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The real question is what would happen to an ordinary member of the public. If itβs just pay the difference with a penalty fee, but nothing else, that is what should happen. You could argue the fine should be bigger because she should know better, but the law is the law.
Itβs only a problem for her job if she used her position to influence the outcome. It sounds like she didnβt.
Yes. The vaste majority of tax underpayments. HMRC Will assume it is an error. Only charging a late fee. Unless they are forced to take a person or company to court to recover money. Errors are not punished beyond late payment charges.
Some evidence of intentional tax evasion is required for more significant punishment to be applied. Even then it of course has to go via a court first.
If you're right then I think Rayner should have been able to keep her job, as long as she paid the tax and any penalties for late payment. Rayner losing her job means that Labour have done the bidding of the right-wing press.
I supect that Starmer was happy to remove a possible rival. Rayner is slightly more leftish than the rest of the cabinet and less of a triangulating, tabloid-grovelling careerist zombie.
But now there is a vacancy for the Labour deputy leadership, and Labour members might try to elect somebody who is even more left-wing, so the government might be pushed to the left.
Edit: I'm not saying that a more left-wing deputy leader of Labour is necessarily a bad thing. I'm just saying I don't necessarily believe that Starmer was happy to remove Rayner. "Better the devil you know" and all that - Rayner was a known quantity to Starmer, and she didn't criticise his leadership too much. Now there is a risk of someone critical of the government becoming the deputy leader of Labour, which could give Starmer more problems.
HMRC actions have very little to do with political merit.
Sorry but no your assumption just dose not follow. HMRCs fines or punishment means way less to public opinion then their own sense of how an MP should behave.
And given Labours current polling. Rayner"s actions intentional or not. Are a distraction the leadership cannot tolerate.
That is exactly why the far right press printed the attacks.
Rayner was the most likely replacement for Starmer. And being slightly more left. Would be unacceptable to their ownership etc.
I dont really get why this is seen as an issue. This is fiendishly complex law that can easily be missed, and the trust was set up to try and give a child their own "stuff" as divorce made the parents doing it impossible.
Thus is just a non story.
Id rather the press was asking about the idcards that starmer has gone and raised again. Or their mad plans to ban vpns(?)
Tories have literally nothing else to play with so they are jumping in this with glee, in order to show "corruption" in the labour party.
Basically idiots throwing stones in a glass house
They're trying to establish a false equivalence with the vastly larger and more deliberate tax evasion committed by Nadhim Zahawi.
And the media is studiously turning a blind eye to the finances of Reform and particularly of Farage.
Would you be happy then if the next Tory politician found avoiding tax said:
This is fiendishly complex law that can easily be missed, the trust was set up to try and give my family stuff.
I agree this is probably been elevated as a story because of who she is, but I think it's right that she gets called out for this type of thing. We shouldn't turn a blind eye to tax evasion not matter how small. People need to pay their fair share of tax!
Right but they're usually doing something complicated to pay less tax.
Getting that wrong and underpaying is much worse than doing something complicated to deal with a complicated family issue, and the advisors missing an incredibly tough point combining multiple specialities.
If it was a Tory they probably would have refused to resign and they would have kept their job.
Very true that people should pay their taxes, I agree with that. So maybe Rayner should have been allowed to pay the correct tax, and any penalties for late payment, and then she could have kept her job.
Probably a fair outcome if I'm honest.
However politically speaking Labour know they can bang on about "rich people not paying tax" as an election slogan. This, apparently, is such a powerful weapon in their arsenal that any insinuating that the Labour top brass are also tax evaders cannot be tolerated. If she was allowed to simply pay back the tax plus penalties then this blunts future use of the "rich people pay your taxes" weapon. It's a shame really but that's politics.
Setting up trusts is entirely legal, and there are some good reasons for it to continue to be so. Tax evasion is not one of those reasons, though.
But, having had long dealings with our good friends at HMRC, I can agree that even with expert tax advice, some of the regulations are extremely Byzantime and often irrational.
In this case, Rayner's sacking had nothing to do with criminal intent, but more to do with Starmer's fear of the fascist press (which he should have done a Leveson on as soon as Labour got into office).
And she's out.
There goes one of the only people in the Starmer cabinet who resembled a normal human.
I don't care if she owes 40k to the tax man. It has nothing to do with the job.
It undermines the whole system if the stewerds of tax income themselves evade tax. They can pass a law to remove a tax or add a tax but they need to pay as we have to.
It undermines the whole system when people who are guilty of greater crimes are able to harass people out of democratically elected office.
If she stood for election again with this now out in the public knowledge I'm sure she'd still win her seat without issue.
A Labour leader with backbone would use this an an opportunity to investigate the tax-evasion practices of every media-owning oligarch. In those cases, we're talking potential billions of pounds, not Β£40k.
But she is paying.