Apologies if this has been covered before.

Some time ago I saw a social media post claiming to set out Marcus Rashfords financial and tax affairs. The gist was that he makes around £10m a year before tax, most of which is paid to two or three companies he is a registered director of. The claim was that this arrangement reduces his tax burden to £5k a year.

At the time I did a quick search on companies house website and found that Rashford certainly was/is a director of the companies in question, but my understanding of tax and finance is insufficient to understand whether the claim of tax avoidance is true.

At the time I didn't post about the matter on here (or anywhere). This was partly because I doubted even our national media would apply double standards in their coverage of wealthy tax avoiders quite so flagrantly, if only because they love nothing more than to tear down a celebrity. It was also partly because I don't want to be part of recycling nasty bulls*** about people on line.

However, I'm now not quite so certain Rashford would be held to the same standards the comedian Jimmy Carr was a few years ago.

Does anyone know the demonstrable truth of this, please?

It would be good to establish that Rashford is simply what he appears to be, and what I hope he is - a pleasant and conscientious young man. I'm certainly not making any accusations against him, or encouraging baseless speculation. In fact, I'd be grateful if any responses to this post steered clear of uninformed opinion given that the man himself isn't here to defend himself. If it wasn't for finding he was a director of those companies I'd never have given it a second thought, but there are some HOL posters who seem to have knowledge of finance and tax, and I'd like to educated if possible.

My response is the same whether it is Rashford, Jimmy Carr or Sir Tufton Bufton Tory MP.

Tax avoidance is legal if you don't like it change the tax laws. All he is doing is taking advantage of our increasingly complicated and illogical tax system.

The smart thing the government could do is to close all the loopholes whilst reducing the basic rates.

One more point

Thanks. It was more whether anyone knew the facts of the Rashford matter I was interested in, rather than a discussion about the moral rights and wrongs of avoidance.

From the percentages Goal Machine has listed, if nothing else it seems like the 5k pa in tax paid is untrue, or at least his total tax bill will be greater than that.

As an aside, and without knowing much more than I originally did about Rashfords tax payments, I'd argue that the use of legal tax avoidance or reduction schemes are extremely dubious morally in most cases, especially when used by extremely wealthy private individuals. I struggle with the idea that the more money you earn the smaller portion of your income you contribute in tax. If one such individual was also using his public status to pressure the government into spending less wealthy peoples tax money on a cause close to his heart, whilst he himself was withholding a larger percentage of his income than the rest of us..... Well, I'd consider that worthy of attention.

Edited by TheBigToePunt (17 Oct 2021 3.59pm)

I would think both they and their corporate best pals are too busy using them to close them .

True, it's important to remember that avoidance isn't the same as evasion.

Yes, to be honest Rashford seems to have more of a down to earth community focus than 99% of footballers. I'd be more inclined to pat him on the back and get others to see him as an example of how to make a difference, rather to try to look for negatives.