7. Conservative Peer Stanley Fink Claimed "Everyone" Avoids Tax... Something Cameron Does Not Want His Tory Backers Saying Publicly
With a deficit to cut and no party yet fully confident on exactly how they will reduce it, tax is one of the hottest debates during this election - and primarily whether it will be raised. Cameron and his Chancellor George Osborne are adamant they will not need to raise levels because they will make savings and clamp down on current tax avoiders, so the PM would really rather his own Tory Peers didn't put a nail into his own policies. Stanley Fink - who has previously donated more than £2.6million to the Conservative Party - said back in February 2012 that "everyone does it (tax avoidance)". His exact phrasing was:
"The expression tax avoidance is so wide that everyone does tax avoidance at some level. "What I did... was at the vanilla, bland, end of the spectrum (by setting up family trusts in Switzerland)."
Such statements make it appear as if Cameron is happy to clamp down on tax avoidance from those who haven't donated heavily to the Conservatives - while those who have can get away with that extra bit of leniency.
NUFC editor for WhatCulture.com/NUFC. History graduate (University of Edinburgh) and NCTJ-trained journalist. I love sports, hopelessly following Newcastle United and Newcastle Falcons. My pastimes include watching and attending sports matches religiously, reading spy books and sampling ales.
