JOURNALISTS AND other media workers’ jobs are at risk as 1,000 job cuts are planned at the Daily Mail and General Trust (DMGT) national and local publications.
The shabby treatment of DMGT staff contrasts markedly with that of the Mail’s proprietor Lord Rothermere. He saves himself several million pounds in tax each year by being officially ‘non-domiciled’.
This ‘non-dom’ law lets some British residents claim that some other country is their ‘real’ domicile. Then they pay British rates of tax on their earnings in the rest of the world only if they admit to ‘remitting’ the money to the UK. But, according to Private Eye magazine, Rothermere lives in a £40 million house with a 220-acre estate (a domicile surely?) in Wiltshire! He clearly lives and is active in Britain.
The present Lord’s father lived most of his life in tax exile in Paris – ironically for the xenophobic Daily Mail. This non-dom status passed to his son at his birth in 1967 despite his British residency.
The Private Eye story suggests that Rothermere and his legal and financial advisers have used these tax arrangements to live an extremely wealthy lifestyle without the nuisance of paying tax.
For all the whining of papers like the Mail, taking into account all forms of taxation, the lowest-paid workers pay a far higher proportion of their income in tax than the rich. Why are job-cutting, multi-millionaire employers like Rothermere still allowed to operate such incredible tax breaks?
