February 9th, 2011
So far, 2011 has not been a comfortable year for the tax dodger. One month in and WikiLeaks is preparing to publish the names of thousands of offshore account holders in Switzerland, UK based companies like Vodafone have been criticised for alleged aggressive tax avoidance, and following a high profile corruption scandal, India’s media is hungry to expose the horrors of a system which allows billions of dollars to flow out of the country every year.
Best
estimates suggest that Africa has lost US$854 billion to illicit outflows of capital in the past three decades – aided and abetted...
February 7th, 2011
The ConDem government has announced a further development in its plan to turn the UK into a tax haven. As
the FT reports this morning:
Multimillionaire foreigners prepared to invest their money in Britain will find it easier to make a home in the UK under government plans to relax immigration rules for the super-rich.
The Home Office will shortly propose changes to “investor visas” to encourage more rich people to live and invest in the UK.
Under the plans:
January 31st, 2011
H M Revenue & Customs has, as many will be aware,
announced a new penalty regime for offshore disclosures.
As they say:
These new penalties come into force from 6 April 2011 and apply to Income Tax and Capital Gains Tax.
The legislation can be found in Schedule 10 of Finance Act 2010.
The new penalty is an enhancement of the penalties for
January 31st, 2011
I have often argued that tax havens / secrecy jurisdictions have been subject to regulatory capture. Wikipedia
defines this as:
regulatory capture occurs when a state regulatory agency created to act in the public interest instead advances the commercial or special interests that dominate the industry or sector it is charged with regulating. Regulatory capture is a form of government failure, as it can act as an encouragement for large firms to produce negative externalities. The agencies are called Captured Agencies.
The evidence became very clear ina presentation given last Friday by Jersey Finance to the members...
