I stand by tax avoidance comments about Lord Fink, says Ed Miliband
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Version 0 of 1. The Labour leader, Ed Miliband, repeated on Thursday a claim he made in the House of Commons that the former Tory treasurer Lord Fink had sought to avoid UK tax. At the end of a speech in which he promised to ringfence the English education budget, Miliband said: “Yesterday a Conservative donor challenged me to stand by what I said in the House of Commons. I do.” Speaking at Haverstock school in north London, he continued: “And believe it or not, now today he [Fink] confirmed it as well. He has just said, and I quote: ‘I didn’t object to his use of the word tax avoidance, because tax avoidance - everyone does it.’ I think that this is a defining moment in David Cameron’s leadership of the Conservative because it is now revealed that he appointed a treasurer for his party that says everyone is engaged in tax avoidance. “I don’t think that is the view of most people, and of the country. I think it does say something about the Conservative party so the question for today is does does David Cameron agree with Lord Fink and does he sanction his attitude?” On Wednesday night Fink had threatened to sue Miliband if he repeated his allegations about the Tory peer’s tax affairs outside the Commons where his remarks are protected from libel action by parliamentary privilege. However, before Miliband’s speech on Thursday, Fink told the London Evening Standard that “everybody does tax avoidance” and added he had never wanted to sue the Labour leader. Fink also said he did engage in “vanilla tax avoidance measures” including transferring shares into family trusts while in Switzerland. “The expression tax avoidance is so wide that everyone does tax avoidance at some level,” he told the newspaper. On his row with Miliband, he said: “I didn’t object to his use of the word ‘tax avoidance’. Because you are right: tax avoidance, everyone does it.” After Miliband’s speech Fink said the Labour leader had backed down. In a further statement, the peer added: “Yesterday I challenged Ed Miliband to repeat the accusations he made in the Commons that I used an HSBC bank account to avoid tax and that I was a ‘dodgy’ donor. He did not. “This is a major climbdown by a man who is willing to smear without getting his facts straight.” But in Fink’s original letter in which he demanded an apology from Miliband on Wednesday night, the peer made no objection to the phrase dodgy donor, providing some cover for claims made by Labour aides that he had also retreated. Miliband said he had not been referring to Fink as a dodgy donor. Miliband said: “The thing he, Fink, objected to - until his extraordinary U-turn 24 hours later - was me saying that he was engaged in tax-avoiding activities.” He said that he had made “a general comment about dodgy donors in the Conservatives party and I totally stand by that comment”. Clarifying further, Miliband said: “I am not saying it about Lord Fink there are several questionable donors to the Tory party one donor had to leave the House of Lords after breaking his promise to bring his tax affair on shore, and a firm owned by another donor was fined for involvement in the Libor rigging scandal. Personally I think that is pretty dodgy.” The Labour leader also defended his own tax arrangements concerning his house, referring to a deed of variation, a tax efficient arrangement that allowed him and his brother, David, to take a share of their family home in Primrose Hill, north London after his father’s death in 1994. He said: “This is something my mother did 20 years ago - a decision she made. I pay tax as a result on that transaction and I have avoided paying no tax. No doubt the Conservative party wants to smear mud but frankly it is not going to work. The story has been written before and I pay tax on that money.” Fink told the Standard that if Miliband “simply uses the words ‘Lord Fink did ordinary tax avoidance’ then no, I couldn’t sue him. But if he made the statement ‘dodgy’ about my bank account, that was potentially libellous. That was the issue I took exception to. “I also took exception to him saying I had questions to answer. In fact, whenever anyone has put questions to me I have answered them.” Fink added that he rejected expert advice that he could save a fortune in tax by adopting more “aggressive” measures. “What I did - was at the vanilla, bland, end of the spectrum.” He said he “used the opportunity ... to set up some simple family trusts” while on a four-year posting to Switzerland and had transferred some shares to his children and his wife. “My family and I paid tax on all the dividends, both in Switzerland and the UK. They were done because my children were under 18 and I wanted them to have something to help them make their way in the wider world.” |