Tuesday, 3 March 2015

NON-DOMS, 123,000 UNDESIRABLE ALIENS

A debilitating plague of non-domiciled invaders. A peculiarly British problem.

Aliens adopt human form to
live among us, steal our jobs
and enslave us in debt.
Many major UK companies are now run by directors or executives who claim they are not full UK citizens. They are not domiciled here for tax purposes; but most were born here and live here - they are the infamous, traitorous, tax-free "non-doms" of no fixed abode. Some of the internationally important companies they run also purport to have their headquarters or profit centres offshore, in poxy little bent tax-havens like Luxembourg, some allegedly managed by local false-directors, on peanut salaries.

They direct vast swathes of UK capital investment. Much of the capital they control is siphoned offshore, estimated to be £2 trillion (8 million good jobs), depleting and sabotaging the UK capital base. They direct our banks, The City, the media, and they lobby and influence our politicians. Their decisions affect millions of jobs and the daily lives of all 63 million UK citizens. 

Non-Domiciled tax status is a spill over from 1799 (FT) and from the days of the British Empire "...on which the sun never sets" to accommodate a few rich Maharajahs, Kings, Emperors, Adventurers and Moguls, visiting London - not as a tax-evasion scheme for 123,000 UK Subjects. 

What do they pay tax on? People resident in, say, London, but who are non-domiciled in the UK, pay tax only on income (not capital) that is either earned in London or is imported into London from other countries. Most non-doms therefore argue with HMRC that any money they import is "capital" not "income". e.g. If Count Alucard Pedro Gabrieli Von Vladmic has £300M capital, earning £30M a year in his estates in Transylvania (where he claims he wants to be buried) - and he transfers £10M to his permanent home in London, he will argue that he is bringing in un-taxable capital ("investing in the UK") not income, which would be taxed. If he was tax-resident in, say for example, New York, he would pay US tax on his £30M world income, say £10.5M. The UK charge him a non-dom fee of £30 to £90 thousand; 100 times less than any other OECD country would charge. Being a UK legal non-dom, does not rule out also indulging in criminal tax-evasion via tax-havens. 

******************************************************* UPDATE:  8th April 2015. 
Times are changing.


8 April 2015.

Here, in 18th Century England, we have a quaint tax rule to ensure that aristocrats, our superiors, do not pay tax. Its called “Non-Domicile” or Non-Dom. By claiming that your great-great-grandfather was born in Transylvania, or anywhere outside England, and that you intend to die and be buried in your family crypt in Transylvania; and as long as you are very, very rich, our considerate and kindly tax collectors will classify you as non-dom. And you pay no tax! Today, a wicked, evil, revolutionary socialist leader of the Labour Party vows to abolish non-dom status – and drag our aristocracy down into the plebeian gutter with the hoi-polloi, the great unwashed mass of diseased peasants. Is this the end of the British Empire, on which the sun never sets? Or is it the start of Fair Taxation?

**************
The Guardian Newspaper – 8 April 2015:

Ed Miliband will say 18th-century rule is morally wrong as it suggests ‘anything goes for those at the top’ – but he stops short of blaming non-doms directly
Ed Miliband will promise to end a colonial-era symbol of inequity in the tax system by announcing that, if he wins the election, he will abolish the non-domicile rule that allows many of Britain’s richest permanent residents to avoid paying tax in the UK on their worldwide income.
Labour will say the rule, introduced by William Pitt the Younger in the late 18th century, has been wide open to abuse and offends the moral basis of taxation. Everyone who has made the UK their permanent home should pay full UK tax on all their income and gains, he will argue.
**********************************************************

The largest companies, some now infested with non-dom, untaxed managers, have been built over several generations by British risk, sweat, innovation and troops; many people have died to create and protect our economic base. Most of these major companies draw their capital from the London Stock Exchange, their credibility from their UK roots, and rely on the nation's education system, health system, our global reputation, native talents and our legal system - and, in the case of banks, they boast of specific world-class licenses which UK taxpayers and insurers underwrite.

