiculous as the British public in one of its periodic fits of morality.” Too true, so there’s something transparently opportunistic about the political and media feeding frenzy around the Prime Minister’s finances.
Few are swifter in assuming the moral high ground than the Scottish National Party, which as they never stop reminding us practises a “new politics” (which looks startlingly like the old). A press release over the weekend self-identified a “significant intervention” from the SNP’s Westminster leader Angus Robertson, who had written to the Prime Minister requesting full disclosure as to whether his ministers had benefited from off-shore tax havens.
Mr Robertson also attempted to spread the net a bit wider, citing the 19,000-acre Jura estate of Lord Astor, Mr Cameron’s father-in-law, and reports it had used the British Virgin Islands as a “tax haven”. “David Cameron must come clean,” stormed the press release, but about his in-laws? It was all getting a bit third hand.
Conspicuous by their silence, meanwhile, were former first minister Alex Salmond, who channels his extraparliamentary earnings through a “personal service company” called the Chronicles of Deer, which allows him to pay corporation tax at 20 per cent rather than income tax at 45 per cent, thus saving him (but costing the public purse) tens of thousands of pounds. Again perfectly legal, but while it might be possible to draw a “moral” distinction between this (ongoing) activity and shares inherited from an off-shore trust (on which Mr Cameron paid tax), it wouldn’t be a very compelling one.
Like Mr Salmond, the SNP MP for Coatbridge, Phil Boswell, has also railed against “tax avoidance” while benefitting from an interest-free loan from Hyrax Resourcing, a firm linked to Peak Performance Professional Contracts, which helped thousands of wealthy individuals (including Jimmy Carr) pay less tax. Then there’s the tax exile (and SNP donor) Sir Sean Connery, whose own brother admitted (when asked if the James Bond actor would make an appearance in Scotland during referendum week): “There’s only a certain amount of days Sean can be in the country for tax reasons.”
Thus the SNP fluctuates between being intensely relaxed about people becoming filthy rich when it comes to promoting independence in such circles, but then assuming a high moral tone when their opponents are in difficulty. Take yesterday’s story about the Scottish Government giving a major landowner a tax “sweetener” in a top-secret £7.2 million deal to buy an ancient Caledonian pine forest in the Cairngorms, and an older story about “Scottish limited partnerships” being advertised as business vehicles for tax avoidance in Eastern Europe. Again, all perfectly legal, but “morally” justified?
Labour also don’t escape charges of double-standards. After the death of Mhairi Black’s political hero Tony Benn, for example, it emerged he had used legal “tax planning” techniques to reduce his death duties, while back in 2000 I remember the surprise that greeted news of the late Donald Dewar’s £1m share portfolio held in a “blind trust”. The point in all of this is that few parties’ hands are completely clean, thus the usual caveat about throwing stones in glass houses applies.
Which didn’t stop Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn calling yesterday morning for all MPs and political journalists to publish their tax returns so that voters might see what “what influences” there were on people in public life.
The Scottish Green candidate Andy Wightman has long made an annual declaration of interests and income, while on Saturday The Times’ columnist Matthew Parris admitted that having established a “company” for his freelance earnings meant he was “definitely paying less tax” than he would on a PAYE basis.
I’m also self-employed but don’t have a company, and nor am I registered for VAT because I don’t meet the earnings threshold. Since 2009/10 my annual (gross) earnings, meanwhile, have generally hovered around the average UK salary; I pay the basic rate of tax less deductible expenses.
Yesterday the Sunday Times said the Prime Minister’s move would “transform British politics”, although again I think that can safely be filed under “hyperbole”. Could we end up like Norway by default? Perhaps, but this current fit of morality is still generating more heat than light.
‘‘ Few are swifter in assuming the moral high ground than the SNP, which never stops reminding us it practises a ‘new politics’