Nought but a Ginger Herring

No sooner has the Tellyguff succeeded in unseating David laws, they set about his successor:

But they’re wrong. He didn’t avoid CGT, because CGT simply wasn’t due on the sale of this property.

The FT explains:

This morning’s story about his not paying capital gains tax on a London property appears overblown. Alexander bought his London flat in 1999 and started claiming on it only in 2005 when he became an MP; at that point it was his only home.

When he sold it two years later he paid no cgt – even though by then he had a home in Scotland and had designated the flat as his “second home” in respect of his Parliamentary allowance.

How come? Because under HMRC rules, if you move out of your main abode there is a three-year grace period during which you don’t have to pay any capital gains tax on selling it. As a result there was no obligation on Alexander to pay the levy and therefore he didn’t breach any rule. In fact, I’m not sure the country wants a Treasury minister idiotic enough to go out of his way to pay taxes he was not liable for.

There we are then. Case closed.

Now let the man get on with the job until he does something we can actually get mad about, eh?

AJ

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