JIMMY CARR, TAX, CASH & MORALITY.

I had rather ignored the issue of Jimmy Carr's tax arrangements until I heard a comment from Andrew Neil on Today's 'Daily Politics'. Mr Neil remarked that Carr had paid cash for his current home, and not just a little bit. £8,500,000 of cash, actually.

Forgive me for being a little shocked by this revelation but where on earth does a second rate comic like Jimmy Carr  get that sort of money, and in cash ? No doubt this is also a question that will now be persued by the tax authorities and it would not really surprise me if they found some naughtiness involved somewhere along the way.

I have no objection whatsoever to people paying only the tax that is due and the Government rhetoric about the unfairness and immorality of special arrangements passes me by. If the Government doesn't like loopholes in the tax laws, then it should close them; at the same time, I have some difficulty with the scheme that Mr Carr was apparently employing, one that involved him receiving his pay as loans from an off-shore company - this smacks of tax fraud, even if it isn't.

The Government finds ever more surreptitious ways of picking our pockets at every opportunity and now takes more of our hard-earned income than it ever did. Given this, it is perfectly fair that tax payers find, and exploit, legitimate avenues for minimising their own tax liabilities. One has to assume that the likes of Tony Blair have used every means under the sun to ensure that they pay as little as possible, as no doubt have the forebears of the likes of David Cameron, Nick Clegg and George Osborne, so why shouldn't the rest of us ?

The feigned outrage of Cameron is really pretty laughable. He has 2 free homes together with staff and all utilities, while being paid something like £142,000 pa plus expenses. He, of course, has little or no expenses and is free to invest most of his post-tax income in savings for his future, as is his wife who also enjoys a largely free life on the tax payer. So, Mr Cameron, I think you should shut up.

Putting aside the purely political issues, the fact that Carr has amassed such a fortune from so little must raise a few eyebrows. Let's hope that an investigation into the associated issues brings some explanations.