LABOUR leader Ed Miliband yesterday pledged a Labour government would abolish the non-domicile rule that allows some wealthy UK residents to limit the tax paid on earnings outside the country.
In a speech titled, ‘The Fabric of Our Country’, at the University of Warwick, he said: ‘Under a Labour government we will make sure responsibility goes right to the top …
‘Take the banking crisis. We are still paying, you are still paying, the British people are still paying, for what happened because of the global financial crisis.
‘We were told that the wealth flowed from these institutions, and while it appeared that in bonuses, practices and cultures, there were a different set of rules, that was to our benefit …
‘And then we saw the financial crash. What the banks called over-regulation turned out to be the dam protecting us from a tide of disaster.
‘The dam was weakened and it burst. With all that followed …
‘Energy is another market that hasn’t been working … I want to be clear that I don’t blame either the banks or the energy companies for working with the rules they had. It’s just the rules weren’t right.’
He pledged: ‘The next Labour government will put the fight against tax evasion and tax avoidance at the very heart of our mission for our country.
‘And there is one tax advantage that more than any other has become a symbol of the failure to act – non-dom status …
‘These are people who live here, like you and me, work here, like you and me, are permanently settled here, like you and me, and even were brought up here, like you and me, but just aren’t required to pay taxes like you and me.
‘They don’t pay UK taxes on the income they receive abroad. They take advantage of an arcane, 200 year-old loophole.
‘Believe it or not, it has its origins in colonial settlers who made their fortunes overseas and then wanted to be protected on taxes on the incomes they were receiving in the colonies. It is time to end all of these years of history.
‘There are now 116,000 non-doms. It is costing at least hundreds of millions of pounds to our country.
‘And it cannot be justified. It makes Britain an offshore tax haven for a few.’
