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| REPATRIATE TAX-EVASION-CAPITAL-FLIGHT TO SAVE THE WORLD'S ECONOMY. OUR GRANDCHILDREN NEED JOBS! |
TAX-EVADERS ACROSS THE WORLD ARE BELTING OUT THE MESSAGE THAT "NEW INTERNATIONAL LAWS ARE REQUIRED TO CURB AVOIDANCE"
Oh no they are not! We don't need new laws.
The bent bookkeepers are now desperate to impress on OECD tax collectors that the avoiders and evaders have always acted within the rules; and have acted legally in creating risible transactions to gouge OECD profits and capital to tiny islands, mountain fortresses and dodgy regimes. All the Balance Sheets and Tax Returns they have prepared or signed as True and Honest records, over the past 30 years, are therefore legal - they aver.
The law needs changing - they say. But it is not so. False Accounting, making things up; fabricating transactions, has been well defined criminal behaviour for over a hundred years, or more. Such rules are being applied, now, in all OECD countries to perpetrators of "ordinary" tax-back-duty-cases and tax-investigations. If the international posh criminals are to be judged innocent, within the law as it has been written to date - then all past cases can be overturned - all the accused are innocent - and any taxes, penalties and costs must be returned to them. Al Capone - jailed for keeping two sets of books - must be exonerated and his family compensated.
Surely the offshore tax-evaders are not saying there is one law for the poor and no law for the rich?
UK major public companies recently publicly protested that their hundreds of tax-haven companies are NOT used to avoid or evade tax. Most of us no longer believe in fairies. This was my letter to the media:
• Presumably the FTSE 100 groups who do not use their tax-haven subsidiaries for avoidance or evasion will, as public companies, publish the fine details of the transactions. (Top firms condemned for prolific use of tax havens, 13 May). To legally reduce UK or OECD taxable profits, the deductions must be (1) commercial terms; (2) arm's-length; (3) commercially necessary (4) not tax-dodges – otherwise HMRC can retrospectively deny decades of claims. I estimate that of the global $21tn of tax-evasion-capital-flight, more than $2tn (five million jobs for 10 years) has been illicitly siphoned from the UK. HMRC must repatriate it.
Noel Hodson
Oxford
Oh no they are not! We don't need new laws.
The bent bookkeepers are now desperate to impress on OECD tax collectors that the avoiders and evaders have always acted within the rules; and have acted legally in creating risible transactions to gouge OECD profits and capital to tiny islands, mountain fortresses and dodgy regimes. All the Balance Sheets and Tax Returns they have prepared or signed as True and Honest records, over the past 30 years, are therefore legal - they aver.
The law needs changing - they say. But it is not so. False Accounting, making things up; fabricating transactions, has been well defined criminal behaviour for over a hundred years, or more. Such rules are being applied, now, in all OECD countries to perpetrators of "ordinary" tax-back-duty-cases and tax-investigations. If the international posh criminals are to be judged innocent, within the law as it has been written to date - then all past cases can be overturned - all the accused are innocent - and any taxes, penalties and costs must be returned to them. Al Capone - jailed for keeping two sets of books - must be exonerated and his family compensated.
Surely the offshore tax-evaders are not saying there is one law for the poor and no law for the rich?
UK major public companies recently publicly protested that their hundreds of tax-haven companies are NOT used to avoid or evade tax. Most of us no longer believe in fairies. This was my letter to the media:
• Presumably the FTSE 100 groups who do not use their tax-haven subsidiaries for avoidance or evasion will, as public companies, publish the fine details of the transactions. (Top firms condemned for prolific use of tax havens, 13 May). To legally reduce UK or OECD taxable profits, the deductions must be (1) commercial terms; (2) arm's-length; (3) commercially necessary (4) not tax-dodges – otherwise HMRC can retrospectively deny decades of claims. I estimate that of the global $21tn of tax-evasion-capital-flight, more than $2tn (five million jobs for 10 years) has been illicitly siphoned from the UK. HMRC must repatriate it.
Noel Hodson
Oxford
Tony Ridge
York
• Presumably the FTSE 100 groups who do not use their tax-haven subsidiaries for avoidance or evasion will, as public companies, publish the fine details of the transactions. (Top firms condemned for prolific use of tax havens, 13 May). To legally reduce UK or OECD taxable profits, the deductions must be (1) commercial terms; (2) arm's-length; (3) commercially necessary (4) not tax-dodges – otherwise HMRC can retrospectively deny decades of claims. I estimate that of the global $21tn of tax-evasion-capital-flight, more than $2tn (five million jobs for 10 years) has been illicitly siphoned from the UK. HMRC must repatriate it.
Noel Hodson
Oxford
• The role of accountants and advisers is to legally find the best ways to understand and use the tax regime to the best interest of their client (100 of UK's richest people concealing billions in offshore tax havens, 10 May). To agree with Jennie Granger at HMRC, most accountants will be acting legitimately and there should be nothing to fear. A "crackdown" on tax evasion is however necessary and this leaked data provides the perfect opportunity for David Cameron to show the public that he's serious – turning his words into action ahead of the G8 summit.
Adam Harper
Association of Accounting Technicians
• My blood boiled reading about Amazon receiving more grants than the corporation tax they paid. What is this government playing at? My business partner and I set up Firebrand 12 years ago and tried to get funding from regional development agencies. We drew a blank. So we funded the business ourselves. We now employ 50 people in the UK and have offices in Denmark, Sweden, Holland and Germany employing another 50. All of it without a penny from any UK government or the EU. We've always paid our taxes – we've never offshored our activities to avoid tax, although we could have. We invest in the UK and EU with no incentives or support from the state. Good old Amazon, making millions from the UK taxpayer and getting more back from the government than they pay in tax. What a strange world we live in. Some of us struggle to do the right thing for the good of the country and our long-term futures.
Robert Chapman
Firebrand Training, London
• Couldn't the EU agree a uniform rate of corporation tax to be levied by all of its members – including their overseas dependencies? Sorry, Ukip.
Keith Potter
Gunnislake, Cornwall
• Amazon exemplifies the Thatcher dictum of "no such thing as society". Their behaviour is not only contributing to the parlous state of our welfare and NHS but is also destroying small businesses. I predict the party that can propose a workable solution to this problem will win the next election.
Stephen J Decker
Chelmsford, Essex
• I'm furious Simon Jenkins should so casually deploy that loaded pejorative "strident" to Margaret Hodge, chair of the public accounts committee (Comment, 17 May). She is not strident: she is determined, forthright and intelligent. More to the point, she is an effective champion of the people inside parliament – and we have damned few of those these days.
Catherine Rose
Olney, Buckinghamshire
TAX AND ECONOMICS ARTICLES 29TH APR 13
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