'unprecedented Leak' Exposes How The World's Wealthy Use Off-Shore Shell Companies To Hide Their Wealth

[winkie]

If tax avoidance is legal......why can't everyone take advantage of it, not just the special people, often they are the people with the most, who have the contacts and know-how, so are able to buy the best and pay the least proportionately......all things being equal, that is not equal......inheritance tax is the BIG one......only have to own a small three bed in London....

[200p]

Trying to join the dots here. If George Soros and the US backed the leaks LINK https://www.rt.com/news/338683-wikileaks-usaid-putin-attack/ , then they could want a Brexit, and that is why Cameron has not been spared. That would align the UK more to the US rather than Russia and China. Sounds far fetched. A collapse of the EU would benefit US interests? Soros has published a book on the EU outlook in 2014.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Tragedy-European-Union-Disintegration/dp/1610394216

Edited April 8, 2016 by 200p

[dgul]

If tax avoidance is legal......why can't everyone take advantage of it, not just the special people, often they are the people with the most, who have the contacts and know-how, so are able to buy the best and pay the least proportionately......all things being equal, that is not equal......inheritance tax is the BIG one......only have to own a small three bed in London....

Well - you can. Anyone can communicate with these folk to get offshore accounts set up.

The problem is the expense - is it worthwhile paying the thousands required to offshore your money/income? Only if you're paid in the millions.

They could clean this all up, but it appears that those in power over the last 20 years* have been up to their eyeballs in it. It really does need some kind of review.

*well, no actual evidence that Blair was offshoring - but he is such a despicable character that I think he should be tarred with this particular brush.

[Ah-so]

With regards Cameron and all of them, we have to accept that there use nothing illegal about using stuff in Panama ( although I understand that the fund itself was based in Ireland, which is very common for these off -shore vehicles).

1. Did DC receive income and not declare it (evasion)?

2. Did DC receive income but not declare it because he did not have to (morally questionable avoidance)?

3. Did DC receive an income and fully declare it in his tax return (absolutely fine - did nothing wrong)?

Until we know about the above, all the speculation is pointless.

[pig]

The question is whether DC is the fall guy and is this a conspiracy? Something about the whole story doesn;t quite add up. Especially the DC / BoJo panto.

It does seem rather unfortunate timing for a practice that - to my eyes at least - seems rather 'obvious' and known of the class to which Cameron belongs...but no I think not.

Been a tough series of calamities for DC's government - IDS, steel, tax 'avoidance'. Anything going wrong for the government now sort of works in the Brexiters favour, but thats government, stuff always goes wrong. Ironically, looked at a bit more closely they all reinforce reasons for which I'd vote to remain in the EU.

[dgul]

With regards Cameron and all of them, we have to accept that there use nothing illegal about using stuff in Panama ( although I understand that the fund itself was based in Ireland, which is very common for these off -shore vehicles).

1. Did DC receive income and not declare it (evasion)?

2. Did DC receive income but not declare it because he did not have to (morally questionable avoidance)?

3. Did DC receive an income and fully declare it in his tax return (absolutely fine - did nothing wrong)?

Until we know about the above, all the speculation is pointless.

There is more to it.

4. Did the company involved declare that all decisions were made in The Bahamas, and so was entitled to be 'based offshore', and thus pay taxes in that jurisdiction - or was it in fact run from other countries, with only a sham directorship claiming to make decisions in The Bahamas - in which case the company is guilty of tax evasion - and consequently all payments made (as dividends or in terms of company value when shares were sold) did not include the necessary taxes, despite the resultant personal income being declared for tax.

Regarding this point, the documents appear to show that the company was, indeed, run from the UK, and attempts were made to obscure this fact. So this is evidence based and not speculation.

And there is also:

5. While negotiating with the EU over the role of offshore companies and trusts several years ago, did DC declare to the electorate his personal interest in this field? Did he negotiate and vote in the best interests of the UK, or those of his family and extended peer group?

[winkie]

Well - you can. Anyone can communicate with these folk to get offshore accounts set up.

The problem is the expense - is it worthwhile paying the thousands required to offshore your money/income? Only if you're paid in the millions.

