SILLY OLD NIGEL CAUGHT OUT OVER OFFSHORE FUNDS

Nigel Farage, it emerges, opened an offshore trust fund in the Isle of Man in a plan to avoid tax bill. The revelations come just the day after UKIP lost its deposit at the Aberdeen South by-election. I wonder what would have happened had they come a day earlier.

Farage has said that his financial advisers recommended the Trust  for inheritance purposes as a vehicle to build up a trust fund for his children or grandchildren.

He told the Daily Mirror:  “It was a mistake for three reasons. Firstly, I'm not rich enough to need one and I am never going to be.

“Secondly, frankly, the world has changed. Things that we thought were absolutely fair practice 10 years, 20 years ago, 30 years ago aren't any more.

"Thirdly, it was a mistake because it cost me money.”

However, whatever the dubious truth of that is, it sits badly with his criticism of offshore tax havens, including the Isle of Man, which he actually named in a speech in the European Parliament.

There are, apparently, only two good reasons to set up an Isle of Man trust.

One is secrecy, and the other is tax avoidance. Of course, as he says he had nothing to do with either of these,  it  begs the question that if he was setting up a trust for his grandchildren, why would he not do it in his own country?

Tax dodging costs the UK billions of pounds a year, far more than benefit fraud, which the government is trying to stamp out, killing off poor people in its trail.  Tax Research experts say the sum involved could be as much as £123 billion.

David Cameron backed a deal at the G8 summit this week to crack down on corporate tax evasion. He must be laughing like a drain that Farage has got himself into this mess.