Tag Archives: tax haven

Coronavirus: This tax haven exclusion is just one way the UK is missing the chance to change

Registered in a tax haven? Then no tax-funded help for you: there’s no reason the UK should give tax-dodging firms a hand during the coronavirus crisis if they haven’t paid their full dues.

Here’s a good idea. Shame it’s another country that came up with it:

https://twitter.com/withorpe/status/1251925513217675264

https://twitter.com/withorpe/status/1251940269303435264

It makes perfect sense.

Companies that have withheld their profits from HM Revenue and Customs by registering themselves in tax havens have opted out of paying the full amount of tax that they could (I would say should) have been paying.

Therefore there is no reason they should benefit from aid schemes funded by those taxes, in the UK.

And do we expect the UK to impose a restriction similar to Denmark?

https://twitter.com/KateyKay3/status/1251951667450429450

So Denmark is doing the right thing, but the UK won’t because we have a Conservative government that receives donations from tax dodgers, in the opinions of the masses on Twitter.

Yet millions of people voted for the Conservative government that allows this gaming of the system.

There will be more chances, too. The simple fact is that the coronavirus lockdown, and the many deaths that Conservative government failures have directly caused, mean the Tories will need our help to get the UK running they way they want afterwards.

Alternatively, we could demand the changes we need in order to live the kind of lives they have in Denmark (for example).

Do you honestly want a few crawlers to throw that chance away?

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Donations to Dominic Raab show why Tories might want him as leader – but the public won’t

Dominic Raab: As Brexit Secretary, he once admitted he had no understanding of the importance of the Dover-Calais crossing.

Why would any tax-paying UK citizen want a prime minister who would let the super-rich get away without paying their taxes?

That is the message Tory leadership hopeful Dominic Raab is giving us by accepting donations from financiers linked to tax havens.

He’s being touted as the “no deal” Brexit candidate – a figure who can be counted on to turn the UK into a tax haven on the edge of the European Union.

Very handy for the super-rich. Not so pleasant for the poor who’ll have to stump up for the public services those rich scroungers will still want to use.

So while Mr Raab may seem highly attractive to Tories of the European Research Group (ERG) variety, he’ll have nothing to offer working-class Tories – or indeed anybody else – at all.

If he does win the leadership, let’s all make sure the public are reminded of that at the next general election.

Tory leadership favourite Dominic Raab has netted £73,000 in donations from financiers linked to tax havens.

The no-deal Brexit advocate, who is thought to be eyeing a run at the Conservative Party’s top job, has pocketed more than £127,000 since January, the MPs’ register of interests reveals.

The donations include £29,000 for a staff member in Raab’s office from the IPGL hedge fund, which is owned by ex-Tory treasurer Michael Spencer. Spencer’s hedge fund was named in the Paradise Papers in connection with a subsidiary based in Bermuda.

Private banking group Arbuthnot donated £44,000 to Raab’s office. The bank’s owner Henry Angest is also named in the Paradise Papers in connection with a subsidiary of his bank based in Barbados. Overall, Angest has donated nearly £7m to the Conservative Party.

In recent weeks, Raab has also received £10,000 each from Carpetright owner and Vote Leave donor Lord Harris and from Dominic Burke, chief executive of insurance firm Jardine Lloyd Thompson (JLT).

In March, Raab received £20,000 from Toby Ward, the head of JLT subsidiary Hayward Aviation, and £6,480 worth of communications advice from Melior Advisers.

All of the donations were declared in line with parliamentary regulations.

Source: Dominic Raab Pockets £73,000 In Donations From Financiers Linked To Tax Havens | HuffPost UK

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It was the biggest protest march in London since Iraq – and it will achieve as much

The masses on the march: This overhead view shows clearly the strength of feeling in support of democracy. But Theresa May isn’t listening.

When British citizens converged on London to protest against the UK’s participation in the Iraq War, it was estimated that between one million and two million people marched.

They achieved nothing. Then-prime minister Tony Blair was determined to take his country to war in the Middle East, on the basis of information we now know to have been nonsense.

On October 20, 2018, the British people again gathered in London, to demand a “people’s vote” on the UK’s membership of the European Union. As many as 670,000 people were estimated to have attended – a number only surpassed in the 21st century by that 2003 march against war in Iraq.

And it will achieve nothing. Current prime minister Theresa May is determined to take the country out of the EU, on a mandate that was influenced by arguments we now know to be nonsense. Even the BBC has confirmed that the Conservative government isn’t going to budge:

Aerial photograph shows the number of people attending was huge:

Social media commentators have praised the commitment of those who took part:

And some have even admitted that another referendum may not help:

But Downing Street won’t move.

At best, the demonstration makes it clear that there is significant opposition for the direction in which Mrs May and her government are taking the UK.

