Last year Mo Farah was calling on the chancellor to crack down on tax avoidance. Now he want to be a tax exile.
Alongside Jessica Ennis, Mo Farah is one of the most recognisable British athletes. Since he swept all before him at the 2012 London Olympics, he has won practically everything, and is the current 10,000 metres World and Olympic champion and 5,000 metres Olympic, World and European champion.
His popularity has been enhanced in no small part by his reputation as an all round nice guy.
I don’t know Mr Farah personally, therefore it would be odd to say that I ‘liked’ him. I certainly admire his achievements, though; and he went up in my estimation on a personal level early last year, when he called on chancellor George Osborne to clampdown on tax dodgers. As London loves Business reported:
“Robbie Williams and Mo Farah have called on George Osborne to clamp down on tax dodging firms.
“The stars have thrown their weight behind the ‘Enough Food for Everyone IF campaign’ that beckons global firms to pay their taxes in the world’s poorest countries.”
How disappointing, then, to read this week that Farah, one of the wealthiest track athletes in the world, has applied to become a tax exile in Portland, Oregon. According to the magazine Runner’s World:
“Mo Farah, who won Olympic 5000- and 10,000-meter titles in front of hometown crowds at the 2012 London Games, has applied to be a tax exile from the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
“Farah now lists Portland, Oregon as his main place of residence; it’s where he’s been part of the Oregon Project, coached by Alberto Salazar, since 2011. He also spends part of each winter training in Kenya.”
Farah already spends time in Oregon as part of the Oregon Project, a programme aimed at developing the best distance runners in the world, and has now reportedly submitted a non-residency application to HMRC.
An extraordinary move for someone who claims to be all about “making the country proud”. According to the Daily Record, Farah is expected to make as much as £10 million in the next few years.
The hypocrisy of the super-rich is nothing new of course. What’s so disappointing is that Mo Farah, who only 10 months ago was standing on a soapbox calling on the chancellor to tackle tax dodging, now appears to be trying to minimise his own tax bill – at the expense of the rest of the UK’s taxpayers. It is, after all, tax which pays for things like the NHS; and all of us who lose out when services are starved of money.
If you are desperate to reduce your own tax bill, perhaps don’t moralise about other people’s tax affairs, even if you are an Olympic champion.
35 Responses to “Mo Farah: from lefty hero to tax exile in 10 short months”
Lee Hyde
Median is ~ £28,000pa; mean average is £~19,000pa. At least, last time I checked. Heavily skewed by London/SE salaries of course; £25,000pa may well seem a lot to someone living up North (or West for that matter) or in the lower percentiles of earnings.
Lee Hyde
That there is a logical fallacy. @iriscot made no reference at all to low earners and their attitudes to tax. Maybe (s)he thinks there’s a sweet sport, where earners are perfectly happy with their earnings/tax, above and below which folk would rather hang on to more. Now that too could be argued against, but you’ll probably want to brush up on logic yourself, before logic-checking others.
Lee Hyde
The parasitic state that paid for the athletics venues at which Farah first trained and competed? The same parasitic state that funded the London 2012 Olympics, where Farah made his name from which he ‘earns’ the bulk of his income (mostly endorsements?)? That parasitic state?
The state is as much a ‘parasite’ to Mo Farah as ITV is to Jonathon Ross, the BBC is to Graham Norton and Mo Farah is to his various commercial sponsors and their productive employees. More of a symbiont rather than a parasite really.
IAN
lets ditch this myth that Mo Farah needs world class facilities or something different to whats available in the UK. He spends 99% of his time running on a road or dirt tracks in park land.Theres plenty of then in the UK last time i looked.just watch his training videos. As for other facilities, living in the UK doesn’t seem to deter our other 28 gold medalists, we seem to be doing O.K. just ask Sheffield based Jessica Ennis. If Mo prefers to live in the USA good luck to him, his choice ,but can he spare us the lectures on how to live. The latest was his rant at Barclays on money transfers to Somalia. On his earnings he could set up his own company and provide the same service. not holding my breathe on that one. He needs to keep his head down , keep running around in circles (because thats all he does for his money), look after his family and be quiet or continue his current path of being too public and inviting comment .
Daniel Burke
You mean “British”, If just arriving here and being born here can be British, then I can go to Japan and become Japanese.