Bedouin

[dezze]

WHS

As a newbie it will have to wait for new posts to be approved.

Would have expected a reply to have got thru the mods by now?

[denver2k]

" expat "

"As the man who fell off the 102nd floor of the Empire State Building said as he passed the 10th floor, "OK so far". "


Thats hilarious ....

but you are bloody dead right .....

[phileds]

Tax avoidance is not dead, far from it.

Lest you forget, plenty of Parliamentarians all the way to ministerial level were using such schemes for decades. It is only relatively recently (1999?) that the ministerial code of conduct was changed and required ministers (if they wanted to be ministers) to 'fess up and liquidate their "offshore funds".

Here's a relatively recent example - and it's not, let's face it, as though he really needed the cash.....just a case of pure greed at work.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk...en-490784.html

It's certainly more difficult to escape HMRCs greasy touch now - partly because of forums like this publicising schemes which, pre-Internet blogosphere, would only have been known by certain very well connected people - MPs, ministers, tax lawyers and their friends. Ah for the good old days, now long gone.

As for HMRC being able to retrospectively change law, that's not quite what they are purporting to have done - they claim it's a clarification, a risible attempt at trying to fool us into thinking the law hasn't actually changed, just that we needed some help to understand it more fully.....21 years after it was written, and 7 years after HMRC became aware of the loophole being used!

To anyone trying to avoid tax, good luck. My dreamy naive days of believing tax was the price we pay for civilised society have long gone up in smoke.

Billionaire hotelier Leona Helmsley once infamously said (as the US justice system banged her up) that "We don't pay taxes - only the little people pay taxes". When I first read this I spat venom.

Now I'm older and wiser, I realise, unfortunately, she was just telling the truth.

If Western governments wanted to get rid of tax havens and offshoring I'm sure they could do it in a trice, but it somehow suits them (and their corporate friends) not to.

The US is currently embroiled in trying to extract the names of some 50,000 suspected tax dodgers from the Swiss, who are refusing to hand the names over, citing local confidentiality and secrecy laws.

The US has a list of blacklisted banks (any bank they suspect of laundering drug or terrorist money will appear on it, for example) - they could if they wanted cite UBS for aiding money laundering or US tax evasion, for example - but since Switzerland (I read) is the fourth largest foreign investor in the US, the likelihood of the US pissing off the Swiss in such a manner is a tad below negligible.

But why Jersey, IoM, Antigua etc are allowed to set up brass plate companies which do nothing but flush money through their accounts to avoid tax (something masses of British companies do), I cannot explain. Wasn't Lloyds in the press a few days back for using such offshoring to avoid paying its full taxes here, whilst being supported by the British taxpayer??!

It would be funny were it not true.

[sal626]

Agree with post above...

I was listening to a Mark Thomas podcast, and apparently some of the buildings HMRC are in, are rented from a company, which is based in one of these tax havens and part of a tax avoidance scheme.

So why dont HMRC go after them? lol

[nevergoingtopay]

Agree with post above...

I was listening to a Mark Thomas podcast, and apparently some of the buildings HMRC are in, are rented from a company, which is based in one of these tax havens and part of a tax avoidance scheme.

So why dont HMRC go after them? lol

This is true, the landlord of some of the HMRC and RCPO buildings lives in a tax haven. They keep this very quite as the pay millions to rent the buildings and it goes straight to this guy in his tax haven! Double Standards anyone!

[Ardesco]

I love the way that it has gone from average 85% to maximum 85% in two posts......

How low do you think it's going to go.....

[ASB]

This is true, the landlord of some of the HMRC and RCPO buildings lives in a tax haven. They keep this very quite as the pay millions to rent the buildings and it goes straight to this guy in his tax haven! Double Standards anyone!

It was actually HMRC who did the sale and leaseback!

[pedroPM]

Agree with post above...

I was listening to a Mark Thomas podcast, and apparently some of the buildings HMRC are in, are rented from a company, which is based in one of these tax havens and part of a tax avoidance scheme.

So why dont HMRC go after them? lol

I've been listening to them recently too (find them on itunes), very interesting stuff and just highlights what a piss-take of a society we live in where the average folk are working their nuts off to support the country while the super rich and corporations syphen money out of the country. What makes it all worse is that the government seem to encourage this behaviour nevermind stopping it!!

Another interesting fact from the podcasts is that both Bob Geldof and Bono are registered as non-domiciles to avoid paying tax...cheeky barstewards!!!

[nevergoingtopay]

I've been listening to them recently too (find them on itunes), very interesting stuff and just highlights what a piss-take of a society we live in where the average folk are working their nuts off to support the country while the super rich and corporations syphen money out of the country. What makes it all worse is that the government seem to encourage this behaviour nevermind stopping it!!

Another interesting fact from the podcasts is that both Bob Geldof and Bono are registered as non-domiciles to avoid paying tax...cheeky barstewards!!!

They are both Irish! so can't blame them for that!

[NickNick]

Another interesting fact from the podcasts is that both Bob Geldof and Bono are registered as non-domiciles to avoid paying tax...cheeky barstewards!!!

I'm assuming you mean non domiciled in Ireland. This happened a while ago IIRC when the republic changed it taxation laws for artists, so the richer ones "moved" to The Netherlands.