This may present some solace to us, if our fears are realised after March 30, 2019.

By then, if she gets her way, Mrs May will have started implementing the changes Brexit will allow – stripping working people of the rights they fought hard to win, turning the UK into a sweatshop for the poor and a tax haven for the rich.

It won’t help anyone. If predictions are accurate, all British citizens are likely to be worse-off as a result of Brexit.

Mrs May has already been told. The problem is, she just won’t listen.

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Do you want your health service run from a tax haven? The Tories do

[Image: Evolve Politics.]

It is impossible to reconcile the Tory claim that their government wants to invest in the UK with actions like handing £55 million of public money to health profiteers Care UK, to be deposited in its tax haven bank accounts.

Much of that money will be handed to shareholders in tax-free profits, doing nothing whatsoever to help people suffering from health problems and contributing to the worsening of – for example – the regular winter crises in Accident and Emergency departments across the UK.

And there is the question of corruption to consider: Care UK funded former Health Secretary Andrew Lansley when he was drafting his Health and Social Care Act, the lamentable piece of legislation that allowed private companies into the NHS. Did they provide him with £21,000 on the condition that they receive contracts worth millions?

The whole situation stinks like a cesspit. The sooner a Labour government takes office and kicks out these lazy freeloaders, the better.

It was announced last week that Care UK had secured a £55m contract to provide elective healthcare services at the North East London Treatment Centre, Redbridge.

Care UK reported in 2013 that public funds accounted for 88% of the company’s revenues and admitted to using “tax-efficient” financial structuresinvolving the Channel Islands.  Its sister company, Silver Sea, is domiciled in low-tax Luxembourg.  In 2014 the Guardian published a story claiming that Care UK had not paid a penny in corporation tax since it was bought by the private equity firm Bridgepoint Capital in 2010.

Claims that the Tories are selling off the NHS and other public services to their city banker mates have been rubbished as apocryphal by their supporters. But you only have to look at cases like this to see the truth of the matter.

These companies are simply in it for the profit, and the only way for them to make a profit is by charging more than the service costs to provide. In the public sector that difference would be ploughed back into the service for the benefit of all. For private companies, it goes out of the NHS and usually out of the UK, squirrelled away from the tax authorities in offshore havens. If they don’t make a profit they don’t stick around for long.

Source: Tories just handed £55m NHS contract to tax haven firm who ‘never paid a penny’ in corp tax | Evolve Politics

Seriously, Philip Hammond? You’d cripple our economy for some anti-EU sabre-rattling?

Philip Hammond told Welt am Sonntag: ‘We will change our model and we will come back, and be competitively engaged.’ Claptrap. [Image: Jane Barlow/PA].

Ye Gods. And this idiot is the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

Philip Hammond has threatened to launch a trade war against the European Union if he doesn’t get what he wants out of Brexit.

This is Tory arrogance and stupidity at its worst.

We have already seen what happens whenever Theresa May mentions the possibility of leaving the single market – the Pound plummets because investors lose confidence in it.

Some commentators are calling it “market correction”, which is as good a way of saying the UK economy has been over-valued as any I’ve seen.

And the EU constitutes half of the UK’s export market.

Jeremy Corbyn said he expected the majority of MPs in the House of Commons to be concerned about Mr Hammond’s idea, and no wonder: The UK would be crucified.

People didn’t vote for Brexit to be worse-off, but that is exactly what would happen if Mr Hammond has his way.

Demand for our goods would drop off, pushing people out of work. The “tax haven” status Mr Hammond wants to create means the state would not benefit – certainly not enough – from any trade that he was able to encourage.

It would be the end of the UK as a major international power and the beginning of a new dark age for its citizens. Mark my words.

The chancellor, Philip Hammond, has suggested Britain could transform its economic model into that of a corporate tax haven if the EU fails to provide it with an agreement on market access after Brexit.

In an interview with the German newspaper Welt am Sonntag, Hammond said that if Britain were closed off from European markets after leaving the EU, it would consider abandoning a European-style social model with European-style taxation and regulation systems, and “become something different”.

Source: Hammond threatens EU with aggressive tax changes after Brexit

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SNP Tax policy: Undercut the rest of the UK and start a ‘race to the bottom’

Nicola Sturgeon: She doesn't want you to think about the tax disaster she's planning.

Nicola Sturgeon: She doesn’t want you to think about the tax disaster she’s planning.

Following on from yesterday’s article on how the Scottish National Party wants Scotland to become a tax haven, readers may wish to see the analysis by Richard Murphy, of Tax Research UK.

The Greens, UKIP and SNP all presented tax proposals on January 29, in the run up to the election.

