The multi-millionaire businessman admits he set up a family trust in the Channel Islands tax haven of Jersey more than three decades ago.
[…]
Tice said the trust, called the RJS Tice Family Settlement, was set up to avoid being “double taxed” on his “international investments”.He would not tell us what “international investments” were in the trust. But in 2016, when it was still offshore in Jersey, Tice transferred one million of his shares in his UK property business Quidnet Reit Limited into the trust.
Quidnet owns £32m worth of commercial property in the UK and the trust now owns a 17% stake which is worth around £3m. Tice told us the beneficiaries of the trust were his three children with his ex-wife and insisted they are all UK taxpayers like him.
The trust was listed by Tice’s company Quidnet as having an address in Jersey as recently as July 2021. Tice said this was just a “correspondence address” and that he had already brought the trust onshore to the UK. But our investigation with the Good Law Project raises awkward questions for Mr Tice and his Reform UK party who present themselves as patriots standing up against “elites”.
[…]
We asked Tice why he accused [union boss Steve Hedley] of libel, he told us: “Because he was alleging/insinuating illegal activity.” We have found a separate company registered in Jersey linked to Tice. Gellymill Limited, with the same Jersey office address as the trust, lent £125,000 to Quidnet in 2022.Tice told us he was not a director of Gellymill but admitted: “Gellymill is under my ultimate control.” Mr Tice was elected as the MP for Boston and Skegness in last month’s general election and is required to declare details of his financial interests, which will be published later this month.
The rules state that MPs must register “formal unpaid roles such as an unpaid directorship, a directorship of a company not currently trading, or a trusteeship”.
They must also declare any companies that they own more than 15% of, or shares worth more than £70,000. Mr Tice initially told us he was not declaring Gellymill as he is “not a director so not needed”.
He later added that “as you have asked and taken an interest, I have voluntarily declared to Parliament Authorities the Family Settlement trust which includes Gellymill, even though strictly according to the rules I do not have to”. Asked about his trust in Jersey, he said: "It’s been relocated to the UK.
“I was living abroad at the time back in 1990 and it was unclear if I would ever come back to the UK. It is very simple. The reason for the Jersey trust was to avoid double taxation on international investments as I have been an international businessman for much of my career but always UK taxpayer. I have always been a UK taxpayer, as have my children. It was set up when I was living in Paris.”
I really struggle to care about stuff like this. Tax avoidance is legal.
If I store money in an ISA, I’m technically avoiding tax. Does that mean I’m a terrible person?
Legal ≠ moral. I’m just going to quote Jo Maugham from the article here:
Jo Maugham, of the Good Law Project, said: "If you really love your country you pay your taxes. You want young people to be well educated and older people to be cared for. You want a decent police force and your armed forces veterans looked after. You don’t have a family trust in a tax haven.”
Lessons in morality from the fox killer are ironic.
What about MLK?
Just because something is legal, that doesn’t make it right, and not everything that is illegal is wrong.
One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws
Tax avoidance is legal.
Yep.
The moral question is when those using it to enhance their wealth privaledge. Become the same people creating the laws allowing it.
And while that happens a lot. This is a new case of exactly that. So worth bringing to public attention.
Your own example. An ISA is provided by the government. To use taxation to encourage citizens with little spare income/wealth. To put some aside for the future. This is beneficial to the nation. And as such very much the job of our representatives to consider.
When those same representative fail to address tax avoidance that take profit or investment out of the UK. While also benefiting from the failure to address it. A problem is happening.
