The Drum Awards for Marketing - Extended Deadline

-d -h -min -sec

Chris Moyles takes to Twitter to explain involvement in tax avoidance scheme

Author

By Natalie Mortimer, N/A

February 23, 2014 | 3 min read

Former Radio 1 DJ, Chris Moyles has posted a series of tweets on the social media website after claiming to be a second-hand car dealer, in order to avoid paying tax on £1 million. Moyles, who was the host of Radio 1’s Breakfast Show, claimed to have "engaged in self-employment as a used car trader" in a judgement published by the First-Tier Tribunal Tax Chamber on Friday (21 February). The “Working Wheels” tax-avoidance scheme was used by around 450 other celebrities and wealthy figures, with Moyles claiming to have suffered a loss of more than £1 million through his involvement, which could have resulted in him avoiding a payment of £400,000.In the report, Judge Colin Bishopp said: "Mr Moyles, as I have said, did not give oral evidence, and I had from him only a very brief and rather uninformative statement."It is however quite clear from the statement that he, too, entered the scheme for no purpose other than to achieve a tax saving, and that he took no interest in the trade".Moyles took to Twitter to speak about the scheme, which he called “a mistake”, tweeting:"I want to comment about a recent tribunal tax ruling"."Upon advice, I signed up to a scheme which I was assured was legal. Despite this, my knowledge of the dealings of the scheme were naive"."I'm not a tax expert and acted on advice I was given. This was a mistake and I accept the ruling without reservation"."I take full responsibility and have learnt a valuable lesson".Not surprisingly, other Twitter users were less than sympathetic:

Trending

Industry insights

View all
Add your own content +