Bentley-driving estate agent gets tax credits for the poor...which means his ex-wife can't get him to pay more child support | Mail Online
With his £1.5million house, Bentley convertible and children at private school, estate agent Simon Pelling looks the picture of success.
When you include his second wife’s £55,000 Range Rover and the month-long holidays to Florida and Spain, it is no surprise that his family’s lifestyle can cost £10,000 a month.
Yet astonishingly, he is officially treated as a ‘low-paid worker’ in need of rescuing from ‘poverty’. For Mr Pelling is paid Working Tax Credit – around £140 a month from public funds.
The financial support he enjoys from taxpayers emerged only after his first wife asked for an increase on the £70-a-week child support payments for their two children, in light of his high-spending lifestyle.
But at a tribunal in Sutton, Surrey, Mr Pelling benefited from a Child Support Agency loophole which means anyone paid Working Tax Credit cannot be ordered to increase child support payments.
Mr Pelling, however, insisted he was entitled to the money. He claims his estate agency pays him only £12,000 a year.
That is why he qualifies for Working Tax Credit, which is understood to result in payments to him of around £1,650 a year.
What Revenue and Customs does not take into account is the £5,000-£10,000 a month he takes out of his company to fund his lifestyle.
And perfectly legitimately, he says, as the credit is related purely to income and not assets. ‘I part-own an estate agency, it isn’t profitable,’ he said.
‘I’m paid £1,000 a month. But it owes me about £400,000 – money I earned, paid tax on, and invested in the business – and I’m taking out that equity as I’m entitled to.
An HMRC spokesman confirmed: ‘The measure of income is based on income charged to income tax.’
With his £1.5million house, Bentley convertible and children at private school, estate agent Simon Pelling looks the picture of success.
When you include his second wife’s £55,000 Range Rover and the month-long holidays to Florida and Spain, it is no surprise that his family’s lifestyle can cost £10,000 a month.
Yet astonishingly, he is officially treated as a ‘low-paid worker’ in need of rescuing from ‘poverty’. For Mr Pelling is paid Working Tax Credit – around £140 a month from public funds.
The financial support he enjoys from taxpayers emerged only after his first wife asked for an increase on the £70-a-week child support payments for their two children, in light of his high-spending lifestyle.
But at a tribunal in Sutton, Surrey, Mr Pelling benefited from a Child Support Agency loophole which means anyone paid Working Tax Credit cannot be ordered to increase child support payments.
Mr Pelling, however, insisted he was entitled to the money. He claims his estate agency pays him only £12,000 a year.
That is why he qualifies for Working Tax Credit, which is understood to result in payments to him of around £1,650 a year.
What Revenue and Customs does not take into account is the £5,000-£10,000 a month he takes out of his company to fund his lifestyle.
And perfectly legitimately, he says, as the credit is related purely to income and not assets. ‘I part-own an estate agency, it isn’t profitable,’ he said.
‘I’m paid £1,000 a month. But it owes me about £400,000 – money I earned, paid tax on, and invested in the business – and I’m taking out that equity as I’m entitled to.
An HMRC spokesman confirmed: ‘The measure of income is based on income charged to income tax.’
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