Rebuttal rebutted

Tuesday, 2nd October 2007

Iain Dale points out that the Labour party’s rebuttal bus appears to have turned itself into a boomerang over the Tories’ proposal to cut inheritance tax:

The Treasury’s latest attempt to attack Conservative figures has spectacularly backfired tonight. Alistair Darling claims that only 15,000 non-doms have off-shore incomes over £60,000. This is not a figure the Treasury have ever given before. Indeed, on 30th April 2007 Ed Balls answered a question in Parliament saying the Treasury did not have such information.
‘Estimates of the tax foregone in the UK as a consequence of the use of the remittance basis by those not domiciled in the UK are not routinely made.
Information is not held on overseas income and gains that do not give rise to a tax liability in the UK.’ (Ed Balls MP, Hansard, 30 Apr 2007, Column 1383W)
As Dawn Primarolo said this is because non-doms are not required to disclose this information: “In general, individuals do not have to inform HMRC of their foreign income or gains unless this is relevant to their UK tax liability.” (Dawn Primarolo MP, Hansard, 8 Mar 2007, Column 2220W).

What with this and the fact that, as several commentators have already pointed out, HM Treasury has been used wholly improperly to rubbish the plans of a political party, it looks like the Tories’ inheritance tax coup may not simply be a vote-winner but may also do damage to Gordon Brown’s biggest weapon: his (wholly undeserved) reputation for granite-like integrity.