The 2008/09 banking City of London £1.3 trillion collapse has saddled every UK household with £30,000 of debt - the equally infamous "government deficit" - which all our politicians cite as triggering the need for "austerity" - in turn creating unprecedented youth unemployment and suicides, while our hard earned capital and liquidity surplus sits frozen in tax-havens, such as the billions revealed in HSBC Zurich & Geneva and in The British Virgin Islands (130,00 secret accounts); which is a tiny part of the assets held in just 2 of the 74 global tax-havens. As Swiss accounts came under attack from the Lagarde List, the UK has given the 7,000 UK villains 8 years to remove the evidence - much of which is being funneled to the Middle-East. Presumably whistle-blowers there will have their hands, heads or other parts of their anatomies chopped off - and will then be flogged to death over the next year - to keep tax-evaders' secrets safe.

The undemocratic, unaccountable non-doms, of course, don't have, or claim not to have, their households in the UK and don't pay UK taxes - so they don't share our ambitions for the nation, share our culture or share the oppressive weight of the national debts. When their time comes, they wave us goodbye with two fingers and retire to foreign lands.

"...123,000 people told HMRC that they qualified for non-dom status in the year 2011-12, which the Financial Times reckons to be the largest number since the economy crashed in 2008, when it stood at around 137,000."

To convince the UK tax collectors of their non-dom status, these people, mostly UK born, bred, educated, raised and fed, have to claim a very strong emotional allegiance to a foreign country, such as Hong Kong in China, or a remote tax-haven, and demonstrate they have their real home there and want to be buried there.  Why should these aliens give a damn about the current or future state of this Sceptred Isle? They don't. They are intent in gouging out as much as they can and buggering off to their overseas, tax-haven, bejeweled,  cushioned dens - to die. 

Rockall welcomes all migrant sociopathic tax-evaders
- with a zero tax rate -
Can we trust them to run our companies for the nation's benefit? Perhaps we should ship them all out to tax-free Rockall - for Life!

I cannot here track down and list all 123,000 non-doms. But HMRC, The Treasury, Immigration and, we can confidently assume, GCHQ (the UK's electronic surveillance centre), know all of them, and know where they really live. 

However - some of the major companies and individuals have been making headlines recently; so they can be listed as fine examples of how Great Britain is increasingly becoming owned & run by aliens. Do you want to continue to give these businesses your custom?

It would be interesting to list all 123,000 non-doms and the companies they run. 
HMRC and GCHQ know them all - but won't tell. 
Please add non-dom names and stories, as comments below.

The simple remedy to all the secrets, lies, bribes and falsifications is to publish all tax returns, with lists of those persons and organisations which are exempted from UK tax. For lasting tax justice - ABOLISH TAX PAYER CONFIDENTIALITY. 

(PS - I have a grave plot reserved in Stockport - When Stockport declares independence, will that exempt me from UK tax?)

Where are these giant UK firms and their executives registered for tax purposes?

HSBC - CEO Stuart Gulliver - Non-Dom - claims to be Chinese & Panamanian

HSBC (UK) - CEO Antonio Simoes - Portuguese - tax status unknown

RBS - CEO Ross McEwan - New Zealander - Non-Dom.

LLOYDS BANK - CEO Horta Osorio - Portuguese - tax status unknown

BARCLAYS BANK - CEO Antony P Jenkins - tax status unknown.

THE SUN ** - Boss Rupert Murdoch - Australian, maybe taxed in the USA?

SKY TV ** - Boss Rupert Murdoch - Australian, maybe taxed in the USA?

DAILY MAIL (Bermuda) - Lord Rothermere - claims to be French non-dom.

THE TIMES ** - Boss Rupert Murdoch - Australian, maybe taxed in the USA?

THE TELEGRAPH - The Barclay twin brothers - Non-Dom, Channel Isles & Monte Carlo

BP - CEO Bob Dudley $5.2M - Appears to be UK taxed.

ARCADIA - Sir Philip & Tina Green - Non-Dom Monte Carlo & South Africa 

BBC + HSBC - BBC Chairman Rona Fairchild in 2014 was paid £500K by HSBC - Tax status?

ICD - International Clothing Designs - CEO Richard Caring - Claims US Non-Dom  Status.

