Zac Goldsmith

Zac Goldsmith

Zac Goldsmith (born 20 January 1975) is a British politician, ecologist, journalist and the green adviser to David Cameron. He was selected as the Conservative Parliamentary candidate for Richmond Park and North Kingston at an Open Primary in March 2007.

Goldsmith says he chose to back the Tories because Labour had become "the party of big business":

"You can judge Mr Blair's position on almost any issue on the basis of what would the big lobby groups want him to do," he argues.

Background

Zac Goldsmith is the son of right-wing financier and eurosceptic James Goldsmith.

Affiliations

• The Ecologist - editor, 1998-2007
• Conservative Party - became Conservative Party candidate in 2005
• JMG Foundation

Controversies

Non-domicile status

According to an article in The Times in November 2009, Zac Goldsmith admitted that he claimed off-shore non-domicile tax status, "enabling him to avoid huge sums of tax on his estimated £200m fortune" from his late father, Sir James Goldsmith. Since the news became public and David Cameron publicly told him to end it, he renounced his non-dom status in December 2009.

The Times article said the Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman Chris Huhne "has calculated that Goldsmith is likely to have avoided, at a conservative estimate, around £580,000 a year in UK taxes over the past decade as a result of being defined as a non-dom." Although Goldsmith dismissed Huhne's figures as "fantasy", he had not yet published his tax returns to prove that the "vast majority" of his income comes to the UK and is taxed there as he claims.

On his blog, Zac Goldsmith replied to the press reports on his tax status as follows:

The Lib Dems have made false claims about my Tax status, which made national news. In the media stampede, there is no doubt the Lib Dems won the PR war. But it was based on nonsense.

There were 4 claims: that I was non-resident, non-tax resident, that I owed millions to the taxman, and that I had only changed my status following pressure from others.

In fact I have always been resident in the UK, and have always chosen to be tax resident in the UK. I therefore haven’t merely paid tax on UK income – but on income generally – at the full rate. Non-dom status can mean many things. Through my choices, it offered me little benefit, a fact that has been confirmed in writing by PricewaterhouseCoopers.

The Lib Dem assertion that trust-ownership of my home leaves the taxman short makes no sense and is wrong. When a person’s primary home is sold, there is no Capital Gains Tax to pay. Not so the trust-owned home I occupy if it is sold for a gain. The taxman will therefore gain from these arrangements.

I no longer have non-dom status, a decision that I took before being approached by any newspapers, and which will apply as of a full year before the launch of this election.

An article on Zac Goldsmith's tax status in The Guardian said that he "confirmed that he retained the non-domiciled tax status inherited from his billionaire father, Sir James Goldsmith. He said he had derived 'very few' benefits from being a non-dom and had already decided to give it up."

Conservative Party donor

According to Times Online, "[t]he Conservative party hid donations of £40,000 from Zac Goldsmith, his brother Ben and two billionaire brothers in an apparent breach of the law." The donations adding up to £40,000 in series of cash gifts to the party between 2005 and 2008 were registered with the Electoral Commission as coming from Unicorn Administration, a wealth management firm. However, the money had been paid by a number of donors including Zac Goldsmith, his brother Ben Goldsmith, his wife Kate Goldsmith, a member of the Rothschild family.

There has been no suggestion that any of the donors or Unicorn Administration acted improperly, and all were eligible to provide funds. It is known that the Goldsmiths have been regular Conservative Party donors in the past and their names are lodged with the Electoral Commission. However, the Conservatives failed to tell the Electoral Commission, the official watchdog, even though electoral law makes it clear that the true source of funds must not be concealed.

The Monsanto edition of The Ecologist pulped by printers

Zac Goldsmith devoted the October 1998 edition of The Ecologist to exposé articles about Monsanto.

The day before the October issue was to be released, Goldsmith received an unexpected call. Penwells, The Ecologist's printer for the past 25 years, expressed concern about the content of the issue. Under British law, a printer can be held liable for distributing libelous material.

Goldsmith assured Penwells that the new issue had been thoroughly checked. He reminded the printer that The Ecologist had never been sued in 29 years.

The following day, Penwells asked The Ecologist to send a letter to Monsanto's lawyers requesting that if the issue were considered libelous, Monsanto would agree to sue only the editors, editorial board, and owners. Monsanto refused to agree. The next day, Penwells shredded 14,000 copies of The Ecologist.

In the end, the edition was printed by another printer.

Writings and publications on the LM network

Zac Goldsmith has written articles in mainstream newspapers exposing the links between Sense About Science and the LM network.

• Zac Goldsmith, "So much for 'Sense' About Science," Guardian, 05 January 2010, accessed 29 April 2010.
• Zac Goldsmith, "Sense about Science?," The Ecologist, 18 January 2007, accessed 29 April 2010. Also published in the Mail on Sunday, 07 January 2007, archived here http://www.naturalmatters.net/article-view.asp?article=2884.

In 2003 Zac Goldsmith, in his role as editor of The Ecologist, published an article on Sense About Science and its links with the LM network:

• Andy Rowell and Jonathan Matthews, "Strange Bedfellows," The Ecologist, May 2003, accessed 29 April 2010.

Resources

• Goldsmith, Zac, "Sense about Science?," The Ecologist, 18 January 2007, accessed 29 April 2010.
• Goldsmith, Zac, "So much for 'Sense' About Science," Guardian, 05 January 2010, accessed 29 April 2010.
• Helm, Toby and Rajeev Syal, "Tory candidate Zac Goldsmith accused of avoiding £5.8m tax as non-dom," Guardian, 13 December 2009, accessed 29 April 2010.
• Lilliston, Ben, "Shredding `The Ecologist' - printer feared libel suit from conglomerate," The Progressive, February 1999, accessed 29 April 2010.
• Porter, Andrew, "Zac Goldsmith gives up non-dom status after row," Telegraph, 03 December 2009, accessed 29 April 2010.
• Prince, Rosa, "Zac Goldsmith donations 'improperly registered' by Tories," Telegraph, 10 January 2010, accessed 29 April 2010.
• Rowell, Andy and Jonathan Matthews, "Strange Bedfellows," The Ecologist, May 2003, accessed 29 April 2010.
• Wheeler, Brian, Interview: Zac Goldsmith, BBC News, 11 January 2006, accessed 29 April 2010.
• White, Michael, "I'm non-domiciled but not a tax dodger, says Tory candidate Zac Goldsmith," The Guardian, 29 November 2010, accessed 29 April 2010.
• Wintour, Patrick and Andrew Sparrow, "David Cameron tells Zac Goldsmith to end 'non-dom' tax status," Guardian, 01 December 2009, accessed 29 April 2010.
• Woolf, Marie, "Tory Zac Goldsmith admits he is a non-dom," Times Online, 29 November 2009, accessed 29 April 2010.
• Woolf, Marie and Solomon Hughes, "Tories covered up cash donations from Zac Goldsmith," Times Online, 10 January 2010, accessed 29 April 2010.
• Zac Goldsmith, About Zac, accessed 29 April 2010.
• Zac Goldsmith blog, Zac's Tax Status, accessed 29 April 2010.