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Tax Havens

(835 Posts)
whitewave Tue 05-Apr-16 08:38:06

We can't possibly let this slip by!

Tory on Radio 4 this morning arguing that we can't tackle the "treasure islands" that we have sovereignty over as it will lose people jobs!
I was astounded. So it is fine for the Steel workers to face penury but not those who help the wealthy to hide their money.

DC implicated - won't be long before GO is mentioned.

durhamjen Thu 07-Apr-16 11:32:10

"For 40 years Mossack Fonseca has operated beyond reproach in our home country and in other jurisdictions where we have operations. Our firm has never been accused or charged in connection with criminal wrongdoing."

Translation - for forty years they have got away with it.

whitewave Thu 07-Apr-16 11:31:15

Apparently DC is buying the house in Chipping Norton he bought it when he became an MP and the tax payer is paying the interest. The house he rents is in Kensington not Notting Hill as I first thought.

durhamjen Thu 07-Apr-16 11:28:01

As far as the Bullingdon Club goes, wasn't it their parents who paid their costs after they trashed restaurants?
Obviously it was tax money that paid for it.

Talking about tax, apparently we pay all living former PMs £115,000 a year for life. So Dave will not be too badly off when he claims it.

All of them Major, Blair and Brown have claimed the maximum up to now, and they do not have to say what they spend it on.
However, a judge has now said that they have to let us know in the cause of greater transparency.
The cabinet office will appeal.

durhamjen Thu 07-Apr-16 11:20:38

www.theguardian.com/news/2016/apr/06/mossack-fonseca-oil-firms-petropars-iranian-state-sanctions-panama-papers

This is very important, too. Mossack Fonseca say they have not broken any laws in over forty years. They plead ignorance despite the evidence. They are liars.

durhamjen Thu 07-Apr-16 11:14:23

"David Cameron’s father took detailed legal advice about the pros and cons of different tax havens before the fund he had helped set up was transferred to Ireland, the Guardian can reveal.

A leading international law firm wrote an analysis of the Cayman Islands and Bermuda as possible places to host Blairmore Holdings Inc, as it considered whether to “migrate” the investment fund from Panama.

Blairmore was moved in June 2012 to Ireland – another tax haven with many of the advantages of offshore jurisdictions.

The Panama Papers highlight how Blairmore’s directors wanted to continue to avoid paying UK taxes at a time when David Cameron was already the leader of the Conservative party.

And the move to Ireland came in the same month as Cameron, by then prime minister, was railing against tax avoidance schemes, describing them as morally unacceptable.

“Some of these schemes we have seen are quite frankly morally wrong,” he said."

This is even better than Dyson.

whitewave Thu 07-Apr-16 10:42:39

There are a lot more names haven't seen Dyson yet. Sarah Fergusen is named. She was happy to live on the tax payer whilst she was a member of the royals though, where did she think the money came from. There wouldn't be much if we all did what she has done.

Anniebach Thu 07-Apr-16 10:11:06

If Dyson is named please , please post it, please

Anniebach Thu 07-Apr-16 10:04:41

Where else would they have got their pocket money , suppose being in the Bullingdon their cash meant allowance not pocket money

whitewave Thu 07-Apr-16 09:57:39

I do hope that the £50 notes burned in front of the homeless by members if the Bullingdon club wasn't some of tax due, from stashing their money offshore.

whitewave Thu 07-Apr-16 08:24:26

Beneficial ownership should be registered for trusts as well as companies.

Because of Cameron's personal intervention this remains a huge loophole. Now one asks why?

This is a question he will absolutely have to answer as there is implication that his father may well have set up one of these trusts off shore which benefits the Cameron family.

durhamjen Thu 07-Apr-16 01:07:23

richardhutton.wordpress.com/2016/04/06/the-right-minded-view-panama-papers-tax/

durhamjen Thu 07-Apr-16 00:30:52

Samcam has shares in Smythsons, which is registered in Luxemburg.

Her mother has shares in a company she set up but which is run by a holding company in Guernsey.

Her stepfather owns property in Scotland which is "owned" by a company in Bermuda.

Her halfbrother is chief executive of a company specialising in property with investment partners in the BVI. He was named in the Panama papers.

Why did Cameron not realise that the journalists would find this out?

