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If you read this article from the BBC, who broadcast the Panorama programme no where does it say he has broken any tax laws. It merely says he has avoided tax. Nothing illegal there.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-41886607

His race engineer is caught up in this as well???

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He got a phone call from a friend for a venture, he became a minority investor, that's it. The whole article can be summed up as "we don't like him being sanctimonious". I don't really like Bono, personally, but not only has he not seemed to have done anything legally wrong but he actually looks like he's not done anything morally wrong either.

How many people own shares in Apple? Alphabet? Oil companies? Any other huge business which uses every means possible to avoid tax and maintain a competitive advantage? Where is the outcry?

It suggests he used the jet for personal use. VAT is chargeable on personal use. The headline figure i have seen is that roughly a third of his use has been personal and therefore should pay VAT on that usage

Both of those individual's methods are identical. When one with assets retain lawyers and tax experts, they have the option on defining how far into the grey areas they are willing to venture.

You call it avoiding, we are splitting hairs with word games. Any citizen who benefits from the nation he was raised has a moral obligation to contribute further, not find ways to evade paying. It is wrong on so many levels it is sickening. Here is a British citizen who at the first opportunity moved his residence away from his home nation, set up business accounts to avoid paying taxes, and still pretends he's British? Guys, wake up, his actions indicate his intentions while you actually believe the lip service.

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Evasion vs Avoiding is not splitting hairs, not in the slightest. Also bear in mind that many 'loopholes' are actually carefully crafted with a defined purpose, and some cases of avoidance are actually of benefit to the greater economy. The government create 'loopholes', such as a now infamous filmmaking scheme in the UK, in order to generate growth in certain areas. This is avoidance.

Me using an ISA is avoidance. My employer does a salary sacrifice scheme for pensions, this is tax avoidance. It feels like tax avoidance is fine when its to help poor people, but not rich people. Where is the line?

For me, the line is when someone who has the power to influence the rules takes advantage of rules they created. Other than that, its a free for all and people should start holding their government to account to prevent the worst wrongs from happening.

He has responded to it perfectly in my opinion:

I would be extremely distressed if, even as a passive minority investor in UAB2 in Lithuania, anything less than exemplary was done with my name anywhere near it.
I've been assured by those running the company that it is fully tax compliant, but if that is not the case I want to know as much as the tax office does, and so I also welcome the audit they have said they will undertake.
I take this stuff very seriously. I have campaigned for the beneficial ownership of offshore companies to be made transparent.
Indeed, this is why my name is on documents rather than in a trust. The fact is I welcome this reporting. It shouldn't take leaks to understand what's going on where.
There should be public registries so that the press and public can see what governments, like Guernsey, already know.

People up in arms over celebrities like Bono and Lewis Hamilton and not over the politicians that govern their countries is the frightening thing. Talk about getting distracted from the real issue at hand.

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FA#14

I noticed that the Queen's estate was also exposed in this leak as using this loophole. Of course, leave it to the media to ignore that information when they have Hamilton to point their finger at instead. Why criticize a person who actually directly consumes tax dollars and yet still dodges taxes while living inside the UK; when you can simply criticize someone who doesn't live in the UK and didn't buy the jet in the UK for not paying taxes on that jet...to the UK?

Yes, if you are VAT registered that will often happen, VAT is very much open to interpretation on some issues and probably only be spotted on a VAT inspection.

This is an issue but a pretty minor one, You could probably pick any driver past or present living in Monaco and find a case to be answered.

I didn't really explain it, sorry. The rich stay rich as they find ways to protect their wealth. This has always been the case and it is not really illegal; the IRC offers some ways to protect your money; this is the tax avoidance side and the limit of my knowledge of the subject! Same for the poor, but the impact (projection if you want) is much lower.

No, what I was thinking was the double standards in this situation. I hadn't seen mcdo's quote when I posted my message, but on the face of it, it did look a bit two-faced.

There have been many celebrities who have taken the "I don't know anything about money so I'll hire people who do" route and either found themselves bankrupt due to mismanagement or embezelment or up to their ears in tax liability.

Whether you know about money or not if you have someone managing it for you, you need to stay involved and get second opinions if needed. Because at the end of the day it's your money, your responsibility, and your reputation that's on the line. If you're willing to skirt the bounds then you need to be willing to come out and raise your hand when your advisors go over the line, if you're not willing to do that you need to tell those who you hire to stay well within the bounds.

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Yeah years ago I used to do VAT returns for a small business and would claim oinly a percentage of the VAT (as suggested by our accountants) back on petrol and telephone as both had an element of personal use. When we had the first inspection the inspector "suggested" we attribute a higher amount to personal use and therefore claim back less VAT. After a little backwards and forwards a new percentage was agreed and on we went, no problem.

