Prime Minister benefited from his father’s tax dodging scheme

The Guardian reports: “David Cameron’s father ran an offshore fund that avoided ever having to pay tax in Britain by hiring a small army of Bahamas residents – including a part-time bishop – to sign its paperwork.”

Hold on a minute! Isn’t this the same David Cameron who said that avoiding tax was ‘morally wrong’ when he condemned TV ‘funny man’ Jimmy Carr a few years ago – let’s refresh our memories…

Of course it’s not just Cameron’s dad, our tax system is full of loopholes (if you know where to look) which allow the fabulously rich to pay less tax than they should.

This may simply be a series of well structured (and totally legal) trust funds or a series of much less legal ‘loans’ that are never paid back.

Meanwhile the man in the street (who can’t afford top-end tax advice) is often clobbered in a tax investigation – even when no tax is owed.

Here is a Dispatches investigation from a few years ago that exposes the duality of our tax system.