Rayner consulted three people before flat purchase

I feel like if you consult three experts on something that will save you money but is relatively clear from a Google search can’t happen and they each give you the wrong answer, it’s probably more likely you gave them selectively wrong information rather than them all being idiots.

I dunno. I started this week thinking this was the biggest nothing burger I’ve ever heard, and I’m now expecting by Friday to learn she successfully ran a drug and brothel empire from there and the press are only finding out now.

They seem to be unable to admit that it really does not matter how many people she consulted or whether the advice was good or bad; that’s really not the issue. Its the hypocrisy.

Labour MPs including Rayner lined up to condemn Rishi Sunak when it came out that his wife was using her non-dom status to legally avoid paying millions in UK tax. The line was clear: it doesn’t matter if it’s legal, it’s ethically wrong, it shows poor judgment, and it undermines public trust. Fair enough and a lot of people (ie; Voters) agreed.

But now Angela Rayner gets caught doing the same thing – exploiting a legal quirk to pay less tax than most people in her situation would – and suddenly it’s all ‘she followed the rules’ and ‘she had legal advice’. That’s literally the same defence Sunak used about his wife but apparently was not good enough. If Labour’s position is that legality is not enough, that politicians should be held to a higher standard, then Rayner clearly fails that test too.

One rule for thee and another for me!

Regardless of legality, as a Labour party politician you shouldn’t be seeking to minimise your tax, you should be proud of the amount you pay to support the country.

Our housing minister has no idea how the taxes surrounding house sales work

… Just let that sink in

This is such a non story. I’m not even a fan of this government or Angela Rayner but the amount of attention this is getting is ridiculous. 

The blow by blows on this story are getting a little ridiculous now.

Did she also have a cheese sandwich that day? That would be proof of incontrovertible insanity.

As a financial adviser I find this a bit tiresome. If this is a genuine mistake I.e she hired experts as stated and they told her x advice then this is a nothing story and she will pay the correct tax with HMRC.

The likelihood is she hired a financial adviser/mortgage adviser for the mortgage. She has then hired experts on trusts (probably at the behest of the financial adviser) and a solicitor, it is up to them to provide her with the correct advice. All of these people will have charged her fees for their expertise/advice.

Is anyone on this thread honestly saying that if you took advice from multiple people, and on the result of that advice, you paid the figure they advised that should lose your job as a consequence of those experts being wrong?

There is a difference between tax evasion and tax avoidance and there is a further difference still at following advice that turns out to be incorrect – which would be neither tax avoidance or tax evasion as both of them require knowledge of the action prior to doing so.

Now without taking any side politically and being objective the question we need to ask here is why three people?

That indicates she was unsure of the position and it was highly likely she received conflicting advice. If not conflicting advice then the first two were uncertain. This is not a good look because if there was clearly conflicting or uncertain advice the obvious course of action would be to consult an actual expert. Given her position within government and the amount of money involved the question moves to why didn’t she do that?

The only logical conclusion here is that she thought she could get away with not doing that. In that case her position is no longer tenable. That is unless whoever gave her the incorrect legal advice admits to making the mistake.

It should also be noted that things aren’t looking good for Labour in her constituency and the move was allegedly part of parachuting her into a safe seat. Note the use of word allegedly.

You can’t call out tories and then when called out for your own hypocrisy – act like a victim.

Its disappointing to see the levels people are going to defending Rayner.

If this was a Tory or Reformer the knives would be out and they’d have to go, no excuses.

You cant attack the Tories like Rayner did and expect a pass when caught using the same tax dodging schemes, pleading ignorance is no excuse.

Its just another example of hypocrisy from Labour, we were promised less of this.

Had to ask 3 sets of professionals before she found one who would give her the answer she was looking for.

This is a pure optics disaster. Reeves is about to go to the country and ask for more money or swing the axe.

At the same time Angela uses her child’s trust money to buy her share of a house to buy a new one (ethically dubious anyway). But she structured that deal to ensure she could buy a house without the SDLT – turns out maybe the advice was wrong or she withheld information.

However, she cuts it – she tried to dodge the tax and made deliberate actions to try and do it legally but it ended up being incorrect.

For some reason she chose to go to cabinet wearing obnoxious designer glasses – just put the normal ones on while you have heat on you.

She is a tax cheat and completely unqualified to be in this position. She is a hypocritical embarrassment to this country and she needs to be sacked immediately. Champagne communists

If she wasn’t a high profile it wouldn’t be an issue and she would get away with it. Advisors didn’t anticipate high levels of scrutiny most likely and optics. She should have anticipated it but it’s an allowable error.

She needs to be Teflon on this, pay up making a show of it and move on.