Lord Fink: tax avoidance is normal in British society

Lord Fink, the former Conservative treasurer who threatened to sue Ed Miliband over his comments on tax avoidance, has conceded that the practice is normal in British society.

The peer – a multimillionaire former hedge fund manager turned Conservative donor and philanthropist – also said he did take “vanilla” tax avoidance measures, including transferring shares into family trusts while he worked in Switzerland.

In an interview with the Evening Stardard, Fink said: “The expression tax avoidance is so wide that everyone does tax avoidance at some level.”

On Wednesday, Miliband used parliamentary privilege to condemn “the tax avoidance activities of Lord Fink”. It was being stressed by Labour sources that he had not accused Fink of tax evasion – but the Labour leader was due to reiterate his comments in
a speech due at lunchtime on Thursday.

The row between the two men had been in danger of escalating and diverting attention from the issue of wide-scale tax evasion and the inability of UK tax authorities to check the practice. Labour is also trying to launch a major education policy on Thursday on capping class sizes for the youngest pupils.

On his war of words with the Labour leader, Fink said: “I didn’t object to his use of the word ‘tax avoidance’. Because you are right: tax avoidance, everyone does it.”

Fink had threatened on Wednesday to sue Miliband if he repeated his remarks, and his aides said the Labour leader was intent on doing so.

But the day after, Fink indicated that he did not want to take legal action. “I don’t even want to sue Ed Miliband,” he told the Standard. “In my life I have been libelled a few dozen times and I have never sued anybody, even for some comments that were quite outrageous.”

Fink did indicate that he took exception to Milband’s remark at Wednesday’s prime minister’s questions about Cameron being in hock to “dodgy donors”.

“If he simply uses the words ‘Lord Fink did ordinary tax avoidance’, then no, I couldn’t sue him. But if he made the statement ‘dodgy’ about my bank account, that was potentially libellous. That was the issue I took exception to.

“I also took exception to him saying I had questions to answer. In fact, whenever anyone has put questions to me, I have answered them.”

On Thursday morning, Labour sources suggested the reference to dodgy donors was not directed at Fink.

Fink said his tax planning was at the “vanilla” or “mild” end of the spectrum, and he stressed that he rejected expert advice that he could save a fortune in tax by adopting more “aggressive” measures.

“I chose the mildest end of the spectrum that I was advised on,” he said. “What I did … was at the vanilla, bland, end of the spectrum.”

Fink said he “used the opportunity … to set up some simple family trusts” while on a four-year posting to Switzerland. He transferred some shares to his children and his wife.

“Really what I was trying to do was, not like a living will, but to allocate a very small shareholding to each of my children so they could pay deposits on houses in London one day after we returned. There was nothing complex and they weren’t aggressive tax planning.

“My family and I paid tax on all the dividends, both in Switzerland and the UK. They were done because my children were under 18 and I wanted them to have something to help them make their way in the wider world.”