Infosys quits Russia, ending UK political and tax scandal … maybe Indian IT services giant Infosys has announced it will quit Russia, after finding itself at the center of a political storm in the UK. Infosys is one of few major global tech companies that had not revealed its intentions regarding Russia, but on yesterday's Q4 2022 earnings call CEO Salil Parekh stated the company will pull …
During all the time nobody noticed, she was living large and paying zero taxes on a billion dollar revenue stream.
Then, when she got caught in the spotlight, presto, her access to taxable revenue disappears, so she won't be paying taxes either.
Poor husband, he's now going to be the sole earner for the household. Does he pay taxes in his position ?
Oh, and can we get a kaching! icon ?
1. She is a billionaire, that requires a revenue stream.
2. Who says taxes are due in India? She is a UK resident, she is tax resident in the UK, and her status is "non-domiciled" - that doesn't mean she's an Indian tax resident. "Non-domiciled" is just a way of reducing a UK tax bill with a flimsy excuse, basically a hangover from the British empire that is still alive today.
Neither her or her husband has categorically stated there is income in India, they've only talked about "international income".
3. Seriously?
"2. Who says taxes are due in India? She is a UK resident, she is tax resident in the UK, and her status is "non-domiciled" - that doesn't mean she's an Indian tax resident. "Non-domiciled" is just a way of reducing a UK tax bill with a flimsy excuse, basically a hangover from the British empire that is still alive today."
Clearly you've not been reading or listening to the news recently or you'd know that being "non-dom" doesn't mean you don't pay taxes at all. You have to declare *where* you are domiciled for tax purposes. That makes it harder to avoid the taxes where you *are* domiciled. I don't agree with it, but I have bothered to listen to the reports of who the law works currently. And FWIW, Labour have been bleating about this for many, many years, but never did anything about it when they were in power for 13 years.
Exactly John. This thread was only ever going to be a cue for the "its those people over there" types.
If the law needs to change, change it. But right now, she's not offside on any tax laws. I dare say many of the negative commenters would choose to take the most tax efficient route given an A / B choice. But its moral outrage if its "the enemy". It much the same way as multi millionaire Labour voters don't liquid their assets and give it away to poor people. Or let a homeless person take one of their second homes. Non dom status has been around for donkeys years. Its only news today in the social media wars in the personification of our politics. Her tiny in the grand scheme of things income pales compared to the large policy decisions over billions culminating in trillions any UK government manages.
Clearly you've not been reading or listening to the news recently or you'd know that being "non-dom" doesn't mean you don't pay taxes at all. You have to declare *where* you are domiciled for tax purposes. That makes it harder to avoid the taxes where you *are* domiciled.
I didn't say that at all. Please re-read.
Then read this:
How the UK’s non-dom status works
And to spell it out, you are a UK tax resident, you declare you wish to avail yourself of non-domiciled status, offer supporting evidence (e.g. you are from another country and intend to return, or you inherit this status from a parent - this is actually a thing).
You are still tax resident in the UK, from your home country's point of view (e.g. India) you are not tax resident.
You end up paying tax on your UK income to the UK, £30K/year for any and all worldwide income to the UK, and you don't pay inheritance tax to the UK.
She would pay tax on Indian earnings (if she has any) to India but that's it.
Now imagine she also has income in the Cayman Islands, just to choose somewhere random on the globe. Works out quite well, doesn't it?
she was officially domiciled in India and therefore did not pay UK taxes on income earned in other countries. Doing so was legal
And that's the problem: laws were voted everywhere to make tax evasion possible.
A few weeks ago, the living mummies populating the French Senate (where the opposition is in majority) claimed in the newspapers it was a scandal that a consultants company hired by the government wasn't paying taxes in France. In your opinion, do you think they immediately proposed a new law to ensure tax evasion become not feasible?
It's all political games. Our elites claim to be shocked the wealthiest ones don't pay their fair share but as the latter finance the former, nothing ever change.