That is exactly the type of situation I was referring to, it is pretty common, though I never got a refund as big as LH sadly!

Pretends he is British? What is Hamilton if not British?

Tax aside, Monaco also has a lot of advantages too;
- the climate is much better
- more central to Europe (1 hour door to door flight to Barcelona for testing vs 5-6 hours from London)
- lots of other drivers/ team managers live there so the share private jets home from races
- significantly less press and fan intrusion in the Monaco bubble. You can get kicked out of Monaco for hassling celebrities, you can also be charged under the vagrancy act if you are in Monaco of the evening without a hotel reservation / place of work in Monaco or fixed address in Monaco.

Hamilton also initially moved to Switzerland until around 2010 I believe, they still have 15% taxation compared to Monaco's 0%. So it wasn't entirely tax related. Jenson Button has spent the last year living in the US, nothing to do with tax.

At which distance does living in Monaco become acceptable if at all? Its quite a commute from Brazil and Australia for Massa and Ricciardo respectively.

Why does he have his company set up in the UK? Set that up in Monaco and he wouldn't need to pay any VAT at all would he?

According to the BBC article:

So his two companies involved in buying the plane are based in the British Virgin Islands and Guernsey, both tax havens.


What saddens me the most about these sorts of stories is the thought that some incredibly smart people are spending their lives working out hideously convoluted ways to get around tax laws so that some already incredibly wealthy people can enrich themselves further, when they could have applied themselves towards doing something actually worthwhile for humanity.

To borrow a phrase from Martin Brundle, which in its original context was aimed at CVC, 'some people are ill with money'.

I think lot of people are looking at it the wrong way.

The issue is not that he used the loophole in tax laws to get the refund. These exist and most wealthy people make use of it.

The issue is, the purpose stated to take the tax credit and the actual purpose of the use of said airplane is different and there are documents which exist to support this.

This is where the problem lies. There is nothing wrong in claiming tax credit if there is way to do so in existence. That loophole is for the lawmakers to fix. The issue is if you violate the law used to get those tax breaks. And it indeed looks like that is what these papers are claiming.

Lets leave morality of the things aside when it comes to money. Capitalism has no basis for morality. Its the sad truth of this world.
But if you break the law to get tax benefits and then get caught, I have no sympathy for you.
The excuse of he hired professionals does not stand up in court.

But these are still allegations at this point. I will reserve my judgement until the legal process takes its course.
Financial crimes are seen differently and even if found guilty at most he is likely to see probation and some fine. That too provided he is in violation of EU or UK laws to begin with.

One may be illegal while the other isn't, but morally they're pretty much identical. His jet is obviously for private use, and declaring it any other way is lying to avoid paying his fair share. I doubt anyone cares if it's legal or not; perfectly repugnant things are done legally every day all over the world.


That is because capitalism is, by almost any objective moral standard, evil.

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He does also use the jet for work purposes. Just like any small business owner than buys a car or van that they use for work and claim VAT back and also use the same vehicle when driving to their in laws for Sunday lunch.

BIB: I think that's an unhealthily black and white way of looking at things, not to mention incredibly judgmental. There's nothing inherently wrong or not worthwhile in people trying to ensure that they maximise their own hard-earned assets as efficiently as possible. I once had a boss who poured most of his money into a trust to ensure that his children were provided for. There were tax benefits associated with this but I don't see how him investigating (or likely, having others investigate for him) ways to provide a secure future for his offspring could be considered not worthwhile. My son is autistic and if I had the means you can be damn sure I'd make certain I'd do the same if it meant he didn't have to rely on the state to look after him when I'm gone, especially given the experience I've had with their mental health "care." The point is you don't know people's motivations or personal circumstances so you can't condemn them just because it doesn't fit your own narrow view. If governments don't like the legal loopholes that people employ, then they shouldn't be so lazy in drafting laws you can drive a bus through

Advice to avoid paying as much tax as possible. Sorry disagree with you entirely.

Stop blaming the systems in place. Nothing stops you from breaking the law in speeding - if not caught. People get off crimes because of technicality and I'm sick of it. A murderer can go unpunished if the police made a mistake in the evidence.

I'm a Lewis fan and somewhat agree that his tax bill has nothing to do with F1 but the amount of people that have avoided tax.... all this whining about Brexit but the same people do nothing about this. All the whining about money being wasted, flushed down the toilet or want hit at cut backs made to the Police/NHS/Education etc.. yet here do nothing.

