The Panama Papers.

Cheers mefty – interesting summary. So UK happy that funds pay no tax and have benefit from double tax treaties. So like ISAa there is an exemption that appears to have explicit approval and therefore that we can all take advantage of. Sounds like ISAs!!!

also tried the FT and they seem to be only able to come up with two issues – the complexity of the structure of BH and the issue of bearer shares. So the complexity issue leaves me with this lingering thought that there is something else, but bearer shares are simply something of the time. I was dealing with bearer certificates in bond markets in the 80s so again cant condemn anyone else on those grounds.

Hmmm…..perhaps the immorality is making things up to make ill-founded attacks on the living and the dead.

J8:7

also tried the FT and they seem to be only able to come up with two issues – the complexity of the structure of BH and the issue of bearer shares.

Not sure what the FT regards as complex, but if it is the fact that company was managed in Bahamas, that, whilst not commonplace, is hardly unusual. The normal reason was that the haven of choice (the Bahamas) had company law that would cause issues for an open ended fund that wanted to issue and retire shares. You therefore used a company from a jurisdiction whose company law suited you better, but managed it from where you would have chosen otherwise.

Bearer shares aren’t nefarious per se but the Belgian dentists didn’t want registered bonds.

EDIT: There has been quite alot of coverage of how Panama is not the cleanest of jurisdictions hence the wish to manage it in the Bahamas, which is obviously better because it is one of ours.

Hmmm…..perhaps the immorality is making things up to make ill-founded attacks on the living and the dead.

Yes, perhaps…

Anyhoo, back to Honeywell

Honeywell is in the consortium that runs the Pantex Plant that assembles all of the nuclear bombs in the United States arsenal. Honeywell Federal Manufacturing & Technologies, successor to the defense products of AlliedSignal, operates the Kansas City Plant which produces and assembles 85 percent of the non-nuclear components of the bombs

Although declining in influence, Honeywell maintains a presence in emerging industries, such as Northern Alberta’s oil sands. Honeywell’s Plant integrator is currently deployed in some of the most important plant-sites in the Oil Sands (Syncrude, Suncor, and others).

The United States Environmental Protection Agency states that no corporation has been linked to a greater number of Superfund toxic waste sites than has Honeywell.

Could the Aerospace interests be anything to do with the Carroll Trust Allegations?

I think some people need to look at the usernames…there’s a big clue as to who’ll be able to deal with critical thinking and who won’t…

As regards this bit:

Honeywell is in the consortium that runs the Pantex Plant that assembles all of the nuclear bombs in the United States arsenal. Honeywell Federal Manufacturing & Technologies, successor to the defense products of AlliedSignal, operates the Kansas City Plant which produces and assembles 85 percent of the non-nuclear components of the bombs

for some reason it brings to mind John Bredenkamp:

I’ve just seen that John Bredenkamp was a client of Mossack Fonseca:

Bredenkamp, on the firm’s books since 1997, had been described in 2002 by a United Nations expert panel as “experienced in setting up clandestine companies and sanctions-busting operations.” In 2008, months before Mossack Fonseca cut ties, Bredenkamp was sanctioned by OFAC for allegedly being a “crony” of Zimbabwe dictator Robert Mugabe and a “well-known Mugabe insider.”

Bredenkamp did not respond to requests for comment, but he has consistently denied allegations concerning him and his companies and has denied having supported President Mugabe. In 2012, Bredenkamp successfully overturned European Union sanctions against him and his companies.

One company, Tremalt Limited, purchased equipment for armies in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the United Nations alleged. It took seven years before a Mossack Fonseca employee reported internally that an Internet search implicated a separate company the law firm said was owned by Bredenkamp “in a series of allegations concerning arms deals.”

But who am I to question the morality of such activity…

For years, the records show, Mossack Fonseca has earned money creating shell companies that have been used by suspected financiers of terrorists and war criminals in the Middle East; drug kings and queens from Mexico, Guatemala and Eastern Europe; nuclear weapons proliferators in Iran and North Korea, and arms dealers in southern Africa.

Reminds me of David Cameron’s visit to South Africa in 1989 for some reason… [/quote]

OK, can someone explain to me what the connection is between Honeywell and these Fonseca people?

I’ve got a Honeywell heating controller, could that be it?

Sure you can make a better guess than that…

So it is just all guessing then?

More interested JHJ on why this thread has link which calls it “JH and takes of the unexpected”?

More interested JHJ on why this thread has link which calls it “JH and takes of the unexpected”?