Mr Murphy’s analysis is particularly interesting. He wrote: “The SNP announced plans for a tax rate 3% lower in Scotland than the rest of the UK. Which, of course, they can. Except this is firstly an issue for the Scottish parliament and not Westminster so what it has to do with this election is hard to work out.”

It seems quite easy to work out, in fact – the SNP wants to panic the other parties with a tax rate that invites businesses and jobs to go north of the border. What will they do as a result? Set lower taxes themselves, perhaps? And what happens to all our deficit reduction plans then?

Mr Murphy continues by saying it is also hard “to work out how Scotland will make good the resulting shortfall in the Barnet formula funding allocation to Scotland that will automatically follow from this, straightaway, when any increase in tax revenues resulting from this policy (and I stress the word any, because I suspect there will be none) will be a very long time in coming.”

So it’s potentially a kamikaze policy and could do more harm than good.

Mr Murphy states that this policy will create “disastrous consequences for tax competition in the UK” and points out that “its economic consequences for Scotland really do need to be spelt out so people understand them, because they are pretty ugly”.

Yes they are.

How will SNP supporters spin this, one wonders?

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SNP policy on tax havens: Turn Scotland into one

150207corporationtax

The SNP would turn Scotland into a tax haven with a policy similar to that of the Conservative Party, according to the best evidence available on the day after Labour announced it would crack down on tax avoidance.

The Courier stated in August last year: “SNP proposals to cut corporation tax could turn an independent Scotland into a tax haven for multinational companies such as Google and Microsoft, according to Labour’s finance spokesman.

“[Iain] Gray told [an] audience of small business owners: “If you deliberately set your corporation tax, not at what you think is right, but less than the country next door to you, what you’re doing is you’re trying to create yourself as a tax haven.”

But Scottish Finance Minister John Swinney said the proposed cut in corporation tax would make Scotland a more competitive place to do business and create an incentive for growth, according to the article.

Of course, cutting Corporation Tax in order to get businesses to base themselves in your country is now a well-known phenomenon. The Irish republic did it – and what happened? According to Mr Gray: “Google and Microsoft set up in Ireland, move their money through Ireland but don’t employ people there; they simply use it as a conduit in order to pay less tax.”

George Osborne has tried a similar policy UK-wide, cutting Corporation tax by 25 per cent during the course of the Coalition Parliament. The result has been a drop in Treasury tax receipts.

So what can be said about SNP policy, on the day after Labour announced it would crack down on tax havens?

Only that they would copy the Tories – and try to turn Scotland into one.

(Or are we about to hear an announcement?)

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Did the economy grow faster thanks to prostitution and drugs? No. Where’s the tax take?

George Osborne: He knows how to find prostitutes and drugs but his Treasury has yet to receive any tax from them.

George Osborne: He knows how to find prostitutes and drugs but his Treasury has yet to receive any tax from them.

Reuters reckons the Coalition government could be heading for happy days after the ONS said the economy grew faster in 2011 and 2012 than previously estimated.

“The Office for National Statistics is revamping how it calculates the size of Britain’s economy, and… the revisions… show the economy grew more strongly than thought in the years after Britain’s coalition government came to power in 2010,” the news agency enthusiastically transmitted.

Unfortunately you have to look further down to find out how everybody was spending their money. Under a paragraph admitting that one revision meant corporate investment in research was now a benefit rather than a cost (how does that work?) we came down to the nitty-gritty.

“They also include more eye-catching changes, such as estimates of the activity of prostitutes and drug dealers.”

In other words, not only is this revision an example of figure-diddling on a grand scale, it’s an example of an altogether more tangible kind of diddling as well!

Has this boosted the UK’s tax take for 2011 or 2012? No.

Has this helped reduce the UK’s national deficit for 2011 or 2012? No.

Pimps and pushers tend not to submit tax returns, you see (at least, not for that).

Should you pay any attention to the claim that we’re all better off than we thought we were? No.

The new figures merely show that – along with the biggest businesses – the only people making any money back in 2011 and 2012 were the worst criminals – those who exploited others in the sex industry and those who squeezed money out of drug addicts.

Some might say there is little difference between them. Don’t forget George Osborne changed the rules to make the UK a nice, comfy tax haven for his fatcat friends.

Reuters – and the ONS – should be ashamed of themselves for trying to pull the wool over our eyes in such an offensive way. This retroactive sleight-of-hand means absolutely nothing for the economy of the United Kingdom and the people struggling to improve it for the benefit of the many, rather than the few.

Apparently the Tories are hoping the boosted figures will persuade gullible voters to give them another chance at government in May 2015. Fat chance!

All you have to do to debunk this ridiculous charade is ask George Osborne where the money went – because it didn’t go into the Treasury.

And no – we can be fairly certain that (most of) it didn’t go up his nose.