International tax legislation was structured to prevent double taxation, i.e. paying tax on the same income in two jurisdictions.
But this only works well when all tax jurisdictions have similar rules, and apply those rules fairly. What we have at the moment are different tax rules, and a way that multi-nationals have the ability to move money around through cross-border internal purchases and licensing charges so that the money gets declared in the lowest tax region.
And when you have a very large company dominated by small groups of owners or shareholders, it's quite possible for individuals to alter the tax affairs of their companies to maximize their personal post-tax income.
But be realistic. Where someone can find a way of legally minimizing the tax that they pay, they probably will do it. You use ISAs and payment into pension funds, yes? It's not illegal, and it's only really marginally immoral. The problem here is really the internal tax legislation, and the fact that some people are able to save more tax than it costs to pay the accountants who are looking for the gaps.
The whole non-dom status was designed by the last Labor government (surprised?) to attract rich foreign people to live in this country without the fear of the tax authorities digging into their tax affairs to see whether there is a buck or two more to extract. It's almost like a legalized bribe paid to the UK tax man (it costs to declare non-dom status). The time to object to this was when the law was being debated, not because there's some rich person you want to smack because you don't like them. That just looks like taxation cake-eating.
Richi Sunak's wife is being used as a scapegoat here to try to damage a UK politician. Nothing more, nothing less.
I have disagreed with "nondom" status for many years. I'm not convinced that the country really benefits from allowing those wealthy people to live here without playing by the same rules that everyone else here has to. I seem to remember the Labour government introduced them because of threats by international rock stars and sports people to live abroad. Fine if that's what they want to do. The tax rules should be the same for everyone.
However, it is particularly stupid for a politican to be using such controversial loopholes. And it should be illegal when said politician is in charge of the loopholes! A clear and obvious conflict of interest that should have disqualified Sunak from being a minister, let alone Chancellor of the Exchequer. (As well as an obvious own goal the Conservative Party should have realised would bite them)
I agree that the use of legal minority case exemptions isn’t a clever political move in any high office (especially the one setting tax rules).
Personally I'm ambivalent about nondom status, anyone who can pay £30k isn't costing me anything from the taxes I pay and is more than likely to be financing a far more expensive lifestyle than I can manage on my meagre salary, happily resulting in a large tax element heading towards the national coffers anyway. this is preferable to the the alternative ‘not being here spending money’.
Until fairly recently they both held US green cards which I believe requires holders to pay US taxes on all income earned globally (minus any paid locally), which renders the level of tax paid (or not) in any other 3rd party country moot from a UK perspective.
The overtly political targeting of the chancellors wife during week one of a new tax year seems to be a stalking horse that has drawn in all opponents looking to score easy points and opened the subject for wider public debate. What I am waiting for now is the press moving on to examine all our politicians to see which have put their own family/friends members onto the public payroll (spoiler lots).
Perhaps it’s time to start auditing all our MPs when they’re elected and give them clear rules as to what is acceptable in office (not just legal). of course the argument there would be how far across the family tree would this be required, spouse, children, third cousin twice removed living in Patagonia?
The whole non-dom status was designed by the last Labor government (surprised?) to attract rich foreign people to live in this country without the fear of the tax authorities digging into their tax affairs to see whether there is a buck or two more to extract.
No, what Labour changed was charging £30K/year for non-domiciled status, it's been around for 200 years.
This post has been deleted by its author
Non-dom status has been around FOREVER. It allowed people to only pay tax to HMRC on UK income whilst claiming that they were only temporarily in the UK.
The statement thrown out by Murty's PR spokesperson saying that India didn't allow people to have multiple citizenships is a red herring. Tax domicile is not citizenship, the two are not related. Many people with other citizenships who come here from other countries automatically become domiciled in the UK for tax purposes because they usually don't know about the non-dom thing and quite frankly don't care. They usually don't end up with massive stockholdings worth over 7 figures with annual income streams from dividends in the 6 figure range. And they cease to be domiciled here when they return to their home country after several years, tell the HMRC that they no longer live in the UK, don't intend to live in the UK and thus are no longer liable for taxes due to HMRC after a set date (usually when they leave the country), and there's no problem with that.
