Political parties failing to pay tax on rent – including rent funded by MPs' expenses
Political parties' local branches are failing to pay tax on their commercial income - even when that income is funded by taxpayers.
All the political parties talk about the tax gap - the £40bn difference between the tax that should be paid and the tax that isn't. So we'd expect the political parties to lead by example - but we've found a widespread failure by the parties to pay tax themselves.
Political parties aren't taxed on donations and subscriptions. But they are taxed on commercial income. And many local Labour, Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties across the UK earn commercial income by renting out spare office space. In the majority of cases, the local parties pay no tax at all on this income. In another quarter of cases, they pay less tax than we'd expect.
In many cases the office space is rented to the local MP, who claims the rent as a Parliamentary expense. Most of this isn't taxed at all.
The amounts involved are small, but the principle is real: political parties should pay tax on commercial income, like everyone else.
Thank you for highlighting this. More of the blatant hypocrisy of the 1%. It's unbelievable that political parties don't pay tax on donations. For us 'little people', financial gifts we can give to family, etc, are limited to a very modest amount and savings, if we have them, are taxed on the interest after a low cut-off point. Always different rules to protect the interests of the 1%.
The rules are simple. Where is the exemption written?