The Panama Papers.

“Let them eat biscuits”

“Let them eat biscuits”

chocolate coated?

c’mon Outofbreath, time to stop winding the “little boys” up – its quite a shock to hear the news that rich people don’t like paying tax

Nope, but it was a shock to hear that people don’t think ISAs are tax avoidance, or that the cycle to work scheme isn’t tax avoidance or that they can come up with a workable definition of the legal point where avoidance ends and evasion begins in one sentence when every free country in the world finds it an impossible task to define and legislate for it.

Nope, but it was a shock to hear that people don’t think ISAs are tax avoidance, or that the cycle to work scheme isn’t tax avoidance or that they can come up with a workable definition of the legal point where avoidance ends and evasion begins in one sentence when every free country in the world finds it an impossible task to define and legislate for it.

Top tip: we’re less stupid than you think, and you’re less clever than you think.

It was a shock to me to realise that by simply residing here i was tax avoiding everywhere else in the world

This also has the benefit of actually being really what you said rather than simplistic distorted version of a complicated discussion.

EDIT: actually they ^^^ said it better than I could

but it was a shock to hear that people don’t think ISAs are tax avoidance, or that the cycle to work scheme isn’t tax avoidance

That’s because they’re not.

But you would rather pretend to be clever than try and learn something.

can come up with a workable definition of the legal point where avoidance ends and evasion begins

There is a workable definition of where avoidance ends and evasion begins – Is there a tax loss and is it permanent, deliberate and concealed (or something like that)? Its working out where tax planning ends and avoidance begins that’s tricky.

It was a shock to me to realise that by simply residing here i was tax avoiding everywhere else in the world

Which is odd because I’d have thought that the ‘being resident somewhere with a nice tax regeme’ thus avoiding tax in all the other countries wouldnt be a grey area for you. F1 drivers living in Monaco for instance.

Look its not funny , its not what you said*, its not what I said you said and its really really dull
YAWNS at the moving goalposts.
* i make the assumption you have not mistaken me for a Monaco F1 driver as your flights of fancy are clearly far more outlandish than they are insightful or funny.

Whats even funnier is those syphoning off an ever increasing amount of money from the public purse (allowed to do so by government ministers with an interest), avoiding tax personally and as a business entity, while ramping up costs to the end users us and selling it as a saving.

Many legitimate UK businesses have gone to the wall as a result of not being able to compete with foreign corporations, who are able to sell significantly cheaper as a direct result of their off-shore tax avoidence, an advantageous position many were unable to exploit.

The corruption is old news! has been quietly nurtured over many years, runs extremely deep and is arguably part of the business world. Is it accetable I don’t think so!

To me there seems to be an agenda of converting everything to corpoarte rule for the sake of easier goverment administration, diffusion and obfuscation of responsibility creating an environment where it’s eaiser to run roughshod over people, nice butties for all involved, with a blind eye turned (those making the rules direct/indirect stakeholders) to all the indiscretions.

I wonder if the internet shills are benefiting directly/indirectly or are just toadie lickspittles.

Whats even funnier is thoseThat’ssyphoning off an ever increasing amount of money from the public purse (allowed to do so by government ministers with an interest),

If you’re talking about an EU country let’s hear more detail about this.

The UK tax rate, is what it is, to pay for the infrastructure that all combines to make the UK a good place to do business and earn money. All the schemes within the UK that allow you to offset some expenses against tax are part of that scheme and legitimate.

Shifting your profits earned from UK infrastructure to somewhere else that doesnt incur anything like the expense so can charge less is theft(whatever the crooks call it) from the UK current account and may explained why we have gone £70 billion into the red during the same period this tax evasion has developed.

That our politicians are part of the scam makes them crooks too.

That our financial companies facilitate it makes them crooks too.

Insuspect if it came out the money laundering aspect of the business would be more unsavoury than the tax theft.

Makes you proud to be British.

Say someone bought a knife instead of a cake… not to cut the cake, but to mug other people’s cakes and build up a stockpile of cakes that will never be eaten.

Pretty handy investment that knife, as soon enough, the mugger has enough cake to lobby the baker and get him to change the recipe with a commission payable.

The new recipe is a success and the baker is able to charge a bit more.

The baker pays commission to the mugger, who uses the money to buy more knives and employ people to spread his enterprise overseas.

All the cakes he accumulates he hides away from prying eyes, whilst the shortage of cake available to the majority leads to austere times.

Don’t get me started on the biscuits…

jivehoneyjive – Member

Say someone bought a knife instead of a cake… not to cut the cake, but to mug other people’s cakes and build up a stockpile of cakes that will never be eaten.

So Cameron now says he did profit from his dad’s offshore company

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-35992167

#CurseDavidCameron 😆

Politicians never learn. You knew his cock was in the custard with the silly statement yesterday and for relatively small sums of money (judging by the latest news). Muppet.

Covering up always ends in tears.

Gotta be a fair few nervous Tories Bojo, Osborne, Goldsmith, Hunt, etc ,must be happy that the anti EU tabloids are currently being nice to them

What he said
Of course Dave benefitted from it is is how his dad made his money
Everyone knew the answer anyway but he has not helped himself with slimy PR answers.
Personally i will be very surprised if all millionaire daddy gave him was what has been stated- its small fry for a millionaire to pass on . Clearly daddy knew how to pass on his assets without tax so I dont think he would have been that remiss with his own kids.

kimbers – Member
Gotta be a fair few nervous Tories Bojo, Osborne, Goldsmith, Hunt, etc ,must be happy that the anti EU tabloids are currently being nice to them

I assume you count Chuka as a Tory. Given his Ibiza pad….Owned by his mother, through an offshore trust. Just using the legally available ways to create tax efficiency and all that. Bit like the previous Labour leader’s family and their tax arrangements around the father’s house. Not illegal, but…..

