Ritchie on Timmy elsewhere

Tsk Ritchie, tsk.

You shouldn\’t be basing your arguments upon the press release. You should, as I do with your reports, actually read the report. You would, for example, find answers to the question you pose:

That’s why the UK Revenue were winning all the way through the courts was it? Because they were.

No, they weren\’t in fact. Vodafone won at the Special Commissioners, Vodafone won at the High Court and it was smoething of a draw in the Court of Appeal. I even explain why HMRC didn\’t take it to the Supremes, for fear of losing. For there are 100 other companies with very similar tax arrangements and without a clear precedent HMRC will get some money from all of them instead of the none if HMRC had lost at the supremes.

All true, of course. And all utterly misleading. First, the UK has sought to challenge settlements from husbands on wives. Worstall ignores this. They have not in this case, but the law to do so exists.

As the full report points out, from the documentation we can see there was no settlement. Tina Green owned Taveta at the time that Arcadia was purchased.

Third, the lack of transparency is an issue – we don’t know why Barclays paid so little tax.

No, actually, we do know exactly why Barclay\’s paid the amount of tax that it did. Here. (Written after I had filed my report, so not included, but well recommended).

Now Ritchie is a contributor to the site, Liberal Conspiracy and as such I\’d expect him to correct any errors. And, in fact, we see that Richard does indeed comment upon the post. Not, err, though to correct any errors.