No one likes paying taxes but we all must do it. This is narrowed to the rich because they can afford to pay the high earning lawyers. It's the biggest difference between the rich elite culture Vs the rest of us. They know how to swindle the systems.

I think they should all be heavily fined. If you take advice on something like this.. it still makes you a guilty person "oh I can get you off by a technicality".... I work in education and we've seen an average of 100K+ cut back every year for almost 4 years...

If people paid all their taxes correctly.. we wouldn't be in this mess. Lewis is by no means one of the biggest culprits but it's time they all got strung up for it. Every single person knows it's wrong. No ifs buts or maybes - it is. The law needs to be done in such a way that if you are not using a Gov backed system on taxes etc - it's illegal. If we all did it.. I wonder what financial crises this nation would be in.

Are you really asking me this? I don't know mate, how would I? Maybe he opened it in the past, when he was still in the UK. Who knows?

Except that system was setup by the Gov. Not using offshore accounts to sneak an avoidance tax scheme. When you buy a company car you are not remotely doing anything illegal, wrong or even naughty. It's not even morally questionable.

When you purposely avoid paying taxes.. you are doing something wrong, morally questionable and frankly using "loopholes" to avoid legality by a technicality. If we all did it, this country would be seeing something worse than the financial crises. Every public service would suffer a lot more cutbacks. NHS, Police, Fire Services and Education - all suffering already. You are not talking about 1 or 2 billion a year lost....

The loopholes are constantly being closed and lawyers find new ones. It's time the lawyers were strung up, people who signed on were fined heavily. "If we all could do it" is also not the answer.....

Sorry to be pedantic, 6 hours flight from London to Barcelona? Is it via Moscow or something? London to Barca is about 2 hours

Didn't Messi have the "I don;t know, it's my dad" defence? As if he's 12 and his dad deals with the pocket money

I think you are conflating two things here, particularly in light of the examples you have given.

Tax avoidance is perfectly legitimate and is simply reducing your tax burden by legal means. Tax evasion is illegal. Because of the insanely complicated tax systems we have, it is often necessary, particularly when you are an international resident with tax affairs in different countries, to involve professionals to work out the best ways to minimise your legal tax bill. I consult a lawyer to go through the fiddly process of buying a house, because (s)he will be able to do a much better job than I will and ensure that I end up in the most advantageous position possible. So why not consult a tax specialist, who knows far more about tax laws than I do? Similarly, I take it as read that the lawyer is only offering me advice that doesn't contravene the law, so why should I not expect the same from a tax specialist? When someone tells me that my pension is being invested across a range of funds, I have to trust that they are all legitimate. If I have to investigate them all myself, then what do I need an advisor for?

The government doesn't have any kind of claim on sensible budgeting or expenditure. If everyone paid their taxes as you've described, no doubt they'd still find ways to pi$$ it up the wall. It's a purely romantic notion that everyone paying everything would end in some kind of utopia: it will just give whatever government of the day a reason to dream up more inventive ways to spend it and you could bet whatever is left over that the (wo)man on the street wouldn't notice a blind bit of difference.

There's no suggestion that Lewis was actively and knowingly engaged in anything illegal, so until it can be determined that this was his intent i thin the benefit of the doubt should be given to him that he was simply trying to maximise his assets within the legal framework.

Surprised at how many people are unable to differentiate between tax avoidance and tax evasion. A lot of these schemes certainly toe the line, but this is an everyday occurrence and the only time people get their knickers in a twist over it is when a celebrity gets flagged up for being involved in them. Just the other week it was a load of actors from the BBC, before that we had Gary Barlow/Jimmy Carr et al. All that tends to come of this is that these schemes get shut down and the person whose money it is ends up footing a larger tax bill to settle the difference.

Much ado about nothing, especially given the tax arrangements for some of the massive international companies (and how far governments are willing to shape their own tax rules to entice them in)

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Agreed... Anyone that has an ISA is practising tax avoidance for instance. In the past i have been able to get deductions for tax on the tools i have purchased to do with my work which once again is tax avoidance but considered completely normal and above board but of course when it is Hamilton that has done the same regardless of scale there are some that cannot wait to have a bash.

Moved to off topic for what I hope are obvious reasons.

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I’d say Hamilton has a valid point to make that he is his business. If he jets off to Dubai for a holiday it’s personal use, but if while he is over there he takes a picture of himself infornt of some luxury surroundings wearing some Bose headphones and puts it in his Instagram isn’t it then a business trip? You can be sure he gets paid for it.