They could clean this all up, but it appears that those in power over the last 20 years* have been up to their eyeballs in it. It really does need some kind of review.

*well, no actual evidence that Blair was offshoring - but he is such a despicable character that I think he should be tarred with this particular brush.

Proves the point then, that only the wealthy can buy into greater tax savings.....the more you have the less you pay.

Or else who would be left to pay into the tax system that we all share (or most of us share) and benefit from?....it could be said that the wealthy would argue that they do not pay in or pay in as much as they should/could because they 'pay their own way' ie pay for own private schooling, pay for own private health, pay for own private transport etc......why should they contribute?

Them and us......who are not part of the club?

Edited April 8, 2016 by winkie

[pig]

Proves the point then, that only the wealthy can buy into greater tax savings.....the more you have the less you pay.

Or else who would be left to pay into the tax system that we all share (or most of us share) and benefit from?....it could be said that the wealthy would argue that they do not pay in or pay in as much as they should/could because they 'pay their own way' ie pay for own private schooling, pay for own private health, pay for own private transport etc......why should they contribute?

Lol ! Have known a number of people who think this way, plenty of Libertarians on this site also.

Of course - they don't need law and order, they don't need the military, they don't need roads, they don't need a workforce, they don't need cohorts of citizens paying them rent and so on.

In short they don't need a coherent society or public infrastructure because ultimately the less government there is, the more power and capital they can possess relative to both the government and the lazy feckless masses it supports and bullies on behalf of...Bye-bye Europe hello Pinochet !

[winkie]

Lol ! Have known a number of people who think this way, plenty of Libertarians on this site also.

Of course - they don't need law and order, they don't need the military, they don't need roads, they don't need a workforce, they don't need cohorts of citizens paying them rent and so on.

In short they don't need a coherent society or public infrastructure because ultimately the less government there is, the more power and capital they can possess relative to both the government and the lazy feckless masses it supports and bullies on behalf of...Bye-bye Europe hello Pinochet !

Of course they need all that, they pay their car tax and vat etc.....they pay for as close to what they think they use.....they need growing numbers of middle class to pay for much of what all society needs, but don't they realise that many of what was middle class are now working class and what they once ignored, they are beginning to scrutinise in more detail.....needs must, all in this together.

[pig]

Of course they need all that, they pay their car tax and vat etc.....they pay for as close to what they think they use.....they need growing numbers of middle class to pay for much of what all society needs, but don't they realise that many of what was middle class are now working class and what they once ignored, they are beginning to scrutinise in more detail.....needs must, all in this together.

That's a startling interesting point.

At the lower end of the spectrum the State is way more powerful. Yes you have skivers, criminals, the feckless and so on but it's accepted that life is pain and a hardship that affects everybody but against which shared laws, public infrastructure etc and not least hard work can provide some measure of shelter.

At the top end the State is an unnecessary inconvenience easily avoided. Life is comfort, work isn't entirely necessary but can provide additional status and luxury and it's an annoyance if this is constrained or curtailed.

As for the middle - well to cut this post short what is going to happen if you start shoving them down to the bottom end ?

Edited April 8, 2016 by pig

[winkie]

...Lyrics: "The poor will spoil it for the rich"......

[BudoBear]

That's lovely.

Oh - by the way - the people benefiting from the offshore accounts will be the weapons dealers, the despots, the dictators. Probably for your aims it would be better if the offshore accounts were stopped, rather than you had the opportunity to remove yourself from the equation.

Glad you think so, would be a bonus if there were more who thought so.

Oh, by the way, I'm a libertarian/anarchist, so I kinda get the fact that the criminals are running the show. Probably for my aims, it would be a lot better if the docile sector of the populace that haven't yet work this sheeet out, woke up and stopped giving credit to the criminals, and started giving a feck about doing something about it. I'm not prepared to be part of an equation that is a zero sum game, rigged against me. Let's start working out how to remove the criminals and either rectify the social structure and run it with equality, or preferably use the wealth of technology at our disposal and create a fair and equal playing field where no one gets left behind. No that truely would be lovely!

[spyguy]

Maybe it's a flush out of the scams.

Time to start on the dfubious charitable foundations. Office of Gordon and Sarah Brown is a good place to start.