Cameron is trying to stop the implementation of the Leveson enquiry at the moment. I wonder why.

durhamjen Wed 06-Apr-16 23:10:41

" David Cameron personally intervened in 2013 to weaken an EU drive to reveal the beneficiaries of trusts, creating a possible loophole that other European nations warned could be exploited by tax evaders.

The disclosure of the prime minister's resistance to opening up trusts to full scrutiny comes as he faces intense pressure to make clear whether his family stands to benefit from offshore assets linked to his late father.

he wrote in November 2013 to Herman Van Rompuy, president of the European Council at the time, to argue that trusts widely used for inheritance planning in Britain should win special treatment in an EU law to tackle money laundering.

In the letter, seen by the Financial Times, Mr Cameron said: “It is clearly important we recognise the important differences between companies and trusts. This means that the solution for addressing the potential misuse of companies, such as central public registries, may well not be appropriate generally.”

From the FT.

durhamjen Wed 06-Apr-16 22:32:36

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/panama-papers-the-truth-about-the-blairmore-fund-by-the-man-who-exposed-it-a6970501.html

This is about the Blairmore fund, by the man who discovered all about it in 2012.

"Transparency, however, requires disclosure. Ian Cameron was obviously a successful father and by all accounts a decent and popular man but he took a different view on tax and made no secret of it in the context of Blairmore. He was the fund’s highest-paid director and is identified in a prospectus issued to wealthy investors which boasted that “the Fund will not be subject to United Kingdom corporation tax or income tax on its profits”

That prospectus was printed and distributed in 2006, following David Cameron’s election as leader of the Conservative Party. So an awkward question: was David Cameron aware of the prospectus? And another: what knowledge does the Prime Minister have of his family’s off-shore interests? And if these questions will not be answered by Downing Street, there’s another: how does the Prime Minister reconcile his own approach to tax with that of his father?"

The final two paragraphs.

durhamjen Wed 06-Apr-16 22:23:29

Yes, that would have been fun, wouldn't it? How would they have won the election?

I was just thinking. If Dave doesn't get the proceeds from his dads tax dodging, who does?

If he and a few others - Osborne is not really answering the questions, either - have to resign, do we get a rerun?

I'd like to know about the Johnson family's finances. Particularly as he thinks it's absolute tripe.

whitewave Wed 06-Apr-16 20:48:17

Pity they didn't publish it this time last year!

durhamjen Wed 06-Apr-16 20:39:04

press.labour.org.uk/post/142287955974/is-the-prime-minister-happy-to-receive-money-from

It's not just Cameron who has been fiddling the taxes - sorry, benefiting from his dad fiddling his taxes.
The Tory party has taken lots of donations from others who are involved with the Panama papers. McDonnell wants to know what Cameron is going to do about it.

I read an interesting article tonight. 400 reporters have been working on this for a year, and managed to keep it secret.

Anniebach Wed 06-Apr-16 15:08:24

To be fair whitewave, they are trying, failing badly though . Why does Cameron saying - I have my salary, some savings and one house bring to mind 'I did not have sex with that woman ' both pokies I suppose

whitewave Wed 06-Apr-16 14:17:44

Well it has taken Cameron and his spin doctors 2 days and 4 attempts to come up with a believable explanation and they still haven't succeeded.

Anniebach Wed 06-Apr-16 14:05:27

Again a case of Birds of a feather GILL

GillT57 Wed 06-Apr-16 12:44:37

Margaret Thatcher lived out her days in The Ritz hotel ( that well known care home) courtesy of the owners, the weird Barclay Brothers, owners of the Telegraph Group of newspapers including The Spectator ( columnist Boris J). Their Corporation Tax is minimal. They are cheats basically, how else can it be described?

whitewave Wed 06-Apr-16 12:34:54

railman yes we've had those voting papers too, as far as I can make out their use is more than useless.

whitewave Wed 06-Apr-16 12:32:57

Just one more name to add to list today.

Pamela Sharples - Tory MP - now a peer

railman Wed 06-Apr-16 12:26:01

Just read your link Nonnie - absolutely brilliant explanation grin shock

railman Wed 06-Apr-16 12:22:39

I know this is 'off topic' and very tangential, but we have just received a polling card through the door inviting us to vote for our County Police & Crime Commissioner.

Another harebrained idea from Cameron & Co, that has almost zero credibility across the country, and some of the appointees appear to have been less than accurate about their expenses - why would you vote for these either?

Maybe they too need something to do in the UK, Lord know I've no idea what our person has been doing or plans to do, or how this has or will improve local services for the community.