If you read the legislation, if you're resident in the UK for more than 187 days a year (that's just over half), you are considered tax resident (and domiciled) here, unless you actively go and tell HMRC that you are not, and that you don't intend to be (and you show proof that you have a home elsewhere, family ties and the like, which you will return to eventually). That's what Murty's done. She says she is an Indian citizen (not disputed), and intends to return to India to take care of her parents, etc etc etc (so far not disputed by HMRC either).
So, Murty could have simply started to be tax domiciled here in the UK without a fuss. She would've had to pay tax on her worldwide income here, subject to double-taxation agreements (DTAs). India and the UK have one, as do the US and the UK, so the UK's view would've been 'tell us how much you paid on your income elsewhere, and we'll either "credit" it to what you are due to pay us or we'll ask you to pay tax on what you've not been taxed elsewhere'. If India doesn't tax investment income like interest and dividends at all, then she would've had to pay tax on that here. If India taxed her investment income at a higher rate than here, she wouldn't have had to pay anything at all, and if they tax it less than the UK does, then she would've probably had to pay the difference here. The IRS in the US works on similar constructs. Everyone would've had their cut, and no-one, not even the most shrill of politicians in the UK, would've had a problem.
The problem is that she paid her taxes on her worldwide income in India (no problem there), and then paid the HMRC £60K to not ask her questions on any other income other than the UK income she gets. It's not ideal. She didn't do anything wrong (technically), but when her husband starts upping taxes and cutting benefits on those who have lived here all their lives and who don't have a nest egg they inherited from their father that leaves them with £11 million a year in dividends alone like his wife does, then yeah, you can be guaranteed that the optics are positively crap and make him look like the "do as I say, don't do as I do" kind of person that (unfortunately) he turns out to be.
What perhaps makes this different are that a) taxes are being raised substantially for the lower paid, by her husband ( in his official role) while their family income is protected and b) There's a bit of a contradiction between saying you are one of the most senior members of a government and are actively ( i.e not separated) married to someone who is not domiciled in that country. If you are living within a marriage to someone who runs a country that's a pretty good example of being "domiciled" in any rational sense.
The same stupidity here apparently.
So she is rich. Her father started Infosys, which is about 25 times the size of Marks and Spencer. That’s how she is rich. I’d say deal with it. Complain to your dad that he didn’t start a successful company.
Infosys paid out $1.2 billion in dividends last year. So she made some money. Deal with it.
I could have stayed non-domiciled when I moved to England. Didn’t seem worth it to me. If I had huge income from India I’d have thought about it. Don’t like it? Change the laws. But everyone is free to arrange their taxes in the most efficient legal way. As all contractors reading this site will appreciate. So guys, deal with it.
She had no influence on Infosys’ business. They have 290,000 employees, 100 in Russia, so that’s about $400,000 profit from Russia. Her portion of that would be $3,500. But this war is less than 2 months old, so one sixth is $600. Yes, that’s positively evil.
<Sigh> where to begin.....
She's rich, but did not do anything to actually earn the money. Its not like she created employment, created new drugs or anything useful, she just sucks on the teat and adds nothing
Her father made the money, and she got a share of it ,and then tried to ensure it could not be taxed at the same rate as the majority while at the same time enjoying the infrastructure and protections that taxes pay for
"everyone is free to arrange their taxes in the most efficient legal way" - If it was free and open to all, then that would be OK, but it is not. It is only open to those with the financial clout and political connections to make such arrangements
"She had no influence on Infosys’ business." - no, but she does have influence of the person in the country responsible of making such arrangements and at the same time directly benefits for those arrangements
I get it, it is not a fair world. That's fine as long as everything is transparent. However their status was hidden, while they tried to pretend they were just like everyone else. Earning money is not the problem, hiding how you avoid paying tax on it, is...
