So, down goes DCMS Secretary Maria Miller. Paul Lewis explains, with 140-character concision.
Flipping – buy cheap home in constituency. Say London home is 2nd so expenses pay mortgage. Tell HMRC London home is main so no CGT on sale.
— Paul Lewis (@paullewismoney) April 9, 2014
It’s probably time to delve into the archive for a TYR Flashback! I think Flipper is trying to tell us something. This post swung off a story in the Daily Telegraph, specifically this quote:
Shortly before Mr Osborne entered Parliament in 2001, he bought a large farmhouse in his Tatton constituency. Instead of taking out a mortgage on it he increased the mortgage on the London property to pay for his new home. When he had been elected an MP, he designated his London property as his second home with the House of Commons fees office, allowing him to claim back on his additional costs allowance the interest on the portion of the mortgage representing the farmhouse.
Two years later, Mr Osborne took out a separate £450,000 mortgage on the farmhouse and flipped his second home designation, enabling him to claim those mortgage interest payments on his ACA. Since then he has claimed up to £100,000 in mortgage interest payments for the farmhouse mortgage. During this whole period, Mr Osborne told the Inland Revenue that his primary residence for tax purposes was his London home.
In 2006, Mr Osborne sold his London home for £1.48million, making a £748,000 profit. Because it had been declared for tax purposes as his primary residence since he bought it in 1998, he did not have to pay capital gains tax.
Osborne, outrageously, got off scot-free, with more than a little help from the Telegraph, which chose to run this story buried deep in the paper, in a rare exception from the front-page treatment it gave all the other expenses dodgers.
Another Tory who was too important to make the front page was Michael Gove, who is suddenly all principles:
Michael Gove, the education secretary who was elected to parliament on the same day as Miller in 2005, said that her resignation should serve as a warning to the political class as a whole about their expenses.
In a sign that Downing Street acknowledges the need for further reform of the policing of MPs, Gove told the Today programme on BBC Radio 4: “The political class as a whole need to reflect on the events of the last few days. It reinforces in my mind the fact that the public still feel a degree of anger about the expenses scandal.”
Yes, yes, we do. Anyway, playtime over, back to double maths.
That the Chancellor not only cleared a huge profit on his exes, but used the process for tax purposes, must be well known – the author of the piece is none other than enormously popular Tory journalist, Melissa Kite. Personally, I absolutely welcome the reopening of the expenses issue. Will Osborne finally pay his capital gains tax?
Correct me if I’m wrong – but both Miller and Osbourne appear to have been using expenses to pay off what was a *re-mortgage*. So essentially they were expensing a loan?
In Osborne’s case a remtg. used to buy still more house.
Yes, what makes the MM thing so toxic was that she’d paid off her mortgage, so didn’t need expenses at all, but chose to remortgage in order to do the place up so she would get more cash for it when she eventually sold.
There’s been at least one profile of Gove in Sunday papers – possibly even the Observer? – which notes his excellent taste in home decor without mentioning the provenance of all these lovely things.
Former journos always get easy rides.
as a disabled person I feel angry!!
at being vilified by the coalition and press*
for being a benefits scrounger*
just because I’m unable to walk& claim benefits
there’s been many suicides*
but not I*
i remain able to blig&comment,
against this unfair government*
roll-on 2015!
I’m voting UKIP* I want them out!
I was talking to a parent of a young investigative journalist. Their impression is that some stories are used strategically by the owners of newspapers. The journalist works up a good story, they think it is about to be run but then at the last minute it is canned or the juicy bits are downplayed. On the other hand a story that has been on the back-burner is suddenly given priority. These decisions seem not to come from the editor and often take the editor by surprise: they come from Sark or from Murdoch R. They appear to be part of pressure on the government from media owners.
The Maria Miller case was a warning to Cameron that there is a lot of dirt out there that the Telegraph could print if it wanted to, and could make into big issues. Miller is expendable but the story serves to keep Cameron et al in line. There is a Leveson angle, in that one of the things the owners want is as little independent regulation as possible, and they will use the threat of exposure to obtain that. However there are probably all kinds of other issues they want to promote, many of which we don’t know about.
Going for Miller was a reminder to Cameron that the press
Guano, I think that’s true of investigative journalism everywhere. If you’re willing to set aside morals, the best way to get money/power from journalism is by what you agree not to print. Out here in the Balkans, I know of several journos who’ve been offered as much as they might earn in a decade to kill one story. I’m sure at the editorial level it’s more likely to involve an exchange of favours rather than pure cash.