Ed Davey (LibDems), making the point I made yesterday:
'We rightly expect our Armed Forces to protect British citizens around the world in crises like this. But that includes tax exiles like Isabel Oakeshott & washed-up old footballers who mock ordinary people pay our taxes here [in the UK]. So as we protect them, does the prime minister agree that it’s only right for tax exiles to start paying taxes to fund our Armed Forces just like the rest of us do'!
If they are like the odious Oakshott and many others who have fled to tax free countries like Dubai and Monaco to avoid paying UK tax then I totally agree that they should pay for their expensive rescue. However, I don't think the same should apply to UK citizens who moved abroad to work (like me) and who pay tax in whatever country they moved to. In my case that's Luxembourg.
Accepting that it's unlikely that Lxembourg is ever going to be embroiled in a medieval crusade to protect the PetroDollar, would you accept paying additional tax up to the UK rates under similar circumstances?
The difference between tax in Luxembourg and in the UK is that the poor, over here, are not taxed very much, if at all, but the well-heeled get a bit caned. When I first started work in Luxembourg on a slightly above average salary, I did calculate what I would have been paying in total deductions in the UK on the same salary in £ sterling and I found that give or take a fiver, my net income after deductions would have been pretty much exactly the same in the UK as it was on my first pay slip here.
I should add that I am not a rich tax exile here, I'm a poverty stricken pensioner! I was working here when I retired and could not afford to move back to the UK!
However, on my combined pensions - a state pension here for 11 years work in Luxembourg and a state pittance in the UK for most of the rest of my career, I pay around £200pa in income tax here with no other deductions whereas in the UK on the same combined pensions, I have calculated that I would be paying just short of £3000pa in income tax! So no, I wouldn't be happy to pay UK tax as I'm already in a position that I don't have enough to live on!
In most people's minds Luxembourg = tax dodger, but the reality is not that at all! Most Brits over here, ended up here as I did, because the work dried up in the UK and they were offered a job over here!
Like every other country in the world, Luxembourg has its upsides and downsides. The other morning I needed to see a GP and was able to book an appt. on the internet for the same afternoon. The downside is that you do have to pay, although it's not very much: a few pence over £6.