I think if this had happened in isolation, where Mr.Sunak's wife was a non-dom even with 3 houses in the UK to not stay in, it'd be a storm in a tea cup.
But none of this happens in isolation. We've had over 2 years of COVID where all of us made sacrifices to protect our loved ones and to uphold the law set out by these bastards in the first place. My wife couldn't hug her granny for the last time before she died because my wife didn't want to give her COVID (she never had it). A friend of mine died alone in a hospital ward, his 8 year old son was never able to go on to the ward to see him.
I'm not a royalist - which I know is a shock given the name - but when it came out about these parties and the sheer nonchalance the Conservatives have shown to the rules they put in, I thought about Elizabeth sat there on her own mourning the death of her husband. Regardless of titles, she herself is someone's wife, someone's mother, someone's grandmother and she followed the rules. While her government decided "Fuck this let's have a party".
With Infosys themselves, I think any decent enough company (well, any company with a decent PR guy) pulled out of Russia the moment the tanks rolled in to Ukraine. Even if it weren't an immediate action, they at least set out a framework to detail how and when they would leave. Infosys have only now decided Russia is bad and should leave? Bullshit.
Fuck Infosys. Fuck the Government. Fuck Boris. Let every person who caress deeply about the Queen remember herself being made to mourn alone while that big blonde gobshite partied.
From The New Statesman:
"Perhaps most fatally, Lynton Crosby – the most trusted political strategist in the Tory party, who is informally advising Johnson in No 10 – is also gunning for Sunak. He has let it be known that he intends to finish the chancellor off. And a senior cabinet minister who has not always opposed Sunak now thinks that the he 'deserves everything he gets'."
https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk-politics/2022/04/no-10-is-at-war-with-rishi-sunak-and-its-not-clear-he-knows
If presiding over the decline and fall of the British Empire, the beginnings of the dissolution of the Union, and best part of 40 years of Tory short termism are a good example of a constitutional monarch; then bring on the Republic.
Charles has been a vocal critic of most things we get wrong in society, though won't be allowed to do that for much longer.
Don't worry, the shortfall of oil, fresh water, food and land will cause the much needed shake up if we are unable to see beyond the end of our noses and deal with it ourselves in a planned manner. (I havent given up all hope - not yet).
There's all this nonsense about a green card. If the USA doesn't want you to work in the USA, they can just take away your green card.
Or stupid stories about his wife giving a loan without interest payment to a company that went bankrupt and of which she owned less than five - that's perfectly fine as long as you report the actual facts to the HMRC, and they can tell you "you should have charged interest, so we assume you charged X in interest" if they don't like it. And as it is, the company went bankrupt, and she lost the loan, and would have lost any interest anyway.
Fuck Infosys. Fuck the Government. Fuck Boris.
Fuck you, Russian warship! I just wanted to start on a positive note, that the flagship Moskva is now at the bottom of the sea after being hit by home-made Ukrainian missiles. Apparently nobody died so, slainte / budmo.
Let every person who caress deeply about the Queen remember herself being made to mourn alone while that big blonde gobshite partied.
Aye, but look at which son she chose to accompany her to his memorial service.
"Apparently nobody died"
The stats on previous ships after ammunition stores exploded lead me to suspect rather differently.
It tends to be terminal for nearly everyone below decks even before the vessel sinks
Turkish coast guard responding to the SOS only pulled 58 russian sailors out of the water and at that point the ship was on its side
An awful lot of young men are dying to massage an old man's ego - young men that Russia cannot afford to lose when you look at its demographics profile. The population age curve is already upside down and it's the fastest falling population on the planet
After this mess is over (assuming we don't go full WW3), Russia is going to be a complete basket case for decades - and it needs to be emphasised that the circumstances which put Putin in charge were the direct result of Western right wingers NOT liking Russia's tenative move towards social democracy, therefore backing the coup back in 1993
Spot on. That's where the 'British sense of fairness' that was bandied about during this affair comes from. And yes, the vast majority of people stuck to the rules, and now it turns out (well, we knew months ago thanks to the Mirror and ITV) that the ones in power stuck to the "do as we say, don't do as we do" mantra.