Not my doing~was the original title of the thread, until some apple polisher had a word with the mods… just look at the 1st post:

For those and point and laugh, how far off the mark is he?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-35918844

kudos to mundiesmiester…

So it is just all guessing then?

Isn’t that what hedge funds are about?

What about the increase in arms trade shares after the Paris Attacks… is that just moral investors, guessing there’s going to be more government funds accrued from taxpayers spent on Weapons of Mass Destruction?

But anyway… any advances on the link between Honeywell and Mossack Fonseca?

So looks like the brexiters are the ones out for Cameron, even the guardian is going nicer on him than these guys

It gets less hysterical in the guardian

Any comments from Ed or Hillary on those headlines?

To put everyone out of their misery and stop clogging the thread…

OK, can someone explain to me what the connection is between Honeywell and these Fonseca people?

It is of course Blairmore Holdings…

Besides Honeywell, another of their top 10 investments is AIG:

AIG was a central player in the financial crisis of 2008. It was bailed out by the federal government for $180 billion, and the government took control. The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission (FCIC) of the US government concluded AIG failed primarily because it sold massive amounts of insurance without hedging its investment. Its enormous sales of credit default swaps were made without putting up initial collateral, setting aside capital reserves, or hedging its exposure — a profound failure in corporate governance, particularly its risk-management practices.

All legal of course, but what do you expect when many of the lawmakers stand to profit…

As my parents in law said today;

We can’t understand what the problem is, he had 30,000€ on which he paid tax. Our finance minister denied having a Swiss account then it was discovered he had one with 600,000€ on which he had never paid tax

JY I would not describe Cameron seniors business as being for the über rich – the über rich typically manage their own affairs with a dedicated staff – look up Family Office

@grumI’ve seen planty of critism of JK (Scottish referendum) and Mr Dyson (moving production out of uk) related to their wealth

Also a bit confused by unit trusts not taxable for holders comment above, income and cap gains are taxable

big_n_daft – Member
Any comments from Ed or Hillary on those headlines?

Nope, nor Borris, Osborne, Fox, Livingston, Hodge, Rifkind, Goldsmith,or any other MPs (probably most of em) with offshore tax minimising investments

This is all about the weakening Cameron b4 the referendum, for a while it actially seemed like the Tories wouldn’t destroy themselves over this

This is all about the weakening Cameron b4 the referendum

So why are Labour attacking him so aggresively ? I think it is a side effect that it hurts Remain but its not the reasoning

Do you really think that an opposition party wouldn’t go after a weakened PM?

Compared to the schoolboy comments from Cameron directed at Corbs during PMQs, I think labour have been quite restrained.

Millibands. TBH I have no idea how changing someone’s will after their death is even remotely legal

Yes Kimbers I think it’s correct they do I was just replying to you saying it was the Brexit crowd whipping this up

Cameron isn’t going to gone in a year unless Leave wins. His likely replacements Osbourne/Boris are just as open to similar “offshore” nonsense so why replace Cameron quickly with another target. By 2020 GE this issue will be long forgotten, there will likely have been much more serious, ienreal issues to discuss by then

Man you guys are missing the point, they threw everything at milliband, including his kitchen sink (Mrs Gove hated his communist kitchen) and the attacks from the right were much more below the belt!
And it worked, he lost the election and is no longer leader, trying to defend Dave by saying Ed was worse really is why whataboutery !

Ed lost the election as he had no Charisma, looked weak under attack from Sturgeon and most of all as Labour had zero economic credibilty

Any comments from Ed or Hillary on those headlines?

THey have been as evasive as you have been and considerably quieter.

Isn’t that what hedge funds are about?

@jive why don’t you watch The Big Short

I agree, I doubt Dave will go either.

Its not like The Mail, Telegraph and Times are pounding on Dave because they follow labourers lead
They are just following the orders of their owners because Dave’s pro EU, I can see no other reason, considering their usual partisan stance.
As I said the Observer is being nicer than any of those guys on the PM

Don’t understand this muck racking on the £200k gift from his mother either, not taxable unless she dies within 7 years of making it (bizarre that law but thats what it is). Also from Guardian piece it seems Cameron elected to pay more in tax than he needed to by waiving certain allowances ?

He can be accused of PR mismanagement, but there’s no evidence of fiddling his taxes.

If anything he’s voluntarily paid too much tax (about £25k in total?). Probably not many people on STW have done that (I haven’t).

Cameron left £300k sitting in a bank earning 1% – and people want these guys running more of the economy!?!?!?

How bizarre…..

I see that Cameron still hasn’t released his tax return.

