Polanski may have failed to pay council tax, which is obviously the end of the world

Zack Polanski may have underpaid council tax on his houseboat in London, but he “apologises sincerely for the unintentional mistake”.

The Times originally broke the story, which hinged on the supposition that Polanski and his partner had spent the last three years living, primarily, on a houseboat in the Lee Valley Marina in Waltham Forest.

If the boat was their main residence, the pair should have been paying council tax on it. This appears not to have been the case. However, if it wasn’t their main residence, Polanski shouldn’t have been registered to vote in the area. In fact, this could even be a breach of electoral law.

The Green leader’s team told the Times that he only lived on the boat “occasionally”. They also said that Polanski’s council tax was “included in the rent he pays his landlord” on the property (likely) in Hackney. This is irrelevant to any potential tax on the boat itself.

Zack Polanski and some Nancy Drew shit

Dan Neidle, founder of Tax Policy Associates, broke down further points in the case:

• Mr Polanski was registered to vote at a bungalow next to the Marina. Nine people were registered at that address – most of them didn’t live there, but lived on boats moored at the marina, and used the bungalow as a postal address (presumably given the practical difficulty of getting post delivered to a boat).
• Mr Polanski is currently registered to vote in Hackney, but doesn’t appear to have been registered there during the three years he owned the boat – at that time he was solely registered to vote at the marina (which is in Waltham Forest).
• He told The Times that he rented a room as a lodger at an unstated other property (believed to be in Hackney).
• A local launderette collected Mr Polanski’s laundry every two-to-three weeks (and local sources have told us that it was an amount of laundry suggesting regular occupation, not just occasional visits).
• We understand from local sources that Mr Polanski was frequently seen in the area around the marina.
  Another narrowboat at the marina was at one point registered for council tax. Mr Polanski’s boat never was.

Pointing out that Neidle is a card-carrying Labour Party member here would be a cheap shot. It’s also irrelevant – he’s right about the tax parts.

We will, however, gladly poke the absolutely sterling detective work here. It seems to have involved walking around the marina asking launderette owners about the politician’s very literal dirty laundry. That’s some real-life Nancy Drew shit.

The gotcha…

Neidle went on:

Polanski’s team originally gave two responses.

First, they said that he “stays there only occasionally”. That contradicts the other known facts. It also suggests Mr Polanski breached electoral law, by registering to vote somewhere where he was not in fact resident. That’s potentially a criminal offence. We don’t think that’s what happened – we think his team misled The Times.

We’d be terribly interested whether “the other known facts” includes the reckonings of the launderette owner and the passersby in the Marina area. Just, you know, out of purely academic interest.

While we’re at it, the same also goes for whether calling the boat “our amazing home” in an advert counts as admission of residence. Or if that’s, you know, a turn of phrase in an advert.

That being said, and for the avoidance of doubt – if Polanski owes council tax, he should damn well pay it. However, he’s already said that he intends to:

Until relatively recently, Zack was living on a houseboat, which came with its own unique practical circumstances and considerations. He has immediately taken steps to pay any council tax he may be found to owe.

Zack apologises sincerely for the unintentional mistake.

For security reasons, we do not comment publicly on Zack’s address. There have recently been two serious incidents which have been reported to the police and are under investigation.

Selective reporting at the BBC

Likewise, Neidle also wrote that:

Discussions of politicians’ tax mistakes are often accompanied by calls for police investigations and prosecutions. In this case, and most others, such calls would be misplaced. There is no reason to believe that Mr Polanski’s failure to pay council tax was intentional or dishonest.

Somehow, the likes of the BBC managed to quote Polanski saying the underpayment was unintentional, but left out the same statement from Tax Policy Associates. It’s funny, that.

In a similar vein, the national broadcaster left out the amount that Polanski underpaid by. This is odd, because the Beeb was very much concerned with the £40,000 that Labour’s Angela Rayner missed on her stamp duty. Fortunately, that information was also available in Neidle’s analysis:

We expect the boat and mooring would be in Band A, meaning a total council tax for three years of around £4,000.

Again – £4,000 isn’t nothing, we’re glad it’s getting paid if it needs paying, etc etc.

However, it’s also a hell of a lot less than Farage’s tens-of-thousands tax dodge, i.e., buying his Clacton house in his partner’s name. Or Farage’s £5m undeclared ‘gift’ for security purposes. Or Farage getting paid for GB News work via a company he owns in order to avoid income tax.

Sound the alarms

It’s not so much the content of the Times story, or even the BBC’s recount of it, that’s pissing us off.

Rather, it’s the fact that the establishment media are desperately scraping the barrel for a smoking gun on a desperately inoffensive, lib-turned-leftist, Zionist-turned-anti-Zionist politician.

Meanwhile, commentators from Kuenssberg to Starmer have tried to compare him to far-right Farage for being… popular? Sound the alarm, somebody please – the devil has entered British politics.

If Polanski were any more of a picturesque caricature we’d genuinely think he was fictional. Did you know he’s meant to have lived on a houseboat with his boyfriend until recently?

Featured image via the Canary