[spyguy]

I'm getting post with Jezza condemning Cazza.

This has been the only time Jezza has managed to hit a target. I'm guessing it's only a matter of time before Labour MPs dodgy dealings are revbisted - Millipedes house antics comes to mind.

The thing that annoys me is he's banging on about avoiding tax means there's less money for schools and hospitals. Problem is, most public spending goes on wages. You know the nurses at my local hospital who average 30 days sick and cannot be added to do their job, or my kids teacher whose been signed off foir 6 minbths, the one another parent bumped into in Tenerife.

[stormymonday_2011]

Lol ! Have known a number of people who think this way, plenty of Libertarians on this site also.

Of course - they don't need law and order, they don't need the military, they don't need roads, they don't need a workforce, they don't need cohorts of citizens paying them rent and so on.

In short they don't need a coherent society or public infrastructure because ultimately the less government there is, the more power and capital they can possess relative to both the government and the lazy feckless masses it supports and bullies on behalf of...Bye-bye Europe hello Pinochet !

.

Most of the people who engage in offshore tax avoidance could not by any token be described as 'libertarian' . They are quite happy for the Big State apparatus to be deployed to suppress the rest of the population when it suits their purposes. David Cameron's government wants to be able to snoop on all our online activity and his tax men at HMRC are going to be allowed to garnishee the ordinary publics bank accounts for tax arrears when necessary without the need for a court order. They also want the State via the taxpayer to bail out the self same institutions that help them to hide their loot if those entities look like going bust

What they don't want is to

1) Have to pay for the apparatus of state coercion out of their own pockets

2) Be subject to the same level of intrusion and control by the state as everyone else.

Edited April 8, 2016 by stormymonday_2011

[pig]

.

Most of the people who engage in offshore tax avoidance could not by any token be described as 'libertarian' . They are quite happy for the Big State apparatus to be deployed to suppress the rest of the population when it suits their purposes. David Cameron's government wants to be able to snoop on all our online activity and his tax men at HMRC are going to be allowed to garnishee the ordinary publics bank accounts for tax arrears when necessary without the need for a court order. They also want the State via the taxpayer to bail out the self same institutions that help them to hide their loot if those entities look like going bust

What they don't want is to

1) Have to pay for the apparatus of state coercion out of their own pockets

2) Be subject to the same level of intrusion and control by the state as everyone else.

Yes - I know the formula. Those who call themselves communist....aren't really communists. Capitalists...aren't really capitalists. Libertarians...

They basically exist in academic debating societies or as ideal hypotheticals wheeled out in attack or defence of deficiencies.

[Saving For a Space Ship]

https://twitter.com/hashtag/resigncameron?src=hash

'This is must see: Conservative Charles Walker explaining to Kay Burleythe Cameron tax admission by suggesting banning curtains, and that £30k is only enough for a skoda:'

snpy.tv/25PvieL

Edited April 8, 2016 by Saving For a Space Ship

[evetsm]

libertarians generally don't trust giving their money to people who claim to know better than them how to redistribute it. From hard experience libertarians know those people tend to redistribute it into theirs and their cronies' pockets.

Libertarians trust that people in a marketplace know best what they want to buy and sell, what money they would prefer to use , what they want to save and what they want to spend rather than a faceless bureaucrat would know on their behalf.

Libertarians (mostly, except anarchists) believe in the rule of law, but law that arises from the people as common law, not imposed from the top down by bureaucrats.

In other words, unlike statists, libertarians trust in people to make their own decisions regarding their own lives. In a world of meddling statists, you would swear that was blasphemy

[A.steve]

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/what-blairmore-holdings-everything-you-7711620

...from 2002 until 2007, the fund averaged 116 per cent annual returns, holding blue chip stocks in Apple, Unilever and Coca Cola.

This figure, published in the above Mirror article seems extraordinary... 116% returns suggest, to me, a suspicious level of success... and that goes double if one assumes a strategy of investment in blue-chip stocks. Anyone care to hazard a guess as to what the investment strategy might have been?

[BorrowToLeech]

Well - you can. Anyone can communicate with these folk to get offshore accounts set up.

