Tax Havens

durhamjen 00.03

No I do not ' appreciate ' nor do I unappreciate the work of either Richard Murphy nor Margaret Hodge . Murphy is a left wing commentator on economics and we have mentioned Margaret Hodge before on other threads if I am not mistaken. I still don't know what to make of her but she did Chair the Public Accounts Committee with an iron fist. I couldn't help but notice the tone in Parliament when she asked a question of Cameron during the Panama Papers Statement. Perhaps some have never heard of Margaret Hodge.

www.ibtimes.co.uk/anti-tax-avoidance-campaigner-margaret-hodge-given-1-5m-shares-tax-haven-liechtenstein-1498813.

Out of fairness another link which mentions comments from Richard Murphy.

www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/mar/13/more-to-margaret-hodge-grillings-than-dramatics

Actually this link is interesting and topical because it is another example of complicated tax laws are to assess. What chance do we have?

www.channel4.com/news/margaret-hodge-tax-affairs-stemcor-trusts

Anybody wiser?

Jane10, I'm not disputing that the living should receive compensation if an employer (or somebody else) has been negligent. What I am disputing is that compensation should somehow be protected after the death of the person who has been compensated.

Many millions of people watch their loved ones die, sometimes painfully, and most of them don't receive any compensation for it.

Like ab, if I had inherited any money which I knew had been part of a compensation claim, I couldn't have spent it on myself. I would have given it to a charity. As it was, the NHS looked after my father reasonably well in his last few months and I would rather people paid their taxes to fund the NHS.

Personally I think IT is a red herring.

www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2016/04/14/tax-competition-2/

Just been reading this by Richard Murphy, a talk he gave in Luxembourg yesterday.
Luxembourg has the greatest GDP per capita in the world.

The talk could easily have been entitled what is the point of tax havens for anyone but the rich?

www.theguardian.com/business/2016/apr/14/uk-under-pressure-from-eu-states-over-beneficial-ownership-secrecy

Just what some of us thought all along. Cameron's transparency is nothing of the sort.

I certaintly didn't believe him and still do not after he dodge questions and lied in PMQ. He has always reminded me of a show room sales man . He has no intention of doing anything to stop tax avoidance

I would be interested in listing all the cheats and tax shy that are caught and penalised by the government.

We know that it is done for perceived benefit cheats.

There is a report that a working woman from Widness was sanctioned because she had the temerity to take a holiday.

Anyone able to report on a tax cheat?

Just reading in the paper this morning about someone charged with non payment of taxes. Court reports are worth reading. No list of the guilty just case by case write ups.

That's interesting jane wonder why tax cheats aren't listed like benefit cheats?

Got a couple.

Both tax avoidance schemes.

Stagecoach. 11 million recovered

Next. 22.4 million recovered.

Evasion - one case where an accountant named Dennis Carter imprisoned for 5 years. Proved to have evaded 6 million. His son also charged with evasion. The accountant acted for a number of well known celebrities, included Fiona Bruce amongst others. There is no suggestion in the article that the stars were aware of suppression. HMRC have given the celebrities the opportunity to pay back the evaded tax of up to £40 million.

More avoidance

Banks -UBS and Deutsche Bank avoidance of £50 million each. Javid -business secretary was a director of Deutsch Bank at the time it was pursuing the scheme. There is no suggestion he knew of it.

Ladbrokes - £54 million.

Traders in Bear Stearn jailed 4.5 years - evasion.

The problem is that this costs the British tax payer a huge amount of money fighting these cases. It would make so much more sense if these avoidance schemes should by law be run past HMRC before they are implemented. If HMRC considered the lose to the revenue would be too great then they should report it to the Treasury in order that they can take steps to plug the loophole.

Should Javid not have known of it?
A poor director if he didn't.

My first thought, whitewave, was that that's not much. Then I read this.

"There will, of course, be a requirement that companies disclose details on beneficial ownership. But there will be no way of checking if the disclosure they make is accurate.

And no extra resources for pursuing those who might not be compliant seem likely to be provided to Companies House.

Worse, we know that around 400,000 companies do not file annual returns each year as required by law and that Companies House make no effort to recover this data. They do instead simply dissolve the companies in question, or ‘strike them off’ in their jargon. This is the ultimate reward for the fraudster: their crime is covered up for them after they have been trading for some time without any demand being made for accounts or ownership data, let alone tax due.

I estimate this costs the UK at least £11 billion a year and it may be more.

The government refuses to accept any such estimate.

The result is a fraudsters' paradise here in the UK where we will in future only have data on beneficial ownership from already legally compliant companies when it is data on the fraudsters that we need."

The government said last night how it is in the lead in beneficial ownership laws.
Rubbish. It's been dragged kicking and screaming to the idea.
For people who want to stay in the EU, why do they not talk about cooperation rather than leading?

The U.K. Needs to clean up its act for sure,

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b076nzhc

Richard Murphy on the Today programme. 2 hrs 10 minutes in.
In case you did not hear it.

I guess we can all go on forever with pointing the finger to appease partisan politics over all things financial though can't we.

The Co - Op Bank and Labour connections. Jean Claude Junker , the ex PM of ' Luxembourg '!!! ( back to Margaret Hodge 'allegations') , what irony is that. He now is in charge of sorting out tax havens and related financial matters for Europe.

For worldwide taxation problems to ever be sorted it has to be a worldwide agreement to get it done. No country can do it unilaterally it would be financial suicide, that is the crux of the matter.

One country can start, though.
Unfortunately it will not be this one.

I have just come to this thread. The bigger picture, as far as I can see, is that there is no motivation for any Government to close tax havens. These are for the benefit of the super rich who in effect run the country, either in government, by donation or lobbying, but opt out financially. It is ordinary people or "low achievers" according to MP Alan Duncan, who pay our tax and keep NHS, and public services going.

It is ordinary people or "low achievers" according to MP Alan Duncan

Here's one woman's answer to the idiot:

www.thecanary.co/2016/04/12/an-nhs-workers-open-letter-to-the-tory-mp-who-called-people-low-achievers-for-fighting-tax-avoidance/

Great post Jalima, what a man to dismiss the majority as low achievers, suppose he would class Ronnie Biggs as a high achiever and he himself as a high achiever for fiddling right to buy causing him to resign from his post

Brilliant link Jalima. Says it all really doesn't it?

What a reflection on our society where someone can stand up in our parliament and rubbish those people whose wealth does match his own. That includes almost the whole of the U.K. Population.