The Conservative party wish to charge non-doms £25,000 per year for living in the UK. Will Zac Goldsmith pay a flat annual fee for living in Britain?
The Conservative party wish to charge non-doms £25,000 per year for living in the UK. Now that his tax status has been revealed, will Zac Goldsmith pay a flat annual fee for each of the 16 years that he has been a non-domiciled adult?
At Conservative party conference 2007, George Osborne said:
“There are currently a number of people living in Britain who register for non-domiciled tax status offshore. It is a good thing for Britain that they live here and bring their talent and their investment to our economy.
“I make this promise: I am not going to tax all that income as Gordon Brown has persistently threatened to do. But in return for that promise and the certainty it brings, we will charge a flat annual levy of around £25,000 for those who register for non-domicile status”
Mr Goldsmith, aged 34, has already contributed £264,179 towards the costs of his election campaign in Richmond Park as well as additional donations to the Conservative party worth £14,202. He is reported to be worth £200 million so a £400,000 payment for his 16 years of adulthood would appear to be a fair price.
Goldsmith speaks tonight at an event in central London titled “Call to Action” where among other questions, he will address “How do we spend our collective wealth?”.
UPDATE 18.00
The event tonight asking how we spend our collective wealth answers another question about how to amass it: charge £10 to get in.
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17 Responses to “Will Zac Goldsmith pay for his non-dom status”
willstraw
I don’t think anyone unelected should be allowed to sit in parliament.
So, in my hypothetical universe, he would only be in the Lords if he was (a) elected, and (b) complying with the law which would include paying tax (unless he could prove he was paying taxes elsewhere).
How about you? Should we have a tax on non-doms?
Guido Fawkes
Not the answer to the question asked. Incidentally, no, I don’t support taxing non-doms or even progressive taxation. I support a pay-as-you-go economy with service charges.
Do you think non-doms should be allowed to fund political parties?
If not, do you think the parties which have received money from non-doms should pay it back / forfeit the cash?
Rory
Leaving aside the question of his non-dom status I don’t think he should be standing for the Conservative Party because he is not a Conservative.
Has anyone seen his recent book on the environment? I leafed through a couple of pages and wanted to curl up and die!
willstraw
I think I did answer the question actually!
But in answer to the new question, I’d put a stop to it. Interestingly, when I was a US taxpayer, I still wasn’t able to make contributions to the Obama campaign as I wasn’t a US citizen. So I would have thought that being a citizen and a taxpayer would need to be the requirement for party funding. In my view, the parties have all failed in their grassroots funding efforts which is by far the most democratic way of doing it.
Should they pay it back? Tricky one. Legg is demanding retrospective payments (and we are suggesting that Goldsmith might do the same) so there is clearly a precedent. But how far back would it be fair to go? And what would you do about the goods/services on which the money had been used? Perhaps you could draw the line with donations received in the current parliament.
You may also have your facts wrong on Lord Paul
Phousty
RT @leftfootfwd Will Zac Goldsmith pay £400,000 for his 16 years as a non-dom, as George Osborne proposes? http://bit.ly/7vrKjh