That said I have to admit that while, for example, a builder putting through materials he uses in his own house or putting through all of his fuel when some of it is for private use sits pretty easily with me, it does make me think “did you really need to do that” when it’s a guy who earns 30 million a year (plus who knows what from his sponsorships etc.) and it’s a private jet.

You are right, in a private jet you could probably do England to the track in 4 hours on a private jet, so long as you lived close to the airport in the UK. The track is quite close to Girona airport.

No exceptions, anyone who relocates just to protect wealth from taxes from their home nation is a pretty greasy person and not to be respected. It doesn't matter if it's Hamilton in Monaco/Switzerland or anyone else. Name a person who commits such and act and I will condemn them too.

I do understand that my opinions and conditioning is old-fashioned. But I am a Canadian, darn proud of my nation, and I intend to die here. My nation gave my parents the opportunity to find employment so we could be cared for, my nation educated, protected, and gave me plenty of opportunities to better myself. If I won the lottery I would not leave my home nation just to avoid paying a few dollars more.

This belief that money justifies everything and is the sole motivator is crap. Right now there are thousands of brave young men serving in the military. They do not place their welfare and lives at risk for money or glory, they serve their nation. On a scale of moral superiority, where do these gentlemen (and women) who serve their nation without reward or glory compare to people like Hamilton?

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Sorry Blinky, that is a very naive way of looking things. It is not a "few dollars more", we are talking about millions and millions. And yes, they are earning loads of money, but these athletes only have a career up to their late 30's (as top sportsmen). And not all of them are Michael Jordans to earn big big money 20 years after they retire... How many actors, athletes or other famous people have we seen that go bankrupt? Plenty of them, and not only because they lost money by overspending. Some made bad investments, etc. It is understandable to want to protect their wealth.

My objection to all of this was when it was first known that Hamilton was going to move out of the UK, he came up with a lame excuse, something like he wanted to see the world or something like that. I can't remember where I read it at the time, but I remember thinking that it was a cr@p excuse.

I also think that it is easy for you to say that you'd stay in Canada. If you had a chance to save so much money, I bet you'd at least consider it, let's be honest.

I am not a nationalist at all, so I guess we are at complete opposite ends of the spectrum.

That is a rather over glamorisation of a solider. People in the military get paid a wage, it is not without reward. It is a job and one with quite a few good perks in certain countries.

As a pacifist, morally there is no contest between a tax avoider over somebody who is willing and accepting to not use their own judgement to kill somebody else and do it solely because they were told to.

Yes, a persons first duty should be to themselves or at least their children/wife and immediate family. In the UK in the 70s/80s the highest tax rate was 90%. Earn £1 million, take home £100,000. If you had a short career, you would be making your family and children significantly worse off by not maximising your income in such a tax system.

Its partly the reason why James Hunt was completely broke in the late 80s. He was so poor, that he couldn't afford to tax his vehicle and excised a loop hole in the law that if you remove the wheels and place the car on bricks you could legally leave it on the road without paying tax. He travelled by bicycle every where during this time and relied on some hand outs from such rich friends.

I agree, as long as it is not tax evasion, I don't see why it is such a big deal. If there is a window in the regs that allows for saving some money, don't blame the people for using it; do a better job and close the loophole.

James Hunt was a good example. Although, much like Gascoigne, Garrincha and Best, he did spend all his money in booze and girls; I wouldn't say he was the prudent type!

Is that true? My dad and I spent a whole evening dicking around Monaco like two hobos just a few months ago

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FA#14

This really is a non-story. If he was dodging personal tax or corporation tax that he owes in the UK then I'd take issue with that, but this is basically how VAT works.

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I should clarify my point. I have absolutely no issue with tax avoidance in general, as you say there nothing wrong with people maximising their hard-earned assets. I myself pay into an ISA and my employer uses a salary sacrifice scheme for my pension contributions so I, like pretty much everyone else, am actively seeking to avoid tax to some extent. But there are widely varying levels to tax avoidance and I don't think you can equate someone trying to ensure their offspring can enjoy a decent quality of life with someone with a net worth of over £100million avoiding a £3million tax bill on their private jet.

My comment was mainly aimed at the people whose occupation is to find tax loopholes for people like Hamilton to exploit, and it's more a criticism of the economic system in which we live rather than sniping at any people in particular. Tax law is incredibly complex, and the various layers of shell companies and leasing agreements that have to be established to facilitate a scheme like this are evidence of that, so anyone able to circumvent it successfully is going to have to be a pretty smart individual. Surely our society could be much better served if a system existed where these people could apply themselves to something truly worthwhile? Or maybe I'm being too idealistic.

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FA#14