Either way, I suspect very few will come out of this well. On any side of the fences.

Oh, and the Graun and their Cayman Islands office…..

I assume you count Chuka as a Tory.

Pretty much actually, didn’t he coin the phrase ‘blue labour’ ?

I think none will come out looking well, it just depends on who the media focus on.

Except possibly Corbs does he have an offshore stash ?!!!

tho I’m sure once the Referendum is over normal service will resume and he will be the focus

Except possibly Corbs does he have an offshore stash ?!!!

Almost certainly. These dope threads and dat psikk whip don’t come for free, yagetme?

🙂

So first three questions for QT

Cameron’s slush fund
Tata being bought by a slush fund
Eu referendum pamphlet paid for by a slush fund

[^ no need to pay the Saatchi slush fund for the next election poster 😀 ]

Damn, three first….I suppose they have to keep nutty Carswell frothy

Panama Q2

Just Tata to go (unfortunate choice of words)

Did Corbs get his bike on C2W ?
I can see the headlines already….

Enough QT, seeing Toby Young on newsnight was bad enough, I cant take any more BS, bed
Carswell seemed relatively sane compared to the economist on the right

Also re Corbs cyclinh clobber,I speak from experience, your shellsuit will get chewed up by your chainring after a few pedal turns…

Q3 should we nationalise steel 😉

a few years ago I got a large bill from the Dutch tax authority for a period of time when I was neither living nor working there

Buying personal services but no VAT paid whilst on holiday ? 😉 (sorry could’t resist)

Sorry to repeat myself but tax evasion exists at all levels of society, tradesmen agreeing to a lower price for cash is tax evasion. I’d not be surprised if the total amount of tax evaded that way exceeded all the legal tax avoidance via offshore trusts by some margin.

I am genuinely surprised at the Cameron furore. Its been common knowledge for years he had a trust fund setup by his father, the trust income (£19k pa) was fully declared to HMRC and taxed at Cameron’s top rate (40%). Ronnie Corbert avoided IHT by gifting his wealth to his kids more than 7 years before his death, Cameron senior could have done the same and both are totally legal

@kimbers supposition from me but I think Cameron’s trust was moved from Panama to Ireland as Cameron had no need for secrecy as trust was perfectly legal and also not least as Panama is seen as rather “dodogy” so an attempt to head off the sort of newspaper storm we now have (that failed obviously)

@JY Chapeau but I have been banging on EU and tax way before the Panama papers. Will ease off as not necessary

I’d not be surprised if the total amount of tax evaded that way exceeded all the legal tax avoidance via offshore trusts by some margin.

I would be amazed if any of your guesses were true.

That is one of your least likely guesses.

If I was a Labour MP with dubious finances, I’d be losing sleep! The Tories will be desperate to divert attention and hold up a sacrificial lamb, ironically demonstrating “we are all at it together”.

I bet City of London accountants have been rushed off their feet this week!

Nope they’ll brass it out and it’ll be bau by May.

Indeed and given what he’d done then quite rightly so.

I wonder if Jimmy Carr will say anything? Cameron publically accused him of moral wrong doing when it came out that Carr had been avoiding tax…although maybe Carr will just say “well we really are in it together…”

@ Edenvalleyboy et al – can you please explain how Cameron avoided tax? He’s paid income tax at the right rate on the dividends, and he would have paid capital gains tax on the increase in the investment, had it not increased by less than his allowance (which is available to all).

Can anyone making comments in this thread actually demonstrate how tax has been inappropriately avoided by Cameron in this context? If he’d directly invested in shares rather than via Blairmore he would have paid exactly the same amount of tax surely???

Are you saying Dave was avoiding tax too ?

I wonder if Jimmy Carr will say anything? Cameron publically accused him of moral wrong doing when it came out that Carr had been avoiding tax…although maybe Carr will just say “well we really are in it together…”

Cameron hasn’t been avoiding tax. He’s actually paid more tax than if he had put it in an ISA.

As for Jimmy Carr, who cares what he says or thinks? He’s a tax dodger.

can you please explain how Cameron avoided tax?

Can you explain why he did not just say all of this openly and explain it fully when given the chance ? Can you explain why he sold his shares prior to becoming PM ?

The PM knows why this is toxic, even if you do not.

Its pretty obvious the sn of a man who made his money form tax avoidance schemes, if for no other reason that it paid for his education and food etc, has benefitted from tax avoidance schemes.

Ronnie Corbert avoided IHT by gifting his wealth to his kids more than 7 years before his death, Cameron senior could have done the same and both are totally legal

Are there any other examples of people being able to predict the date of their own death to avoid inheritance tax? Or is it a spooky supernatural gift possessed only by the little bespectacled fella?

@junkyard yet again you are unable to deal with the underlying issues. There has clearly been poor management of the message by Cameron, that is obvious However that doesn’t mean that his actions (or indeed his father’s actions) have been anything other than entirely appropriate.

It’s only ‘toxic’ because as per usual no-one understands what the hell they are talking about.

In all probability there are people on this thread indirectly invested in an offshore UCITS via their pension scheme. They are perfectly legal vehicles – an investor doesn’t avoid any tax.

+1

Incredibly poor PR stuff from Number 10 but this is a storm in a teacup.

PS the real issue here is where all the dirty money domiciled in Panama or BVI comes from, and whether crimes were committed in accruing it. Why on earth is everyone bleating on about a perfectly legal bog standard fund which the PM had a minor stake in, when the real story is the embezzlement of BILLIONS by kleptocrats across the globe.

Just unbelievable and a disservice to the people who have really suffered as a result of offshore shenanigans (i.e. most of the population of the developing world including China!).