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That tax dodging Duke of Westminster

The international property empire of the dukes of Westminster pumped dividends worth millions of pounds into secretive companies in Bermuda and Panama, the Paradise Papers reveal.

Hugh Grosvenor became Britain’s youngest billionaire after his father’s death last year. Thanks to careful planning by his predecessors, the 26-year-old inherited the sprawling Grosvenor Group without having to pay the 40% death duties imposed on most British taxpayers.

Hmmm.

The trusts established by successive dukes to control Grosvenor are UK resident and subject to British tax – they pay a 6% charge on the value of many of their assets every 10 years.

26 year old will live, what, 6 more decades? So we get 36% of the value of the estate then. That really is tax dodging, isn’t it?

29 thoughts on “That tax dodging Duke of Westminster”

  1. Tell you what, you give me 4 billion quid now, and I will give you 3.5 billion in 60 years’ time. Because they’re the same, aren’t they?

  2. Is anyone saying it’s illegal to do this? Have they broken any laws? If not then everyone needs to shut up… Or if you don’t like it have a go at the people that made the laws…

    Can’t blame people for following the laws…

  3. “Thanks to careful planning by his predecessors, the 26-year-old inherited the sprawling Grosvenor Group without having to pay the 40% death duties imposed on most British taxpayers.”

    Those rich bastards, carefully managing their money within the frameworks established by the law, and paying what is required of them!

  4. The value of the assets in the trusts will grow over time, as will the tax ‘dividend’.

    One would also expect the income of the Grosvenors to be higher if the trusts are not cut by 40% up front. Thus generating lots of top-rate income tax.

  5. This isn’t just not illegal, it is the very action the statute was designed to encourage. It is morally and conceptually exactly the same investing in a pension or an ISA.

    This is the most egregious piece of cant yet.

  6. Morally speaking, of course, the DoW should have handed all of his ill-gotten* gains to da Curajus State to invest in very important projects like housing for foreigners in Britain, bombs for foreigners abroad and ministerial fact finding missions to the Maldives. Oh, and wind farms.

    *obviously I’ll-gotten, cos of capitalism innit?

  7. I asked work colleagues yesterday exactly, EXACTLY what it was the Queen had done wrong. Not silly or ill-advised; wrong. They thought the Duchy of Lancaster was funded by the taxpayer. When disabled of this, one decided that she was guilty for the theft of public property committed by an unnamed ancestor in the 14th Century.

  8. “They thought the Duchy of Lancaster was funded by the taxpayer. When disabled of this..”

    Crikey, Ironman- I hope you never have to correct anything i say. Crippling them seems a bit harsh.

  9. “Fatty

    Tell you what, you give me 4 billion quid now, and I will give you 3.5 billion in 60 years’ time. Because they’re the same, aren’t they?”

    Wrong way round, old chap. You are looking at it from the current Duke’s perspective not the dead one.

    If on day 1 I can expect to live another 60 years then after 10 years I will have paid zero IHT. However, a Trust will at that point pay its 6% 10 year charge.

    After 20 years still zero IHT but now another 10 year charge.

    And so on.

    See how that works?

    The 6% was decide upon on the old ‘four score years and ten’ idea of a 70 year life. 6 x 7 = 42% which is about the same as 40% IHT.

    Over an average life the idea was a Trust would pay the same IHT as if it were paid on death. But it’s paid earlier.

    Of course with people living much longer there’s a case for reducing the 10 year charge.

    I hope this helps you understand a bit better.

  10. Fatty – well Mayfair and Belgravia property will have to have done very badly indeed for your numbers to be correct.

  11. And of course, the Duke has inherited fuck all.

    That’s the whole point of a trust.

    It’s to stop the current Duke going on a bat-shit crazy orgy of high class prostitutes, high stakes gambling and high purity cocaine and so lay waste to the fortune amassed by his ancestors.

    It will ensure that the next Duke won’t have to work as a slave in a nail bar while living rough on the streets and surviving on food banks as 98% of the population now do thanks to evil Tories.

  12. Fatty,
    Are you John MacDonnell in disguise?
    The money belongs to the Grosvenor Trust – it is not yours, nor the Labour Party’s. You seem to think that you have some right to it – utter nonsense.
    Gerald Grosvenor never owned the money – he just got some of the income (HMRC was probably the largest recipipent) – so the IHT payable on his death was on his personal assets.
    Hugh Grosvenor has not inherited the Group – just a large share of the future income during his lifetime.

  13. As Andrew C points out, the main purpose of the trust is to keep the young man’s hands off the assets. If he’d simply wanted to give them, the seven-year rule on IHT would have taken care of that.

  14. Fatfuck–none of us have any reason to give you–or any other thieving socialist scum– a fucking ha’penny.

    Fuck off to Venezuela and try to help undo some of the mess leftscum like you have caused there.

  15. Gosh, you all do get aerated when anyone says anything nasty about posh people don’t you. Such aggressive servility!

    The fact is that the money would already be due if not for this trust system, which is a system that is not in practical terms available for, say, a school head who has an estate of about £750,000 to pass on. I agree that what they are doing is legal, but what most of the people who are banging on about these injustices are saying is that while legal, it is unjust, and the law should be amended so that ordinary people don’t pay a higher effective rate of IHT than plutocrats.

    I know you lot all like so suck aristo’s dicks though, so didn’t expect you to agree.

    Hope that clears things up for you, Andrew!

  16. Fatfuck–Servile?–from scum who endorse the worse tyranny and evil that has existed–socialism.

    Lots of ordinary people use trusts for only a few thousands of pounds. To–for example–stop the state socialist scum of the so-called “Court of Protection” from stealing elderly and confused relatives estates while they are still alive. So you are an ignorant as well as an arrogant fat cunt.

