Share this page!

Enter URL or ID to Unroll

You can paste full URL like: https://x.com/threadreaderapp/status/1644127596119195649
or just the ID like: 1644127596119195649

How to get URL link on X (Twitter) App

  1. On the Twitter thread, click on or icon on the bottom
  2. Click again on or Share Via icon
  3. Click on Copy Link to Tweet
  4. Paste it above and click "Unroll Thread"!
  5. More info at Twitter Help
Dan Neidle Profile picture
Dan Neidle
@DanNeidle
Founder, Tax Policy Associates Ltd. Tax realist. More boring on LinkedIn https://t.co/Cm5n2PhqrD
27 subscribers
Aug 24 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
How much tax do we pay in the UK, compared to other countries?

This much: Image Or if we order it by income/payroll taxes instead: Image
Aug 22 • 9 tweets • 3 min read
Hugely important libel victory for the Guardian vs actor/director Noel Clarke. There are "strong grounds to believe he is a serial abuser of women". Image
Image Equally important, even if the Guardian hadn't been able to establish its accusations were true (a high burden) it would still have prevailed, as its publication was in the public interest: Image
Aug 22 • 15 tweets • 7 min read
We reported last month that the widely-cited Henley & Partners migration reports have numerous anomalies and may be fabricated.

There's a new report in Spears - the magazine for "ultra high net worths and the people who advise them" - which makes fabrication look more and more likely.Image The Spear's report is here: spearswms.com/wealth/controv…
Aug 21 • 25 tweets • 6 min read
Reports suggest Labour may introduce capital gains tax on home sales in the Autumn Budget. It sounds like an easy revenue raiser - but the evidence shows it would slash transactions, gum up housing chains, and could even collect less tax overall.

Thread: Image A longer version of this thread is here, with calculations, references, and a discussion of the better alternative: taxpolicy.org.uk/2025/08/21/lab…
Aug 18 • 8 tweets • 3 min read
A company called "Nexus Network" wrote to my personal email wanting long-term advice on "UK Regulatory Dynamics".

I've never heard of "UK Regulatory Dynamics". It's certainly not my field; I'm not sure it's anyone's field.

And Nexus Network looks rather "off". Image The email gives Nexus's address as 20-22 Wenlock Road, London, N1 7GU, UK, but the Nexus website says it’s Aldwych House, London WC2A 2AZ. Neither email nor website gave the name of the company, which is (1) weird and (2) an offence.
Aug 15 • 24 tweets • 5 min read
The Budget inheritance tax changes raised £500m/year, but hit small/businesses unfairly. And also allowed much IHT avoidance to continue

A new proposal does the impossible: protects small farms/businesses, hits avoidance, AND raises twice as much revenue.

How?

🧵: Image A longer version of this thread is here, with footnotes and links to sources: taxpolicy.org.uk/2025/08/15/fix…
Aug 12 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
Just a reminder that an individual's national insurance payments do not fund their State pension.

The average person's national insurance payments cover about half the cost of their state pension: Image The table is from the Pensions Policy Institute
pensionspolicyinstitute.org.uk/media/1crf4ox5…
Aug 10 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
Wealth tax advocates almost never deal with the actual objections to their proposal. There is good evidence that it will hit growth, employment and investment (particularly foreign investment). I covered this in a thread here
Aug 6 • 23 tweets • 9 min read
Just announced: the UK's most famous libel firm, Carter-Ruck, is being prosecuted before the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal for recklessly enabling a $4bn fraud

It's astonishing how reckless Carter-Ruck was - likely causing $$$ more to be lost to fraudsters

The full story: Image The original reporting on all this was from Ed Siddons and Matthew Valencia for The Bureau of Investigative Journalism: thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/2023-1…
Aug 6 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
Slightly surprised to discover I've been referred to the International Criminal Court in the Hague for war crimes. Image
Image My actions are apparently comparable with the recruitment of child soldiers.

The full document: taxpolicy.org.uk/wp-content/ass…Image
Aug 5 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
In 2017, a new corporate criminal offence was created: failure to prevent tax evasion. It was meant to change everything.

Since then? Zero prosecutions.

Until now... Image HMRC is prosecuting an accounting firm, Bennett Verby Ltd, for failure to prevent facilitation of UK tax evasion, contrary to section 45 of the Criminal Finances Act (2017).
Aug 5 • 13 tweets • 3 min read
In 2022, Nadhim Zahawi’s solicitor sent me a libel threat - and said I wasn’t even allowed to say he’d written to me.

The Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal ruled that was improper.

Now he’s appealing.

A 🧵 on why it matters. In July 2022, I wrote that I thought Nadhim Zahawi had lied about his taxes. I was right. Nadhim Zahawi lied repeatedly about his tax affairs... Image
Aug 4 • 14 tweets • 4 min read
No, charging VAT on private healthcare is not a re-run of the VAT/education debate.

It wouldn't just impact 5% of the population - everyone who sees a private dentist/optician would pay more.

And it wouldn't raise £2bn. Plausibly it would lose money.

Thread Image I'm going to ignore the political question of whether we *should* be thinking about scrapping the VAT healthcare exemption. I'll just focus on whether it works on its own terms.
Aug 2 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
Everything about this viral tweet is wrong.

No: the government hasn’t raided the National Insurance Fund.

No: the surplus can’t be used for anything you like, without loading our children with debt/taxes.

Here’s why. 🧵 Image First, that "surplus" is there for a reason: as a buffer to cover pensions/social security for an aging population. The Government Actuary estimates that the fund will be exhausted by 2043/44

Take money out of the fund now, and we hit a fiscal crisis in 20 years' time Image
Aug 1 • 7 tweets • 3 min read
We reported two years ago on an outrageous "tax avoidance" scheme (which we thought was fraud) which split one business into 10,000 companies, each claiming small business tax reliefs, and hiring Filipino directors off Facebook to prevent HMRC investigating. Image What's worse, the scheme was enabled by an opinion from Giles Goodfellow KC. He should have known the scheme was fraudulent. He certainly shouldn't have said the scheme worked as a matter of law

We published the KC instructions/opinion here: taxpolicy.org.uk/2023/07/04/kc/
Jul 27 • 25 tweets • 9 min read
Henley & Partners’ wealth migration reports have been reported all over the world, both to prove both that there's a massive exodus of wealth from the UK and that there isn't.

Our forensic review finds the data riddled with anomalies - and in key places looks fabricated: Image
Image
Image Our full review is here, with the data and methodology set out in full, and links to the spreadsheet and GitHub with the working: taxpolicy.org.uk/henley-partner…
Jul 22 • 25 tweets • 8 min read
A UK wealth tax sounds simple: "tax the super‑rich, fund public services"

But it's not.

Our 16,000 word deep‑dive shows revenues are fragile, it puts growth, investment and jobs at risk, and there's no revenue before 2029.

Here’s the evidence: Image This thread is a *very* short summary of our full report, which is here:

The full report contains all sources and references, linked where possible, plus additional detail of the arguments and counter-arguments.taxpolicy.org.uk/uk-wealth-tax-…
Jul 21 • 8 tweets • 4 min read
Today's little mystery: how come three of Lord Ashcroft's companies haven't filed their accounts for last year? Image
Image
Image
Image These aren't dormant forgotten-about companies. It's an active business, with turnovers of millions of pounds Image
Image
Image
Image
Jul 19 • 10 tweets • 4 min read
Douglas Barrowman made a fortune from selling tax avoidance schemes. When the schemes failed, his companies aggressively sold their clients another avoidance scheme which supposed rescued them from the first scheme.

It was all a scam. A disaster for the clients. Image We reported on this last year, and said there seemed enough evidence to prosecute Barrowman and his team for defrauding HMRC and their own clients.

It's not often you accuse a billionaire of fraud and don't hear a peep out of his lawyers. Guess why. taxpolicy.org.uk/2024/01/18/bar…
Jul 18 • 16 tweets • 5 min read
Iain Clifford Stamp runs a "sovereign citizen" scam which promises people he'll magically eliminate their mortgage and other debt (for a hefty fee).

A judgment on Wednesday shows justice is catching up with him. Thread. Image Iain Clifford Stamp is a "sovereign citizen": a weird pseudo-legal conspiracy theory that believes the entire legal and financial system is a delusion which will disappear (and give you free money) if you say the magic words.

Good Wikipedia article: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereign…
Jul 8 • 13 tweets • 5 min read
A few people have asked me what I think of this list. Some of the items are realistic. Some (including the big ticket items) are not. Some are too vague to assess. Significant sums can be raised by raising capital gains tax, BUT you have to reform the tax significantly, in particular make sure you only tax real gains, not inflationary gains. Otherwise you'll knacker investment and lose tax, not raise it. See taxpolicy.org.uk/2024/10/16/how…Image