Danger - Laffer Curve Ahead

50% tax rate, fail. And by being legally avoided by none other than some big names at that bastion of leftyism and luvvieness, the BBC.

Many of the BBC’s highest-paid presenters have set up service companies that help them to pay less tax and will enable them to escape the full impact of Labour’s 50% levy on the rich.

Long-serving stars including Jeremy Paxman, Fiona Bruce and James Naughtie have set themselves up as freelance contractors rather than staffers.

The device enables the BBC and its presenters to lower their tax bills legally, leaving the rest of the country to shoulder a larger burden.

A Sunday Times investigation has found more than 20 BBC presenters who are classed as freelance for tax purposes and have set up service companies to channel their earnings.

They include Emily Maitlis and Gavin Esler, the Newsnight hosts, and Sophie Raworth, the One O’clock News reader, as well as Sarah Montague, presenter of Radio 4’s Today programme, and Jeremy Vine, the Radio 2 host.

The corporation has also kept hundreds of other presenters off its books by putting them on freelance deals. They include John Humphrys, who has presented the Today programme since 1987.

And? Seriously, so what? It's legal and you can bet your bottom dollar that there are plenty of others doing it outside the BBC or even the media. If the cyclopean madman of Downing Street had any fucking clue he'd have fucking seen this coming a mile off, just like everyone else did. I'm no financial genius and I expected something like this to happen for the simple reason that in the same position I'd also fucking get advice on how to legally avoid having more than half of what I earn taken away to be largely spunked away by the government*. Not rocket science, but apparently beyond the comprehension of Gordo and Darling.


* Or for purely financial reasons I'd do what I did in reality for romantic ones. Migrating wasn't a cheap option for me, but I reckon it'd be far easier for a country's highest earners to up sticks and fuck off if they'd had enough of the Treasury's cash vampires feeding off them.