BrewDog co-founder James Watt has reached out to his followers on LinkedIn to ask whether he should go through with his marriage to Made in Chelsea star Georgia Toffolo.
Multimillionaire Watt took to the networking site for relationship advice after an advisor notified him that he might miss out on tax relief in Toffolo’s raw dog food business if he gets hitched within the next few years.
He said the “bombshell” had plunged him into a quandary over which should take priority, a commitment to love each other in sickness and in health, for richer, for poorer – or his tax bill.
“If I marry Georgia within three years of investing, I become a ‘connected person’ under HMRC rules, and I lose the [Enterprise Investment Scheme] tax relief,” he said on LinkedIn.
He asked followers to vote on two options, either: “Love always wins – take the tax relief hit” or “true love can wait for 3 years – secure the relief”.
Its not the first time the controversial entrepreneur – who built his brewing empire on a reputation for challenging the ethics of big business – has delivered an anti-tax message on the platform.
He also lashed out at Labour over reports that the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, intended to raise capital gains tax (CGT) and reclassify debt to allow more spending on public services.
“Most of the brilliant business minds that I know […] will simply leave the UK to build businesses and create jobs elsewhere,” he said. “Increasing capital gains tax will do far more damage to our economy than any gains we may experience from increasing this tax.”
Watt and Toffolo were also spotted at Nigel Farage’s 60th birthday celebrations earlier this year, prompting a backlash from some of BrewDog’s army of “equity punks”, who crowdfunded the company to its early success.
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