Thursday, June 21, 2012

Jimmy Carr admits 'terrible error' over taxes

From today's Independent Newspaper:


Jimmy Carr spoke out after Prime Minister David Cameron branded his tax dodging "morally wrong".
The comedian released a statement saying: "I appreciate as a comedian, people will expect me to 'make light' of this situation, but I'm not going to in this statement as this is obviously a serious matter.
"I met with a financial advisor and he said to me 'Do you want to pay less tax? It's totally legal'.
"I said 'Yes'.
"I now realise I've made a terrible error of judgment.
"Although I've been advised the K2 Tax scheme is entirely legal, and has been fully disclosed to HMRC (Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs), I'm no longer involved in it and will in future conduct my financial affairs much more responsibly.
"Apologies to everyone."

Mr Cameron, speaking last night during a visit to Mexico, joined a chorus of criticism of the comedian, whose tax arrangements were revealed in The Times on Tuesday.
Describing them as "straightforward tax avoidance", the PM said it was unfair on the people who pay to watch the comic perform that he is not paying his taxes in the same way that they do.
Mr Cameron said: "I think some of these schemes - and I think particularly of the Jimmy Carr scheme - I have had time to read about and I just think this is completely wrong.
"People work hard, they pay their taxes, they save up to go to one of his shows. They buy the tickets. He is taking the money from those tickets and he, as far as I can see, is putting all of that into some very dodgy tax avoiding schemes.
"That is wrong. There is nothing wrong with people planning their tax affairs to invest in their pension and plan for their retirement - that sort of tax management is fine.
"But some of these schemes we have seen are quite frankly morally wrong.

My heart goes out to Mr Cameroon, how it must hurt him to hear of morale wrong doing. If only he was in a position where he could do something to change the laws relating to UK tax.
If only he was prime minister, I'm sure he'd do something in an instant.
Hang on a second............................................. He is.
And once he's sorted out this particular loophole, maybe then he could look into UK tax avoidance by large companies, such as, Glaxo Smith Kline, Northern and Shell, Amazon and News International.

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