UK PRIME MINISTER - David Cameron - wealth comes from offshore firms - Panama & Geneva

** NEWS CORPORATION - Is generally offshore.


Itv Plc (ITV:London) - CEO Adam Crozier £8.4M - appears to be all onshore !

**********

Notes & Links:
Barclays will risk fresh controversy over bankers' pay next month when it hands its chief executive, Antony Jenkins, shares worth £4m.
The bank, which last year tapped its shareholders for £5.8bn of cash to bolster its financial strength, will make the official disclosure about Jenkins and other payments to senior executives in mid-March.
Lord Stanley Fink un-sues Ed Miliband. 
********** 
 Coutts said it appointed John Saunders as managing director for western European, American and resident non-domiciled clients.
Before joining the wealth division of Royal Bank of Scotland Group, Saunders worked for five years at Barclays Wealth.
He will be based in London and will report to Michael Mount, managing director, who heads the international client group based in the UK. (Reporting by Anannya Pramanick ) 
*********
Rona Fairhead, the chairman of the BBC, was paid more than £500000 ... for her role as a non-executive director at HSBC after damaging ... when she was previously chairman of HSBC's audit committee. (a committee which failed to notice 100,000 tax evaders' accounts in Zurich)  Fairhead, who became chair of the BBC Trust last October, joined HSBC as a non-executive director in 2004 and was chair of its audit committee at the time covered by the HSBC files. She was paid a total of £513,000 by the bank last year.
http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/feb/26/rbs-chief-executive-to-hand-back-1m-pay-incentive
RBS - CEO Ross McEwan - pay 2014 £2.7M  - Non Dom
Royal Bank of Scotland said today the Swiss arm of its private bank Coutts is being investigated by German authorities for allegedly helping wealthy clients evade tax.
Like Stuart Gullliver, Ross McEwan is "non-domiciled" resident in Britain. Unlike Gulliver he was born abroad.
"I am a proud Kiwi, but I work here and I pay taxes here in the UK" he told ITV News.
http://www.theguardian.com/business/live/2015/feb/25/greek-bailout-doubts-remain-extension-agreed-live-updates


MPs also expressed concern that the list leaked by whistleblower Herve Falciani has only led to one successful UK prosecution, out of more than 6,000 names.
Perhaps the most important point was made by Jesse Norman MP: how many of the people on this list are non-domiciled for tax purposes? HMRC wasn’t prepared to say -- despite, as Norman said, this might show whether the non-dom rules are being abused.
Lord Stephen Green Chairman HSBC 
Conservative MP Jesse Norman said:
“The anomaly is you could have worked for a UK bank for 40 years, you could have lived in this country for 20 years and you could still be non domicile for tax purposes.”
Non-Dom Gulliver was born in Derby, educated at a grammar school in Plymouth and Oxford University, runs Britain’s biggest bank from a UK office, has lived in the UK since 2003, and sent his children to boarding school in the UK. 
Chairman Douglas Flint (a former HSBC finance director)
Private Eye
DAILY TELEGRAPH OWNERS: HMRC had originally settled the Littlewoods dispute with a simple interest payment, but in 2007 the Barclay brothers, who spend much of their time in the tax havens of Monaco and their private island of Brecqhou in the Channel Islands, launched another legal claim demanding the settlement be paid out with compound interest. The brothers, owners of the Telegraph newspaper titles and the Ritz hotel, hired John Kay, a professor at London School of Economics, to testify that compound interest is the most appropriate measure to assess compensation.
Daily Mail owner Lord Rothermere's and Dave Monte Carlo Hartnett's deal to allow continuing Non-Dom status "saving Rothermere hundreds of millions in tax".
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/hsbc-scandal-philip-greens-friends-distance-billionaire-from-swiss-bank-investigation-10034283.html


Sir Philip Green’s associates have been quick to distance the retail billionaire from a widening scandal about tax avoidance in Switzerland.
Billionaire Richard Caring (Caring, who has non-dom tax status in the UK)  is alleged to have withdrawn 5 million Swiss francs (£3.5 million) in cash from his HSBC Geneva account.
The money is said to have originated from accounts in Monaco held in Green’s wife Tina’s name but controlled by Caring.

