Danny Alexander failed to pay CGT on second home...

[i'm no superhero]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/mps-exp...

Oh dear.

[230TE]

Now the Telegraph is starting to wind me up. It fails to mention in that story that until 2006 Alexander's other (constituency) home was rented. That is quite an important point because capital gains tax doesn't apply to rented homes. It doesn't matter how many homes you have, if you only own one of them, then as far as the Revenue is concerned, that is your only home and you don't have to pay CGT when you sell it, even if you have bought another house before selling the first one. Alexander's designation of his constituency home as his 'main home' for expenses purposes is thus completely irrelevant to the CGT issue.

The Telegraph would have known that Alexander's constituency home until 2006 was rented, because it has all the expenses data. It chose to omit this material fact so that it could present this as another example of an MP saying one thing to the Commons authorities and another to the Revenue. I don't know if the Telegraph is trying to bring down the Government or just sell more newspapers, but either way this isn't exactly its finest hour. Alexander hasn't done anything wrong, and I reckon it owes him a massive apology.

[siscar]

Yes I'm getting sick of this, time to give a new government a chance to get on with what they are there for. I don't see that this bloke has done anything that anyone else wouldn't have done.

[Parrot of Doom]

siscar said:

Yes I'm getting sick of this, time to give a new government a chance to get on with what they are there for. I don't see that this bloke has done anything that anyone else wouldn't have done.

eh? bks to that. If they're up to no good, I want to know about it.

[heebeegeetee]

Worth bearing in mind though that all the people we have just gone and voted for would still be swindling us today with gay abandon had the Telegraph not exposed them.

[chris watton]

Parrot of Doom said:

siscar said:

Yes I'm getting sick of this, time to give a new government a chance to get on with what they are there for. I don't see that this bloke has done anything that anyone else wouldn't have done.

eh? bks to that. If they're up to no good, I want to know about it.

I agree, after all, isn't it the Lib-Dems who are pushing for this 40% CGT levy? If they cannot practise what they preach, then they're no better than the last lot.

Edited by chris watton on Monday 31st May 13:36

[siscar]

Parrot of Doom said:

siscar said:

Yes I'm getting sick of this, time to give a new government a chance to get on with what they are there for. I don't see that this bloke has done anything that anyone else wouldn't have done.

eh? bks to that. If they're up to no good, I want to know about it.

Sure, if they are up to no good. But this bloke has done nothing wrong, you may judge what he did to be something that 'should' have been against the rules, but it wasn't against the rules.

The other one was against the rules, but not in the sense of claiming something he wasn't entitled to, he was perfectly within his rights to claim for rent in London, his problem was solely the fact that he had a relationship with the person he paid it to. It was against the rules but more highlighted the absurdity of some of the rules than anything else.