BBC presenter Sian Williams would read news naked in tax protest! - India News and Travel Times Provides India-centric and other News and Features

BBC One Breakfast presenter Sian Williams has offered to read news naked, if it will save her from paying tax. The newsreader's accountant Michael Weissbraun has claimed her clothes were a necessity of her job and should be exempt from tax. Weissbraun insists that 4,500 pounds of clothes, laundry and hairdressing should be tax deductible. He told a tax tribunal in Manchester that his client "does not need the clothes for warmth, as it is warm inside the studios." Williams's contract of employment with the BBC states that "she must not wear the same clothes more than twice or three times a month", and that if she "wore the same clothes frequently when appearing on television she would lose her job". However judge, Dr Christopher Staker, dismissed the claim, pointing out that her salary could not been spent "wholly, exclusively and necessarily" over her duties as a BBC employee. Staker did not accept that Williams "could perform her duties without wearing any clothes at all if she were not required by her employer to do so". "The evidence does not suggest that Williams had her hair done and coloured immediately before performing her duties as newsreader, and then changed it back again immediately after finishing reading the news," The Telegraph quoted him as saying. Meanwhile, Alex Armitage, Williams's agent, cleared the air. He said: "There's absolutely no question of Sian Williams reading the news naked. Apart from anything else, BBC budget cuts have made the studios too cold."