BLOOMBERG:
 Antonio Horta-Osorio is in charge of Lloyds - 2014 pay £11.5M , 
Antonio Simoes is chief executive of HSBC UK and 
Jayne-Anne Gadhia is the boss of Virgin Money.
 B&M  (bargain stores) is now a Luxembourg- domiciled operation - 
Chairman Sir Terry Leahy holds shares via Cayman Isle co.
Stuart Gulliver, the chief executive officer of HSBC Holdings Plc, to park money in Switzerland through a Panamanian company puzzled lawyers who didn’t see a clear tax benefit from the move. He’s still domiciled in Hong Kong.
Chairman Douglas Flint 
WIKIPEDIA Non-Doms

Former 'non-doms'[edit]

http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/feb/11/hsbc-files-reveal-how-uks-non-dom-tax-concession-is-being-exploited
Non-dom numbers exploded during Tony Blair’s New Labour premiership. They doubled from 67,600 to 137,000 between 1997 and 2007 as his colleague Peter Mandelson pronounced that the government was “intensely relaxed about people becoming filthy rich”, so long as they paid their taxes.
James Caan, one of the prominent stars of Dragons’ Den, the British TV programme featuring young entrepreneurs, is a non-dom
The Lewisohn banking family in London, for example, had the equivalent of more than £9m in Swiss accounts during 2006. Oscar Lewisohn was himself a non-executive director of HSBC’s Swiss bank until 2006. With a Danish passport, he was able to pass on the hereditary perk to his two UK-born sons.
A notable hereditary non-dom businessman is the Soho House club owner and Tory donor Richard Caring, who kept more than £100m in Switzerland. His father was an American GI who settled in London.
The Goldsmith family, heirs of the late financier Sir James Goldsmith, are the most high-profile group to have claimed hereditary tax breaks. Goldsmith distributed his £300m fortune offshore among 15 family members.
Potter family of London, who kept the equivalent of more than £70m in Switzerland. Thanks to their father, Psion computer firm founder David Potter’s South African background, the three sons can claim hereditary non-dom status, despite their British passports and London homes.
London resident Tetrapak heir Sigrid Rausing, claims non-dom status 
“It’s a really archaic tax law that various governments have said they will repeal,” said Richard Brooks, a former UK tax inspector. “Gordon Brown, who became prime minister, famously said he was going to end these tax breaks in government and he never did.”

FT - High quality global journalism requires investment. Please share this article with others using the link below, do not cut & paste the article. See our Ts&Cs and Copyright Policy for more detail. Email ftsales.support@ft.com to buy additional rights. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/9545f01c-be78-11e4-8036-00144feab7de.html#ixzz3TJmtEXP8The “non-domicile” regime was originally introduced in 1799 to shelter those with foreign property from the UK’s newfangled wartime taxes. More than two centuries later, it still allows those who live in Britain to cite another country as their real domicile. Unlike other residents, they are only obliged to pay British tax on their overseas earnings if they remit that money to the UK. 

Daily Mail -  http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2133729/Did-PMs-300-000-come-family-tax-haven-investments-Inherited-fortune-built-offshore-accounts.html
 Luxury leather goods firm Smythson, where Mrs Cameron is a creative consultant, is owned through a holding company in Luxembourg and linked to a secretive trust in the Channel Island of Guernsey, another well-known tax haven.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2937589/Awkward-Luxury-leather-goods-firm-Smythson-PM-s-wife-Samantha-Cameron-works-based-tax-haven.html#ixzz3TJodzHom
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook  


David Cameron inherited a £300,000 fortune that may have been built up thanks to his family’s investments in tax havens.

The Prime Minister’s late father, Ian Cameron, whose wealth was put at £10 million, ran legal offshore accounts in Panama City and Geneva.
When he died in 2010 he left £2.74million, from which the Prime Minister personally received £300,000.
However, the £2.74million covers assets in England and Wales only and it is unclear how much the shares in offshore accounts are worth and which family members now own them


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2133729/Did-PMs-300-000-come-family-tax-haven-investments-Inherited-fortune-built-offshore-accounts.html#ixzz3TJpJOmFW
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook




Friday, 27 February 2015

WHO RULES THE INTERNET ?