Compare and contrast
This

to

This

Last time I looked, like the shadow Chancellor I paid my taxes to HMRC, not a firm of accountants. So what? well, the accounts have professional standards, that they owe ‘principally’ to their clients, which in this case is the PM, who presumably has supplied them his tax return in order to extract the information…

One of the more interesting lines in the RNS breakdown is the suggestion that:

“The Prime Minister has no other sources of taxable income or gains, from either the UK or Overseas.”

That’s rather brave, they can’t know that, they can only know what they’ve been told.

I don’t think that they aren’t the numbers on his tax return, but I can’t help being uncomfortable about the route they made to the public.

TBH, HurtMore If I had £300k sitting routinely in a bank acct, and had said “We’re all in it together” I don’t think I could have kept a straight face. But then I’m not a politician like Cam.

Yeah but the whole thing has the overarching qualifier on the first page saying “as declared on your tax returns”.

I’d be interested in hearing if Cameron’s wife had only the same number of shares in Blairmore as Cameron did. NB that the notes only disclose the value that Cameron himself received yet both he and his wife sold shares.

Also, I’d imagine there will be a huge number of cyberattacks on that provincial accountancy firm in the next few days!

If you have an accountant do your tax return its not unusual to have them take care of everything in payment. They’ve issued that statement about all sources of income as that too is normal and iirc thats the question on the tax refurn

tmh Cameron sold all his shares etc when the became PM to avoid claims of conflict of interest, yes a buy-to-let would be much better financially but not worth the press hassles

I see Corbyn is releasing his tax returns, interesting as absolutely no one is interested or has asked – shows this is all politics. We are much more interested in why he deleted all the blog entries on his website or exactly who paid for his trip to Gaza for example (as an aside Mahmood Abbas’s son has an account in Panama)

Legal avoidance so the issue should be about limiting it by law.

The PM issue for me is about how the attempt to provide a limited response to spin it away backfired. Can we have a law against political spin? At least a fine surely….

@ Jambalaya , that french minister , Cahuzac , had to quit and is facing court in september .

Cameron and co have been telling us for years that there is no money left in the coffers , and have cut services and payments to a lot of people . And at the same time they are doing all they can to pay less tax on their personal affairs .

And at the same time they are doing all they can to pay less tax on their personal affairs .

Too many facts spoil the wrath…
https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10154110468338000&id=547512999

I see that Cameron still hasn’t released his tax return.

😆 Keep digging that dry well why don’t you – the more shrill and ridiculous the attempts to find some sort of impropriety that isn’t there and create mountains out of molehills, the more it turns the public off as clear posturing.

As Thatcher said: “If my critics saw me walking over the Thames they would say it was because I couldn’t swim.”

Keep digging that dry well why don’t you – the more shrill and ridiculous the attempts to find some sort of impropriety that isn’t and create mountains out of molehills

I think you completely misunderstand what’s going on. What you dismiss as molehills goes to the very heart of the issue, which is that the rich live by a completely different set of rules to the rest of society. It’s not about 30k here, or 100k there, it’s about naked hypocrisy, which is quite a simple concept that everyone understands, everyone except Cameron and his apologists that is.

Andrew Marr show had a good discussion. Poly Toynbee openly said it is not a story about illegality or tax avoidance but about “being that rich” she also said “Ireland is effectively a tax haven”

which is that the rich live by a completely different set of rules to the rest of society. It’s not about 30k here, or 100k there, it’s about naked hypocrisy, which is quite a simple concept that everyone understands,

Shock, Horror, Tories in ‘looking after the rich’ controversy!

Stop the presses, hold the front page – everyones going to be aghast at this revelation, and if people only known before the election that David Cameron turned out to have been quite well off and probably had some shares and savings then they would never have voted for him

😆

Stop the presses, hold the front page – everyones going to be aghast at this revelation

Don’t be ridiculous. Is your argument in his defence that the public shouldn’t be concerned or angry about their PM exercising double standards because they should have always known that because he’s a tory that he would be like that and they shouldn’t have been so naive?

Cameron turned out to have been quite well off and probably had some shares and savings

As you well know, the story is not about Cameron being rich and having some shares and savings, and you look quite silly suggesting it is.

see Corbyn is releasing his tax returns, interesting as absolutely no one is interested or has asked – shows this is all politics.

If Cameron released his tax returns and Corbyn didn’t, you would be complaining about it.

As you well know, the story is not about Cameron being rich and having some shares and savings, and you look quite silly suggesting it is.

The truth is that since there has been no illegality or even anything that would fall into the bracket of aggressive tax avoidance, it is about precisely that – even if others are trying to make something else out of it for political gain.