Panama Papers

the King of Saudi Arabia and other Arab rulers etc.. are not that interesting. They've not necessarily broken any laws in so far as those countries are monarchies run by them anyway - stashing cash overseas isn't so much to evade taxes as to have cash stashed away from their countries in the event they get overthrown.

The others, especially westerners, are far more interesting.
 
Pudney said:
Can evade is not the same as to evade.
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By doing what he did, registering offshore, holding meetings in the Bahamas, that was specifically done to evade paying tax in the UK.

Don't forget, Blairmore Inc was an investment vehicle, where it operated from only mattered in terms of tax.
 
Judgeneo said:
Not a single American has been named so far.
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If they're anything like Canadians there'll be hundreds of them, just nobody noteworthy. At least that's what the CBC says about their populace.

Or could be due to the fact that Panama is shady with most countries but not the USA. They've had a data sharing agreement since 2010. There was probably an exodus of Statesians around that time to other havens.
 
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-35962326

Close relatives of seven current or former Chinese leaders have been found to have links to offshore firms.

Documents leaked from Panama name family members of the Chinese President, Xi Jinping, and two other members of China's elite Standing Committee, Zhang Gaoli and Liu Yunshan.

Relatives of the three men are listed as directors or shareholders in firms located in known tax havens.

The Chinese government has not responded to requests for comment.
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OldCoals said:
By doing what he did, registering offshore, holding meetings in the Bahamas, that was specifically done to evade paying tax in the UK.

Don't forget, Blairmore Inc was an investment vehicle, where it operated from only mattered in terms of tax.
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That's not "evading" tax.

What if the vehicle has absolutely no other UK substance than a couple of UK based directors? Why would you create a UK liability by holding meetings in the UK when nothing else to do with the business is in the UK?
 
Pudney said:
That's not "evading" tax.

What if the vehicle has absolutely no other UK substance than a couple of UK based directors? Why would you create a UK liability by holding meetings in the UK when nothing else to do with the business is in the UK?
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-35961422

Richard Brooks, a former tax inspector who now writes for Private Eye magazine, says some people use the anonymity provided by bearer shares to evade tax.

"A bearer share is a piece of paper saying you own a share of a company. There doesn't have to be any other record other than that piece of paper, which means you can hide your ownership of bearer shares.

"And when it comes to declaring what assets, what wealth you have, what income you have, it really leaves it just to you and your conscience."
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However, an investment prospectus published by Blairmore in 2006 states that it will seek to ensure its profits remain beyond the reach of HMRC.

"The directors intend that the affairs of the fund should be managed and conducted so that it does not become resident in the UK for UK taxation purposes. Accordingly, the fund will not be subject to UK corporation tax or income tax on its profits."

Blairmore stopped using bearer shares in 2006. And it still hasn't paid any tax in the UK.
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Stretch said:
If you had a referendum at any point, asking whether it's acceptable for people to use offshore tax havens to avoid paying tax, the result would be a resounding no.

It might not be illegal, or a closely kept secret, but the "people" are never offered the chance to stop it. It's never on the ballot paper. Why?

Clearly these schemes are not in the national interest, and many of them exists in jurisdictions under the direct control of the UK government.

The politician keep quite about it, and whilst it's not in the forefront of peoples daily lives, it gets conveniently "forgotten" about.

These leaks are newsworthy, because it raises the profile of something which shouldn't exists, and would not exist if it weren't for the rich having effectively bought government off around the world.

The only difference between tax avoidance on this scale, and tax evasion, is tax evasion is the result of governments doing their job properly. There is no point in evading tax any more.
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The difference is one lands you in jail and is actually illegal, and the other whilst morally questionable is a perfectly legal strategy for reducing your overall tax liability using permissible methods. Thus these leaks are not newsworthy because unless you have been living under a rock you will already know that rich toffs like to offshore their money and pay as little tax as legally permissible under the laws of what ever country they decide to be domicile to on any given day.
 
Pudney said:
Yes, they didn't want to pay tax in the UK so what? What is their UK business? What reason should they pay tax other than a couple of directors are UK resident?

Edit: And yes, bearer shares can be used to evade tax. Again, "can" is not the same as "to".
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Well they don't need a business in the UK anymore since they already got their billions out accumulating tax free interest to live off... whilst living here...

Meanwhile the rest of us have to pay tax on ANY interest on savings (now through PAYE, oh goody can't wait for them to get my tax code wrong)...
 
Pudney said:
Yes, they didn't want to pay tax in the UK so what? What is their UK business? What reason should they pay tax other than a couple of directors are UK resident?

Edit: And yes, bearer shares can be used to evade tax. Again, "can" is not the same as "to".
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I think people understand what is legal and what isn't, but it doesn't do anything about the frustration/anger that people express.

Someone scraping together a deposit for their first house and paying stamp duty isn't going to be comforted with the knowledge that someone else buying a property in Mayfair through an offshore company wasn't technically breaking any laws.
 
Caged said:
I think people understand what is legal and what isn't, but it doesn't do anything about the frustration/anger that people express.

Someone scraping together a deposit for their first house and paying stamp duty isn't going to be comforted with the knowledge that someone else buying a property in Mayfair through an offshore company wasn't technically breaking any laws.
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I'm not even arguing that it's "legal" and who cares about it being "immoral". Is it actually immoral? Is there any UK business?

Everyone assumes it's evasion. But how does anyone actually know whether there was any substance at all in the UK to begin with? Perhaps the only reason they were avoiding it being UK taxable was purely because directors were UK resident themselves even though the business itself had no other connections to the UK.
 
Gzero said:
Well they don't need a business in the UK anymore since they already got their billions out accumulating tax free interest to live off... whilst living here...

Meanwhile the rest of us have to pay tax on ANY interest on savings (now through PAYE, oh goody can't wait for them to get my tax code wrong)...
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No you don't.
 
Caged said:
I think people understand what is legal and what isn't, but it doesn't do anything about the frustration/anger that people express.

Someone scraping together a deposit for their first house and paying stamp duty isn't going to be comforted with the knowledge that someone else buying a property in Mayfair through an offshore company wasn't technically breaking any laws.
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Pudney said:
I'm not even arguing that it's "legal" and who cares about it being "immoral". Is it actually immoral? Is there any UK business?

Everyone assumes it's evasion. But how does anyone actually know whether there was any substance at all in the UK to begin with? Perhaps the only reason they were avoiding it being UK taxable was purely because directors were UK resident themselves even though the business itself had no other connections to the UK.
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Did you read his post?

It's the fact they use them to hide the assets right here in the UK that riles people up. The scoop (on bbc) even showed that it was used to hide and sell of melted stolen gold in the UK!
 
Gzero said:
Did you read his post?

It's the fact they use them to hide the assets right here in the UK that riles people up. The scoop (on bbc) even showed that it was used to hide and sell of melted stolen gold in the UK!
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The only link given is the BBC which doesn't state anything about Mayfair or molten gold.

Edit: there's something about a criminal enterprise using the solicitors to set up an offshore company to deal with stolen gold. My posts have been about Blairmore, although I haven't stated that previously it started as a response to Old Coals.
 
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