WE THE PEOPLE... 26 February 2015 is an important day. We are safe for the moment from the crazy clamor of  crass commercial competition to hog the web and deny free and equal access to billions of private citizens of the world. But remain vigilant - Spot the Loony - there are many lunatics, some very powerful, most totally deluded, who want to dictate what we read, think and communicate.


The White House


A note from the President on net neutrality:
The FCC just voted in favor of a strong net neutrality rule to keep the Internet open and free.
That happened, in part, because millions of Americans across the country didn't just care about this issue: You stood up and made your voices heard, whether by adding your names to petitions, submitting public comments, or talking with the people you know about why this matters.
Read a special thank-you message from the President, then learn more about how we got to where we are today:
Find out more about net neutrality.


This email was sent to noel@noelhodson.com.
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Please do not reply to this email. Contact the White House
The White House • 1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW • Washington, DC 20500 • 202-456-1111

Friday, 13 February 2015

VANILLA TAX-AVOIDANCE - LET THEM EAT CAKE


Lin Homer, the HMRC chief executive (in the blue jacket),
and colleagues face ‘angry questioning from MPs
who accused her department of failing to serve
taxpayers’ interests’. Photograph: PA
Swiss prosecutor raids HSBC office, opens criminal inquiry - 18 FEB 15.

UK, HMRC should prosecute HSBC  23 FEB 2015.

Who in the UK is stopping prosecution?

HSBC’s Swiss arm is potentially open to a range of criminal charges in Britain because there is “credible evidence” that it has had a role in enabling tax evasion, according to a former director of public prosecutions.

In a legal opinion prepared for the consumer watchdog, SumOfUs, Lord Ken Macdonald QC argues that there is sufficient evidence for the bank to be investigated for conspiracy to defraud the UK tax authorities.

Decisions taken by Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC) not to prosecute the bank were “seriously legally flawed”, he said.

Macdonald also said he believed that evidence already publicly available suggested HSBC should be prosecuted under the 1977 Criminal Law Act for its part in a “systemic” operation to deprive HMRC of revenue.

13 FEB 2015: Britain's tax-collectors - the criminal's cosy friend. The UK media has enjoyed a week's frenzied festival of tax-criminal revelations from HSBC Bank, Zurich, Private Clients. 

Prem Sikka efficiently sums up the thousands of words, pictures and City PR apologists in his article today, Friday 13th February. Do read it to learn how wealthy Brits float above all laws to sabotage their nation's economy. "Only little people pay tax - Darling".

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/feb/12/hsbc-pathetic-dealing-tax-dodgers-evaders-barely-punished

France says it did not restrict UK from using HSBC files to pursue bank and criminals -Tory minister and tax office boss told parliament failure to prosecute was due to restrictions imposed by French authorities .  2010 - UK told Swiss banks "We're Unlikely to prosecute UK Swiss tax-dodgers."


The Lagarde List of "industrial scale" tax-evaders, bent dictators, arms dealers, drug dealers, criminals and sociopaths - alongside, perhaps, a few bewildered honest folk - of 100,000 account holders at one of about 300 banks, in one of 70 global tax-havens, at HSBC Zurich, was copied in 2007 by a French whistle-blower (who the Swiss threaten with cruel and unusual punishments) and sent to Christine Lagarde, then French Finance Minister. Ms Lagarde sent it on to all governments. The list included 7,000 UK citizens and 2,059 Greeks. The British cash amounted to about £5 billion - 8 years ago. Britain's tax-collectors boast that they have recovered £137 million, which is a miserable 2.7%, and have brought one (Yes, a single one) back-tax case out of the 7,000.