And when you then have politicians of the same party going out to play the "oh, but we know of others who ignored the rules, but we won't mention them because we don't want them to get in trouble, so the PM is off the hook because he just did what many others did" game (yes, that means the fella with the bowl haircut/toupee), then you are definitely going to rub those, who did what was expected of them despite not being happy about it, up the wrong way, and they *will not forget*.
The image of the queen sitting on her own during her husband's funeral should be a reminder to all of us that we did the right thing, and it's the bastards who even when they were young had a superiority complex (see the letter from the Master at Eton to said little bastard's father that's available online) that are wrong and need to be gotten rid of at the next election. The same goes for the others who enabled those bastards. Remember, they were in it for themselves, *not* for the greater good of this country.
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With Infosys themselves, I think any decent enough company (well, any company with a decent PR guy) pulled out of Russia the moment the tanks rolled in to Ukraine. Even if it weren't an immediate action, they at least set out a framework to detail how and when they would leave. Infosys have only now decided Russia is bad and should leave? Bullshit.
Infosys is an Indian company. Heck they should'nt have pulled out even now. The only reason they pulled out was coz it was creating a political stink in relation to the founder's daughter.
Infosys may be Indian and India may be backing Russia, but it's clear the Indian _PEOPLE_ don't feel that way
Indian oil importers grabbed a shitload of cheap Russian oil - only to find they can't offload it to anyone - nobody wants to buy it
This is what happens when money-focussed mercantilists meet consumers with ethics
I don't think this attempt to to be thought of as a bunch of great philanthropists is going to work so well after it's taken them so long to painfully drag this penny out of their own pockets. Their indifference to morality and desire to keep the money flowing in at all costs has been well noted now, and they've realised far too late for this donation-as-PR-exercise to wash away the reputational damage it's caused.
Infosys is the 137th largest company in the world. They donated a million dollars. So what did the 136 other companies do?
But what do you think happens when say McDonald's pulls out of Russia? They can't just leave. There are restaurants that they have to lock down, cancel rent contracts, do their taxes, fire employees, and so on. They can stop selling burgers instantly, but they can't just leave. So what kind of company would you hire to look after that stuff? Some Russian company, or someone like Infosys?
McDs and related outfits are FRANCHISES
It gets even more tricky because corporate can leave and withdraw licensing for the signage/processes/supplies/marketing but they can't force franchisees to close up (ie: they could change names to HackBoeing, secure alternative supplies and carry on)
Although this specific case clearly has political overtones - non-dom status being a perfectly legal way of avoiding (not evading) UK tax, one has to ask why non-dom is legitimate for extremely high earners, but the equally legal arrangement of partial remuneration by dividend has been barred for a specific class of much lower earners - the independent contractors.
Yes, I know there's an argument that non-doms "create employment" but I'd like to see the evidence that this happens to any significant extent. Could this disparity rather be due to one rule for the rich...?
Yeah, there's nothing to indicate that the lady in question broke the law, or that her husband's possession of a US Green Card led to any illegal behaviour, or that tax evasion occurred at any point.
It's all reprehensible but not illegal or corrupt.
Her husband's Fixed Penalty Notice for being at work doesn't worry me either. There are some clear double standards by the police and the media over how members of different political parties are treated regarding COVID regulations.
What does bear deep investigation and does stink is her husband's imposition of drastic IR35 rules which heavily damage the ability of British companies to flex their staff numbers and skillsets through use of contractors, resulting in significantly more work for the company in which his wife and father-in-law hold a tremendous financial interest.
That's why I want him investigated.
(I want him out of a job anyway, because of the COVID relief money he's allowed to be fraudulently claimed, his refusal to cut Government spending, his refusal to remove the ridiculous so-called Green levies on energy bills and his imposition of the highest taxes on working people in decades.)
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