Monday, December 02, 2013

Margaret Thatcher: Tax cheat

Who'd have think it? The hero of the right, Margaret Thatcher, was a tax cheat:
Flag-waving former PM Margaret Thatcher may have avoided millions in inheritance tax by keeping a chunk of her fortune offshore.

A copy of Tory Baroness Thatcher’s will shows she left a £4.7million estate to be shared among family members.

But the £12million Central London mansion where the Iron Lady spent the last years of her life is owned by an anonymous trust registered in the British Virgin Islands – a ­notorious tax haven.

Through this arrangement she could have avoided up to £5million in inheritance tax – the 40% that would have been due if it was owned by a UK individual.


I guess £100,000 a year in "expenses" and an enormous pension just wasn't enough for her. And then, having cheated on her taxes, she got a £3.2 million public funeral (most of it the cost of suppressing the public's real verdict on her).

Tax cheats are not deserving of public honours or public funerals. Her estate should pay those costs back.