Lin Homer, the sad looking lady in Thatcher-blue in the picture, denies knowledge of the list. My guess is that she is telling the truth. The poor lady has absolutely no knowledge or experience of taxation; which is probably why the Conservative Government appointed her, and so she would have to rely on advice from the second rank in HMRC (Her Majesty's Revenues and Customs) who inherited the mantle of  the previous chief, Dave Sweetheart Deals Monte Carlo Hartnett, who forgave Vodafone £4 billion tax, before jumping ship to join Deloittes, Vodafone's tax-planners and auditors. TAX-HAVEN LONDON -v- 50% JOBLESS 




The British establishment's response to these shocking, damning, criminal revelations, hidden beneath the sacrosanct cloak of "taxpayer confidentiality" was wonderfully underscored by one of the, doubtlessly wholly innocent, Swiss account holders, Lord Fink, fundraiser for the Conservative Party - who first said he would sue Ed Miliband, Leader of The Labour Party, for defamation, for outing the wholly innocent Lord, then - after words with his lawyers - said he wouldn't sue and that he'd only indulged in Swiss tax avoidance (which is all perfectly legal) "at the vanilla end of the tax avoidance spectrum, which everybody does." Do we? Really? Lord Fink didn't say "Let them eat cake - at the food-bank"

Just wait till Lin Homer gets her tax-investigation-teeth into the case; to learn the truth of the matter. She will be like a rottweiler in a bunny farm, once she reads a book on tax-law. (Tip - read about self-invoicing). But then how long will it be before she finds the revolving door to riches beyond her wildest dreams. Could there even be an offshore romance between Lin and Dave?

In the meantime, which will be many years of obfuscation, Britain sticks by it's VIP tax-avoiders, tax-evaders and money-launderers who are responsible for £2 trillion tax-evasion-capital-flight (8 million good jobs). Other nations are beating the hell out of their tax dodgers (except of course Greece) and suing HSBC - but The City stands loyally by its friends. Perhaps the UK is keeping its powder dry to sneak up on and recover the maximum from the 130,000 British Virgin Island accounts, published in 2014 by ICIJ - or maybe not.

***************************

Email - 12 FEB 2015. CC to The Guardian, The BBC. 

Dear Lady Hodge and Lin Homer,

Lin Homer, HMRC and HSBC Zurich.

In tax investigations:

1    CAPITAL: In OECD law, the taxpayer is guilty until proved innocent. i.e. beneficial owners of offshore assets must demonstrate that each tax-haven deposit is fully tax-paid before it is deposited. Usually the deposits /assets transferred to tax-havens are not tax-paid. Usually the cash /assets are part of ENRON style “complex” corporate or individual self-invoicing, or “staging-post” or “back-to-back” transactions (simple false accounting) which have been claimed as tax deductions in the source country. It is the examination of all the deposits made and of the entire capital transferred that usually leads to the whole amount being clawed back by HMRC. E.g. An HSBC Zurich account with £1M balance – is charged 40% tax  (top rate) + compound interest since deposit, + 100% penalty; the taxable business /income in the UK from which the transferred amounts have been self-invoiced are adjusted to add back the false deductions. This usually amounts to more than the total £1M balance, plus the threat of jail for fraud. Lin Homer said HMRC cannot prosecute without more evidence than the leaked offshore bank account. The burden of proof is on the non-taxpayer, not on HMRC, which simply issues “protective assessments” for the entire amounts as above. Thus it is reasonable and normal to expect the whole of the capital (£5B ?) in the 7,000 Zurich accounts to be repatriated to the UK Treasury. The American IRS confiscate the whole amount first – and wait for the owner to reclaim it in law as fully tax paid. There are 70 other tax-havens and 300 other offshore banks; plenty to go at, estimated as £2 trillion of UK funds.

2    INCOME: What I imagine Lin Homer is referring to when claiming collection of £137M, is the tax on the undeclared interest earned in the offshore account; which is subject to the same calculations as the capital (40% tax + compound interest + penalty + jail) but which is usually a small part of the tax settlement.

      SWEETHEARTS: The extraordinarily soft sweetheart deals allegedly offered by senior UK officials to Switzerland and tax-evaders for, say, a mere 15% of the account balance, instead of 250% as above, are probably not legally binding on subsequent UK tax-investigation teams. These are deals with criminals and so are “contracts illegal as formed”.  

