Transcription
What I'm really asking on behalf of the millions of people he's ripped off. When will Samuel Leeds get a knock at the door from the tax man? Because he claims he doesn't just know a lot about the tax, he also knows a lot about the law. That's like me saying, "I know a lot about flying a plane because I've been in one."
When this place previously debated Mr. Lee's behavior, he put out a video accusing us of not putting our heart into dealing with him. Well, let me tell you, Mr. Leads, if you're watching now, I'm going to put a hell of a lot more than my heart into making sure that you are held accountable for the damage that you are doing, as well as farming for dodgy advice for clicks.
Samuel Leed sells his property investment advice for money. In 2019, Danny Butcher, a soldier from Doncaster, listened to that advice. He joined one of those seminars. As his widow puts it, Danny thought it was his chance. 11 weeks later, he took his own life, shamed about the amount of money that he had lost.
Charlatans like Samuel Leed needs not just be called out. We don't just need to warn our constituents about the danger of taking advice online. We need to collectively act to stop this before it gets any worse. Here are five examples of the sorts of things that he is saying.
First of all, he claims that you can buy a rundown property, renovate it, sell it, and pay no capital gains tax because you can just claim it was your main residence. He claims that he's done it himself multiple times. That advice is simply wrong. Section 2243 of the Taxation of Chargeable Gains Act 1992 strips the main residency exemption from any property acquired with the purpose of making a gain. And the case law is equally clear. If you never intended to make it your settled home, it was never your residence at all. This law kills that we twice over. Our constituents who might follow that advice face not just capital gains tax, but potentially income tax at an even higher rate if the tax man decides, frankly rightly, that they were doing is a property development trade.
His second well-known we is that you should put your spouse and your kids, some as young as 13, on your company payroll. Pay them 12 grand each and extract the cash tax-free. Sounds brilliant, doesn't it? I can't wait till my children get older. Except it's not if they're not doing genuine work. It's not a deductible expense. And for any child under 14, that may be well illegal. We're not talking about a gray area here. Yet, that advice has been shared millions and millions of times.
Third claim, put your property in a trust and you can protect it from inheritance tax entirely. Again, flat out wrong. Gift your children your home, stay living in it, and pay zero inheritance tax. Again, flat out wrong. If you continue to live in a property after gifting it, which is precisely what most people would do, inheritance tax is charged as if the gift has never been made. The seven-year clock people might be aware of, never even starts.
The fifth claim that's being circulated by many of the fin people is that holidays and almost anything else can be claimed as a deductible business expense. As one influencer, Abby Hookway, put it in a video, rich people don't pay for holidays. The boring reality is an expense must be wholly and exclusively for trade purposes.
Madame Deputy Speaker, just as Al Capone was taken down by what he was doing on tax, so these people need to be stopped before they cause further harm. And to any of them listening, you can tag me in what you want. I will always stand up for consumers.