    And your line about “aristos” is a hoot–it’ll be Top Hats next you regressive puke.

    Keep sucking those Inner Party dicks Fats. It won’t be long before leftists like you are going to lose them permanently anyway. Souvenirs for your imported soon-to-be-former allies–once their numbers grow sufficiently..

  17. Ooh, Henry, such wit! I’m sure that will get you invited to Eaton Hall in no time. Keep it up!

    Really, lots of ordinary people use trusts for only a few thousands of pounds? Ever tried opening a trust account with that sort of balance? There’s no theft of old people’s estates while they’re still alive – the worst generation in history made their displeasure known to Theresa May when this was proposed and she backed off. So these people will preserve their own assets, while requiring the taxpayer to fund their care I’m surprised you’re so comfortable with this arrangement, to be honest.

  18. Fat Twatty, ignorant morons such as yourself do need to be told to fuck off. Regularly.

    So fuck off and when you have fucked off, come back and fuck off again.

  19. Of course Hugh Grosvenor didn’t pay any death duties, he wasn’t the one who died. It’s the dead person’s estate wot pays death duties.

  20. What a disappointment. I had thought Fatty’s original comment was a rather witty irony. It turns out he’s only a bloody fool after all.

    And ignorant: “this trust system, which is a system that is not in practical terms available for, say, a school head who has an estate of about £750,000 to pass on”. He really should go to one of the free seminars that financial firms run about IHT. The audiences are full of people like that headmaster keen to find out how trusts can help them avoid IHT (and avoid divorcees making off with half the family assets).

  21. “Really, lots of ordinary people use trusts for only a few thousands of pounds? Ever tried opening a trust account with that sort of balance?”

    Your family solicitor on the high street will open one for you you fuckwit. If you have elderly relatives with a house and or a few thousand accumulated after a life-times work. Not that you would know anything about the W-word you leftist twat.

    “There’s no theft of old people’s estates while they’re still alive – the worst generation in history made their displeasure known to Theresa May when this was proposed and she backed off.”

    Fuck all to do with the Fish -Faced BluLabour Cow you pig-ignorant Marxian juvo-scumbag. The CoP was set up under leftist puke Bliar in 2005 and has been reported in several scandals–seizing the income of elderly folk and sticking them in shite homes while pissing away said income. On one occasion paying the stolen money to the fucking Treasury.

    You haven’t a clue you basement-dwelling red toss. Young sewage like you are the worst generation in history. If it wasn’t for the misery it would bring to innocents nothing would please me more to see all the youngsnot get the Venezuelan-style socialist “paradise” they deserve.

    “So these people will preserve their own assets, while requiring the taxpayer to fund their care I’m surprised you’re so comfortable with this arrangement, to be honest.”

    So the “free for all at the point of use welfare state” always was a pack of lies. Thanks for the admission Theftboy. Old people should make provision for their possible old age or loss of mental power. Because only a real fuckwit would want the tender kindnesses of the shitty socialist state.

    Leaving aside the fact that those old folks likely were robbed by tax thieves all their lives just to provide that supposed “free” care when they needed it. Except statist/socialist scum pissed the money up the wall and there isn’t any left in the pot.

  22. Actually the taxman doesn’t get 6% of the assets of the trust, he gets 6% of value of the assets after various reliefs, such as Agricultural Property Relief @ 100%, and Business Property relief @ 50% have been applied. So the actual tax charge is far lower than 6% of the overall asset value.

    I am just going through such a scenario with a family trust of my own, and had it explained to me by my accountant only the other day. Sadly the trust isn’t located in Bermuda, it might make me more windswept and interesting…….

  23. @Jim

    Well, yes of course the same things that are exempt ftom IHT are also exempt from the 10 year charge.

    And your Trust could only be located in Bermuda if it were managed there.

    The laws are there to in tax trusts in a similar manner to real people.

    Where they are resident matters, the type of income matters, the same sort of things are exempt.

    If you know anything about tax you know that trusts are not tax avoidance vehicles. You’ll also know it costs a few hundred quid to set up a basic trust.

    If you are a fat twat chances are you are so biased and prejudiced the truth hardly matters and if your political beliefs tell you trusts are used for tax avoidance by only the super rich then you won’t be swayed by reality anyway.

  24. Ecks – Court of Protection, etc +1, Most people (particularly elderly) should have an LPA in place

    Fats

    “There’s no theft of old people’s estates while they’re still alive”

    Sigh

  25. Oh boys, you are getting all hot and bothered. So concerned that someone might force your aristo overlords to pay the same amount as ordinary folk? Honestly, the sniff of a title and you’re all creaming your knickers.

    I don’t know why this Mr Ecks character imputes such a variety of policy views to me. Still, if it stops Mrs Ecks getting a black eye, it’s fine.

    Obviously just joking, everybody knows that there isn’t a Mrs Ecks!

  26. There you go. The Fatfuck gives a deadly refutation to every single point made against him. The stunning power of logic for which leftscum are so famous. Or is that the 150 million murders?

    No wait, my mistake–he just keeps talking the same cockrot about aristos who are clearly the biggest problem facing the world today. What with the mess they made of Venezuela and them Aristofa rioting in the streets like the crazed fucks they are.

    Give my best to Mrs Fatfuck. I sure hope she keeps your basement clean and helps your Mam with the housework.

  27. Andrew C said:
    “That’s the whole point of a trust. It’s to stop the current Duke going on a bat-shit crazy orgy of high class prostitutes, high stakes gambling and high purity cocaine ”

    Killjoys.

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