Tax Havens

Chris Bryant was on the Newsnight last night, talking about that, whitewave.

Those who say Labour never did anything to stop it when they were in power should reread history. Of course, another thing is that Blair was the one in power. I wonder how much he has stashed away on which he is not paying tax.

Why was Blairmore holdings moved to Ireland in 2010, and not to the UK?

annie yes the family company has certainly had dealings with a company based in the BVI.

lily yes I will not be at all surprised to find that a filthy rich Labour Party member is also tax avoiding- no names yet appeared I will list them as soon as they do.

With regard to your comment about evasion and avoidance. Yes one is illegal and the other legal. However it is becoming a bit of an old chestnut as there so many aggressive tax avoidance schemes out there. The principle of paying your fair share is being utterly flouted by the wealthy, and however you try to spin it is generally thought to be morally wrong, particularly when looking at the way the poor have borne the brunt of all the cuts since the Tories came to power.

When Cameron senior died, he was said to have £2.75 million in his will. However, it only listed the UK assets. He had financial links with Ireland, Switzerland and Jersey. Why?

I'm fed up with seeing tax avoidance classified as a justifiable activity. There's a huge difference between an ISA and setting up a shell company in the BVI to avoid tax. Both are legal, but ISAs are deliberately tax-free to encourage people to save. Other schemes exploit unintentional loopholes in the law.

Tax avoidance means public services and other individuals are losing out. It's totally unacceptable for the government not to collect as much tax as possible and then lecture people about 'doing the right thing'.

Tax avoidance gives out totally the wrong message to the rest of the cxountry. It seems that all people need to be successful is be a spiv and live on the edge of legality and morality. I was brought up to avoid people like that, but it seems I got it wrong - they're to be revered.

too boring to read all the posts but here is a simple explanation:

www.vox.com/2016/4/4/11361780/the-panama-papers-cartoon

I like that, Nonnie

Interested to read what Osborne has not said about the family firm.

So can anyone enlighten me as to how the company has avoided any UK tax for the past 7 years if it isn't off shore? Or is it so badly run - rather like the economy- that it is making a year on year loss?

The latest gem from Boris Johnson - the tax avoidance issue with David Cameron "absolute tripe" hmm he has form though doesn't he? Remember he described the phone hacking issue as "absolute piffle" Such a bright individual ?

Don't you just love Boris Johnson - a completely wasted education - he appears to have learned nothing about life - but a jolly decent chap whom "ordinary folk" in London can get along with.

Boris and his ilk are as much of an embarrassment to the UK as the Trump is to "ordinary Americans"

Why would anyone vote for or elect a person to public office with such a track record of bad judgement and imbecillic comments.

Just amazing

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.

Just read your link Nonnie - absolutely brilliant explanation

Just one more name to add to list today.

Pamela Sharples - Tory MP - now a peer

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

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?

Again a case of Birds of a feather GILL

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

" 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.

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.

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

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.