4    PLUMBERS: The greatest damage to the UK or source country economy is the loss of tax revenue, plus the tax-evasion-capital-flight. The “owner” does not need the money and freezes it offshore, depriving the UK of capital, jobs and economic activity. In contrast, a UK plumber or heart surgeon who takes undeclared cash which they spend in the UK is doing little damage to the national economy. But, when caught, will be subject to a back-duty case and will pay 250% of the tax evaded.

The significant and important repatriations would be more efficient without the Punch & Judy politics making a cheap joke of it. Specialist teams of tax-investigators should be recruited from the intelligence services – with access to GCHQ’s telecoms data – and paid an extra 2.5% of all amounts clawed back from offshore to HM Treasury – within a time limit.

MEDIA CONFUSION: Following government encouragement to make UK films, buy plant & machinery, build industrial units, invest in R&D, buy a tractor, buy a pension etc – and claim tax relief on the expenditure – is NOT tax avoidance; it is complying with government guidelines; usually called Tax Minimisation. (i.e. Spend a £1 as directed by government to save 40 pence - This is NOT tax avoidance).

Yours truly

Noel Hodson
Tax Reconciliations, Oxford.
  

Wednesday, 21 January 2015

GREEK RUINS





  1. Getting Greeks to Pay Taxes Is Tsipras Biggest Test at Home

    www.bloomberg.com/.../getting-rich-greeks-to-pay-taxes-is-tsipras-bigge...

    10 Feb 2015 - The age-old problem of getting more Greeks to pay their taxes adds pressure ... Battle of the Titans with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, he may find he has ... said he repeated his offer to send 500 German tax officials to Greece to ... on control by politicians slows and tax collectors perform fewer audits,

Update 20 July 2015.

Email debate on Greece - Germany has not pushed Greece into un-repayable debt. Greece was already bust when it joined the Euro in 2001/02, but it misled the other Member States. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/1095783.stm

Greece was bust pre-2001, because it emerged from a very troubled, politically unstable and economically poor and primitive background governed by an " offshore aristocracy" which had never and will never pay tax - which in turn triggered strong left-wing local reactions, which created the silly large pensions at 50 etc culture that the Greeks may have to be painfully weaned from. For example, one family alone, Papandreou, hid 500,000,000 (half a billion) euro in HSBC Zurich. They are one of the 2,058 Greek secret account holders at HSBC Zurich on the Lagarde-List. Zurich is but one of dozens of banks in 72 global tax-havens. (say 24 banks x 72 tax-havens = 1,728 nest-eggs to be counted, which the OECD and Wall St calculate at $32 trillion frozen offshore). The Greek diaspora (Council of overseas Greeks {SAE} put the figure at around 7 million worldwide) is almost as large as the Greek 10M population. As soon as Greece, having lied about its balance-sheet, became a member, with access to the EU banking system - they abused it and became a channel for Russian mafia and other nations' tax-evasion-capital-flight - screwing up the European balance sheet. Each Greek household is now in debt to the EU of 120,000 euro (plus their normal mortgage etc debts). It has recently been said that no other country on Earth, throughout history, has received (and siphoned off) as much money-aid from other countries.


The dumb Greeks have been screwed by the clever Greeks.

Angela Merkel - Angel of Mercy - is not intent on screwing the Greeks. She just happens to preside over the EU member with the largest surplus - so the redistribution of EU wealth falls disproportionately on Germany.


Hug a Generous Jerry

Noel
****** 

Yes. Fascinating.
As you know, one thing we learn from history is that we learn nothing from history.
Germany was ground down post 1918, and look what happened.
Germany has ground Greece down. What will happen? The rise of extremist parties in Greece? It's already happening.
Massive public disruption? It's already beginning.
Greece is in an impossible position. They are not strong enough to get out of their mess themselves. Germany got them into this mess. Germany needs to lead the way out.
Basically it has to start by writing off much of the Greek debt. I can't see Frau Merkel agreeing to this unless Hollande and the IMF twist her arm.

This, and Obama's Iran Deal of the Century! What a week!!!

Nick

 **** 
On 17 Jul 2015, at 13:07, Mel Cooper wrote:

> Have a look at this:
>
>
> So if they now have identified a San Andreas fault line between Germany and France, when does the earthquake shatter the whole thing?
>
> Mel

**************** 

Update 20 July 2015. Letter to The Guardian
20th July 2015.