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Busting myths about tax justice

Reposted from Public & Commercial Services website

Prime minister David Cameron has talked tough on tax havens but his government can’t be taken seriously on tax justice. Here are 4 reasons why

The Left Economics Advisory Panel lists these reasons:

  1. Maude wants the UK to be a tax haven

    In 2012, Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude said it was a“compliment for” for the UK to be described as a tax haven.

  2. George Osborne slashing taxes for big business and the rich

    A hallmark of a tax haven is low or minimal tax rates. Corporation tax has been slashed from 52% in 1979 to 23% now, and chancellor George Osborne aims to lower it to 20% by 2015.

  3. Many government ministers’ wealth is based on tax avoidance and evasion

    As Guardian investigations have proven in the case of Cameron’s family fortune, and Channel 4’s Dispatches showed in the case of Osborne, Andrew Mitchell, and Phillip Hammond.

  4. You can’t collect taxes without the resources to do it

    Combined the annual tax gap is estimated at £120 billion. Yet the government is slashing HMRC’s resources.

For a serious look at tax justice, see taxjustice.net

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How do we wrestle fairness from a rigged economic system?

The problem in a nutshell - and this cartoon was drawn in 1972! [Image: Alan Hardman]

The problem in a nutshell – and this cartoon was drawn in 1972! [Image: Alan Hardman]

It’s terrific when an article makes you think.

Why Capitalism needs unemployment, by Cheltenham & Gloucester Against Cuts, tells us that unemployment is used as a weapon against the workers – with the threat of it used to force pay cuts on employees, while we are told to fear inflation if unemployment falls.

So fatcat company bosses win either way, it seems.

The article commented on Margaret Thatcher’s ideological mentor, Milton Friedman, who “understood that low levels of unemployment give confidence to workers, who can fight for better pay and conditions. When they’re successful, the profit margins of capitalists are reduced, causing them to put their prices up in response“.

We know this happens; we have seen it many times. Some may argue that it is different from cases in which shortages of particular commodities push up their prices and the prices of products that are made from them – but, with fuel prices as the only notable exception, have you ever seen prices drop after these shortages end?

The system is rigged to ensure that working people stay poor, either through pay cuts during high unemployment or inflation in low unemployment; meanwhile the employers and shareholders ensure that they stay rich, by sharing out extra profits gained by keeping pay low or by putting up prices.

What do they do with this money?

The answer, it seems, is nothing. They bank it in offshore tax havens and leave it there. This is why, we are told, Britain’s richest citizens have more than £20 trillion banked offshore at the moment.

That’s more than £20,000,000,000,000! Enough to pay off this country’s national debt 18,000 times over and still have plenty to spare. Enough to solve the problems of the world, forever. It is, in fact, more money than we can comfortably imagine.

It is doing nothing.

Faced with this knowledge, there can only be one logical question: Why?

Why rig the system so that ever-larger sums of money pour into these offshore accounts, if nothing is to be done with it? Where is the sense in that?

The only logical answer appears to relate to its effect on workers: Keeping the profits of their work away from the workforce means they are kept in misery and servitude to the ruling classes – the parasitical board members and shareholders.

There are knock-on effects. Taxpayers are hit twice – not only are they forced to grapple with ever-more-hostile pay offers, but their taxes pay for in-work benefits that subsidise corporate-imposed pay levels; they support people who have been forced into unemployment unnecessarily and the silly make-work schemes that are forced on those people by the Department for Work and Pensions, under threat of sanction.

It’s a protection racket. There should be a law against it. And this begs the next question: Why isn’t there a law against it? How can this corrupt system be dismantled and what should replace it?

That’s a very good question, because the other cosh being held over our collective heads is the possibility that firms will move abroad if new laws in this country threaten their massive profits. This is where an international agreement between nations or groups of nations would be very useful, if it was carried out in the right way – a Transatlantic, or Trans-pacific, Trade and Investment Partnership, perhaps.

And what do we see? Plans for such agreements have been put together and they do the exact opposite of what they should – tying the workers into ever-worsening conditions. This is why the TTIP, currently being pushed on the European Union, must be rejected – and why bosses will do anything to ensure it succeeds.

This is the situation. It seems clear that nothing will change it for the better until somebody has the courage to stand up to these manipulators (who were probably schoolyard bullies back in the day) and say enough is enough; change is coming – do what you will.

Tax evasion and avoidance is already a huge issue here in the UK; perhaps we need to make a criminal offence of manipulating the economy – with prison sentences for bosses who put their prices up purely to retain high profit margins when their salaries are already dozens of times higher than those of their workers.

But what else is needed? How can such a mechanism be brought in without scaring off business? Or should we let them go, and put something fairer in their place? Ban them from trading in the UK unless they conform to the new model?

These are ideas that need exploration – by many people, not just a few.

What do you think should happen?

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