Ffs
The geezer should hand back the £20m purely on account of polluting our airwaves with his crooning pathetic shit all these years. That would indeed be the Greatest Day.
Who else has an OBE/CBE that shouldn't?

Incredible. I thought "Who he?" when I saw him hobnobbing with the royals at the Jubilee.

FFS indeed.

That photo of him holding it up gives him a face that needs more punching than usual,

He got his OBE for services to music and charity, he arranged the Jubilee concert at Buck house, and has organised a shed load of fund raising concerts for things like 'Children in Need'. I don't see why there is all the fuss, he, and many other celebrities were told that what they were doing was perfectly legal, however HMRC haas taken that through the courts for a legal view, and the company running it have been found to be breaching regulations. The company should be fined a shed load on money, aand all the people they helped should pay back the taxes, which it appears they will be doing.

Funny how David Cameron defended Barlow... Complete reversal from what he said about Jimmy Carr. Both were legal there.

Could be something to do with Barlow being a tory supporter.

+1

+2

I like bit of Gary - I think he's written some good stuff. Mostly a bit too mellow for me but there's some bloody catchy stuff in his song-writing history. I wouldn't call it pathetic crooning, but whatever....

+3

If I could find a way to pay less tax legally, I would.

He's done a lot of work for Cherridy.

Of course the Lefties are all ganging up on him because he is a friend of Cameron.

Just like they did with Jeremy Clarkson for being a 'racist', despite not sacking their own racist MP from Birmingham...

Most of these tax avoidance schemes were operated under the last Labour government.


There's nobody more two-faced or hypocritical than a Labour MP.

Personally I didn't know his politics, but that's certainly the cherry on the top of his awfulness.

Hodge's attack on Barlow's tax affairs was met with bemusement by some commentators on Twitter, as she has had to deal with a controversy around the tax arrangements of her family's business Stemcor. The steel trading giant, in which she had a "registrable shareholding", was reported to have paid tax of just £163,000 on revenues of more than £2.1bn in 2011.


Pot. Kettle. Black.

Don't have any patience whatsoever with the government criticising those who practice tax avoidance. The majority of us who work in the UK have no choice but to pay at source through PAYE but if I could avoid a £x million tax bill through a perfectly legal scheme then I'd be a fool not to. Even if I was feeling particularly altruistic it would be much more sensible of me to donate it to charity tax-free instead and soak up the admiration and get myself on the Queen's New Honour's List.

Same goes for private companies. Their only responsibility is to earn their shareholders the maximum possible return for their investment within the confines of the law.

It's HMRC who writes the tax code and they who create the loopholes. If they want to close them, then close them. This naming and shaming in the media of a couple of 'celebrities' is merely an absolution of that responsibility and a shameless attempt to be seen to look tough and do the right thing when avoiding taking on the biggest tax avoiders for fear of upsetting captains of industry and the City.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/bu...s-8794169.html

http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2013/m...-tax-deal-hmrc

http://www.cityam.com/article/138304...swiss-tax-deal

It is bizarre isn't it. All this demonisation of Amazon and Starbucks for hardly paying tax...if the government want to rectify it, change the tax code, otherwise just lump it.

Apparently you can get an OBE for returning a bunch of Corona bottles or something...

I know what Barlow did is strictly legal but the fact is that he was consciously trying to avoid paying tax in the first place by entering into this scheme (legal or not) is a bit rich when he's concurrently playing a role in big charity events to raise money to fund things that we can't afford because we don't have enough tax subsidies ... And he's only paying it back because HMRC won their case.

So basically, Barlow's squeaky clean image is all looking a bit shitty today ... finally.

You could make the same argument for everyone who claims a personal allowance on their return (i.e. everyone)!