Independent – A measure in George Osborne’s 2013 Budget which made no headlines outside the financial pages was the abolition of stamp duty reserve tax on UK-domiciled asset management funds. That may not sound like an attention grabber, but it was manna for Britain’s hedge-fund bosses, who by the Government’s estimate saw £145m drop off their companies’ collective annual tax bill.
One good turn deserves another. When the Electoral Commission released the latest quarterly figures for political donations, Labour Party researchers combed through them to get a measure of how much the Tories depend for their income on hedge funds. They uncovered £848,288-worth of donations in just the three months from July to September this year. Added to what they had gleaned from previous figures published by the Electoral Commission, going back to 2001, it brought the total of hedge fund largesse to £36,785,700.
