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| TAX EVADERS WILL BE RE-EDUCATED TO BE GOOD CITIZENS, BEFORE RE-JOINING SOCIETY. |
"Cameron calls in the tax havens" is the front-page headline in the 5th June 2013 Guardian newspaper. Tax Justice Network, UK and US Uncut and all protesters against poverty, shout HURRAH!
But... the next question is: what does Conservative, upper-class, Offshore City Trust Fund Babe, Etonian, Bullingdon Club, Oxford, minor aristocrat, related to HM Queen, UK Prime Minister, The Rt Hon David Cameron MP, really intend?
At home, in the UK, tax cheats, tax planners and tax haven apologists are creating public bewilderment about tax-minimization (following government incentives), tax-avoidance (fiddling the books like ENRON) and tax-evasion (hiding money, people's identities and lying). E.G. Today's BBC news reports the Tory's shock and horror about a rich man giving £1.3 million to The Labour Party and getting charitable tax relief; and they rank it with tax-evasion. It is not.
We, The People, must learn that while the black economy and local tax fiddling is unfair, it does not damage the economy. Whether a plumber hangs on to some tax, or whether the government gets and spends it, makes little difference nationally. What does ruin nations, and what has ruined nations, is Tax-Evasion-Capital-Flight, when both the tax (say 30%) and the profits (100%), paid by hardworking people from their after-tax incomes, are gouged from our High Streets and siphoned to tax-havens. Tax haven assets have been built from illegal Tax-Evasion-Capital-Flight - and now we need the offshore $21 to $34 trillion repatriated.
What the tax-evaders are frantically lobbying for is a protection deal - to draw a line in the sand today - they'll volunteer, say, 5% tax and the government, tax collectors and courts will forgive and forget. I don't think that is how it will be - why should government settle for 5% when it can legally, under existing laws, claim 300%? Angry citizens, impoverished by austerity and lack of national investment, who have paid their taxes for the past 30 years, should watch this space.
We, The People, must learn that while the black economy and local tax fiddling is unfair, it does not damage the economy. Whether a plumber hangs on to some tax, or whether the government gets and spends it, makes little difference nationally. What does ruin nations, and what has ruined nations, is Tax-Evasion-Capital-Flight, when both the tax (say 30%) and the profits (100%), paid by hardworking people from their after-tax incomes, are gouged from our High Streets and siphoned to tax-havens. Tax haven assets have been built from illegal Tax-Evasion-Capital-Flight - and now we need the offshore $21 to $34 trillion repatriated.
What the tax-evaders are frantically lobbying for is a protection deal - to draw a line in the sand today - they'll volunteer, say, 5% tax and the government, tax collectors and courts will forgive and forget. I don't think that is how it will be - why should government settle for 5% when it can legally, under existing laws, claim 300%? Angry citizens, impoverished by austerity and lack of national investment, who have paid their taxes for the past 30 years, should watch this space.
The reasons for creating a thick black smokescreen of confusion is that the stakes are very, very, very high. There is more than $21 trillion hidden offshore and those who fabricated invoices, signed false audits and tax-returns, hid identities and laundered the vast amounts siphoned from OECD nations - could go to prison; while their understandably annoyed clients cough up 3 times the original, evaded tax bills. $21 trillion repatriated to national treasuries will pay all deficits - we could all have a tax holiday - but that $21 trillion will be defended by the anonymous "owners", to their last breath. Look out for massive bribery of government officers (why not join the civil service today?). Will honest officers take two steps forward. Where is the 2013 version of Elliot Ness and his brave incorruptible team of Untouchables?
As he takes on the Chair of meetings of the G8 nations - the countries of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States - David Cameron pledges to crackdown on tax-avoidance, tax-evasion and thus tax-havens. The tax havens, whose leaders he has summoned to his court, are those that Britain still governs, by historic precedence or by economic clout. They include the Crown Dependencies of Bermuda, The British Virgin Islands, the Cayman Islands, Gibraltar, Anguilla, Montserrat, the Turks and Caicos Islands, Jersey, Guernsey, and the Isle of Man. Cayman is credited with being one of the largest global money laundering centres - and the World is waiting for the impact of, and tax clawback from, the 130,000 recently published names of British Virgin Islands tax-evaders. Even Greece might get back some loot gouged from Athens over the past 30 years.
Presumably the other 7 nations will crack down on their tax havens; and put pressure on all OECD members. It might surprise some readers to see LONDON as one of the largest tax-havens and money launderers. What will the UK's Prime Minister do about that?
OECD membership
Will all OECD nations cooperate to also "crack-down" on offshore and onshore low tax regimes and money laundering centres? That should sweep up all 71 or more tax-havens, as listed in 2011 by The Tax Justice Network's Financial Secrecy List. This list is based on OECD data which is updated as regimes are persuaded to join and cooperate with the tax and treasury departments of the big economies.
WORDS OF CAUTION AND OF COMFORT
If you imagine that they don't know where you live and what assets you've hidden - think again! Not only have 130,000 BVI names just been published from a single tax-haven but the US, for example, has been working via FACTA (Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act) since 2010 and, with the OECD, Paris, are cracking open the secret safes in all offshore banks, including Swiss banks. Best advice is "Move your Money Onshore - now" and clean up your tax affairs voluntarily. ...And check your tax advisers' Professional Indemnity Policies.
TAX TALES & "WE DO BELIEVE IN FAIRIES"
WILL TAX-PLANNERS BE JAILED?
TAX-HAVEN OWNERS IDENTIFIED
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