The problem is the expense - is it worthwhile paying the thousands required to offshore your money/income? Only if you're paid in the millions.

They could clean this all up, but it appears that those in power over the last 20 years* have been up to their eyeballs in it. It really does need some kind of review.

*well, no actual evidence that Blair was offshoring - but he is such a despicable character that I think he should be tarred with this particular brush.

Not if you're on PAYE. Why not? Because then everyone would do it, obviously.

That's the hypocrisy. Literally one rule for them, one rule for everyone else.

[BorrowToLeech]

libertarians generally don't trust giving their money to people who claim to know better than them how to redistribute it. From hard experience libertarians know those people tend to redistribute it into theirs and their cronies' pockets.

Libertarians trust that people in a marketplace know best what they want to buy and sell, what money they would prefer to use , what they want to save and what they want to spend rather than a faceless bureaucrat would know on their behalf.

Libertarians (mostly, except anarchists) believe in the rule of law, but law that arises from the people as common law, not imposed from the top down by bureaucrats.

In other words, unlike statists, libertarians trust in people to make their own decisions regarding their own lives. In a world of meddling statists, you would swear that was blasphemy

Anarchists are defined in opposition to power, not law. Many anarchist traditions do believe in the rule of law.

Anarchists are not 'a kind of' libertarian. Libertarians are opposed only to state power and have no problem with power and authority that derive from property.

They never really explain how or why these two things are in any way different but, coincidentally, prominent libertarians always seem to own significant amounts of property.

You don't need a secret controlling elite in order to have an alignment of self interest(s) that deliver much the same outcome in terms of rule by an elite mainly in the interests of that elite- indeed I would even concede that many of those who are clearly beneficiaries of a given established order are quite sincere in their belief that this order is the best of all possible arrangements for everyone- having arrived at this conclusion by the unassailable logic of confiming this view with everyone they know.

I suspect that there has never been an elite in history who did not sincerely believe that their privileged postion in society was not a blessing for everyone in it. So it's entirely possible to imagine a situation in which truly terrible social arrangements persist while those who perpetuate them sincerely believe that these arrangements are both 'natural' and by extension represent the best possible outcome imaginable for all concerned.

It's only in the movies that Elites view themselves as evil- in the real world even the most brutal of regimes comes complete with a narrative in which the regime is seen as an essentially benign bulwark against the chaos that would ensue should their hold on power be broken.

Even that great totem of modern state depravity- Adolf- did not see himself as evil- in his mind he was a saviour and a prophet, bent on preserving the cultural purity and vitality of his race against the tide of the untermensch.

So no overt conspiricy is required- just a shared world view as to the 'rightness' of one's cause and the need to preserve the existing order will do. And if as a 'by product' this need to preserve the status quo also results in the perpetuation of your own wealth and power then this surely is mere serendipity- a happy alignment of the greater good with your own best interests.

That's pretty much the definition of conservatism. The miracle of conservatism is that it has persisted into the democratic era.

Sure, they believe that their power and privilege is for the best, but what kind of idiot would agree with them?

Edited April 9, 2016 by BuyToLeech

[Steppenpig]

Thanks to hignfy for pointing this out.

[DiggerUK]

This Irish Times article is going to make you believe goodies are baddies, baddies are goodies, and still leave you chortling over your cornflakes..._

http://www.irishtimes.com/business/panama-papers-links-revealed-to-spies-and-iran-contra-affair-1.2599083

[zugzwang]

This Irish Times article is going to make you believe goodies are baddies, baddies are goodies, and still leave you chortling over your cornflakes..._

http://www.irishtimes.com/business/panama-papers-links-revealed-to-spies-and-iran-contra-affair-1.2599083

What a tangled web we weave when we practice to deceive...

Excellent find. I don't recall Shaxson talking about the arms trade in Treasure Islands but obviously it makes a perfect fit with the offshore finance industry (and the Camerons, come to think of it, given the UK's war-making proclivities).

[DiggerUK]

The surprise for me was that I found the link to the Irish Times piece in this Breitbart article..........'Breitbart'!!!.....couldn't make this story up..._

http://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2016/04/08/iran-hezbollah-implicated-panama-papers-scandal/