George Orwell claimed in the 1940s that he was struck by the “exceptional ugliness and vulgarity of the faces“ of those on the honours list. This year’s winners were criticised for a different reason – their tax returns. A number of journalists have highlighted the fact that the newly gonged entrepreneurs Philip Green and Stelios Haji-Ioannou do not pay tax in the UK.
Of course, no one pays more tax than they must. And few dispute the idea of celebrating the achievements of successful businessmen. But as Jeremy Warner points out in The Independent, the Labour government “promised to do something about the growing number of the world’s super-rich who earn their living in Britain but pay little or no tax here”. No one expected that “doing something” meant rewarding them with official honours.
By domiciling himself in Monaco, Green and his family save themselves an estimated £300 million a year in tax. Stelios, worth an estimated £727 million, also lives elsewhere, and is not even a British citizen. Other successful businessmen like Charles Dunstone of the Carphone Warehouse, who pay UK taxes, might well wonder why they have been overlooked. As Anthony Hilton notes in the Evening Standard, it is fairly well known that both the new knights avoid UK tax; to publicly reward them with gongs “does not really send the right signal”.