Last week's UK Budget tells us the Conservative Government is abolishing “Non-Dom” (non-domiciled) tax status. 

For me it is a bitter sweet moment. 

I wanted to see an incoming Labour Government get rid of this crazy hangover from colonial days. Instead we have the weird paradox of a dying Conservative Government abolishing a tax device which, over the years, has benefitted thousands of its own well-heeled supporters.

Non-Dom status allows the super-rich – who claim their true home is elsewhere – to pay UK tax only on the money they choose "to remit" or bring into the country - not on their worldwide income.

They park their millions in tax havens off-shore.

Deceitful

I spent years on the trail of the deceitful multi-millionaire, Lord Ashcroft, establishing that he was indeed a tax dodger who got into the House of Lords on false pretences.

Ashcroft, a former Chair of the Conservative Party, was “raised to the peerage” after promising the then Leader of the Conservative Party, William Hague, that he would bring his tax affairs on-shore and become a UK resident for tax purposes. He never did.

After ten years in the House of Lords – voting to make the laws of the land – he was revealed to be a non-dom, liable for only a fraction of the tax that would have been payable as a UK resident. 

Freedom of Information

Although I was a member of the UK Parliament at the time, it took a Freedom of Information request – two years and more from start to finish - to force him to admit his non-dom status after a brazen cover-up lasting a decade. 

Non-Doms can no longer sit in the UK Parliament.

In 2010 – the year he was exposed as a tax cheat – Ashcroft donated £5M to the Imperial War Museum enabling it to build an “Ashcroft Gallery” to house his collection of Victoria Cross medals.

Ashcroft's "fascination with bravery"

Ashcroft, who describes himself as an international businessman, philanthropist, author and pollster, tells us he has a fascination with bravery which goes back to his childhood.

There is nothing brave about the shamefully dishonest way he behaved to get into the House of Lords.

The valiant soldiers whose medals lie in Ashcroft’s Gallery must be turning in their graves.

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Note: Michael Ashcroft retired from the Lords in 2015 though he still keeps the honorific title “Lord”. Despite his retirement from the Lords, Ashcroft still active in UK politics.

The transcript of the celebrated Jeremy Paxman interview of William Hague on the Ashcroft peerage is here. The BBC video has been taken down and is no longer available.

From the Guardian: Michael Ashcroft's former daughter-in-law, Jasmine Hartin, fined for killing police officer in Belize.