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It is reasonable for our MP to pay money back (From Knutsford Guardian)
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It is reasonable for our MP to pay money back
12:40pm Friday 3rd July 2009
IN an historic town like Knutsford, history is bound to repeat itself.
So, in a repeat of 1997, we find ourselves debating whether our local MP has bent the rules for personal gain, while he maintains his actions have been entirely reasonable.
The facts are that he bought a house in Rainow near Macclesfield in September 2000 for £445,000 cash. The cash was raised by increasing the mortgage on his main London home, where he and his wife have lived since 1998.
As he did not stand for Parliament until June 2001, when he was elected, the Cheshire house must have been for used as a holiday home and country retreat.
To have bought it for Parliamentary purposes when he was not an MP and could not be certain of being elected would have been both foolish and arrogant, and he is neither.
After his election he surprisingly designated the London residence as his second home and the Cheshire house as his main home.
This enabled him to claim Personal Additional Accommodation Expenditure (PAAE) allowances for the interest payments on his London mortgage, and he claimed £36,000 over the next two years.
In 2003 he took out a mortgage for £450,000 on the Cheshire house, and flipped (redesignated) it as his second home, with the London residence reverting to his main home.
This has enabled him to claim more than £100,000 since then on PAAE allowances.
It also enabled him to avoid paying Capital Gains Tax on the £748,000 profit made when he sold the London home in July 2006.
More and more details are emerging through the clouds of black ink, and it could be considered entirely reasonable by Tatton taxpayers if our MP were to pay back some of our money that his financial manipulations have enabled him to grab.
He may otherwise see the electoral fate of ex-MP Neil Hamilton repeated
LAURIE BURTON Elizabeth Gaskell Court, Knutsford
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