The deeply worrying implication of Jill Treanor’s report of KPMG’s analysis “Banks expected to struggle with ring-fencing target” Guardian 20 July 15; is that the 2008/09 £1.2 trillion taxpayer bailout (£54,000 per UK household) was not nearly enough; and that banks have also lost all the credit balances of today’s savers. Separate out the ordinary depositors funds and the banks’ gambling arms will be revealed to be in serious debt; so the logic goes. Why wait till 2020; ring-fence these crazy transactions today. Will KPMG tell us how much more banks have lost - and who has gained?

Noel Hodson

Oxford



Update 26 Jan 2015. Greece has Voted. Letter to the Guardian:

Your news, editorial and speculations about Syriza’s victory in Greece, might now be followed by an analysis of where Greek’s past decades of wealth, present revenues, EU grants, loans and gifts have gone. Such investigation will rapidly conclude that VIP Greeks have bankrupt their nation through massive, persistent tax-evasion-capital-flight. The government suppressed Lagarde List of 2,059 Greek accounts at HSBC, Zurich, is a small indication, as is the fact that Greek ship owners are exempt from tax. Until these immense capital outflows are all repatriated under existing tax laws (It is not “All perfectly legal” it is self-invoicing fraud), and the drain is plugged; pouring in Euro’s (from all of us) just adds to the swamp of offshore corruption. Will Syriza be any different? Dare they challenge their (offshore) aristocracy? Will they plug the drain?


*****************
Original Article: Greek Ruins.

As the 1% and their sycophants and acolytes assemble in Davos, to congratulate themselves on owning the World - or at least having legal title to paper that purports to attest to their ownership of the world - and of pacifying the dimwitted, somnolent 99%, a catastrophic time-bomb is ticking away in Athens. According to historians and economists*, it has been ticking for hundreds if not thousands of years; for so long that it has become part of the tolerated and accepted background of our entire money-economy. It is symptomatic of the deep fault lines in the rock strata at the foundations of our western capitalism.

The tiny, ancient nation of Greece, just 2% of Europe, the cradle of democracy and civilization,  is sinking into the cesspit of endemic, irreversible, rotten, stinking, unchallenged, unquestioned, habitual corruption. Davos and the world will quietly, sadly stand by as Greece founders, sinks and implodes; making a terrible stink. The corrupt Greek 1% have long ago abandoned the country, fleeing to larger, more stable economies with all their nation's capital. The intelligentsia, less wealthy perhaps, talented professionals and grade A students have fled. This feckless, selfish, cunning Greek diaspora carries with it the viral disease of endemic corruption. They carry a deadly transmittable plague that contaminates the seeds and roots of any healthy economy they infest. Having killed the original host, they crawl onto and into the bodies of all neighboring civilizations.

"Look at how effortlessly successful I am in the Anglo-Saxon economic system. I outwit all governments. I don't work. I don't make things. I don't grow or harvest anything. I never risk my own assets. I have the best of everything. I am superior. I am clever. I pay no taxes. I contribute nothing to my society. I am a supreme consumer. I am the ultimate tapeworm and parasite. I am Davos."  Their viral message is compelling and only fools reject it. Only fools get their hands dirty with toil. Only fools work. Only fools repair the national infrastructure. Only fools repay their national debts. Only fools and little people pay taxes. "Ask not, what can I do for my community - ask only, for how long can I suck the lifeblood from my neighbors." And all the other clever folk in Rome, Madrid, London, New York and Zurich - will catch the disease; and start to sicken their countries.

The infestation has at last killed Greece. Only the poor fools, the hoi-polloi, and their undernourished, uneducated kids are left in the hollowed out shell that is Athens. For the next century, the hapless indigenous population will be burdened by the international debts incurred by the diaspora - who shipped the borrowed cash abroad. Their prices will collapse. Their wages will be further decimated. They will be unemployed and underemployed. They will be the ultimate "flexible" workforce at the edge of Europe - but outside the European Union. Any new investment into Greece will be immediately stolen by the diaspora and will disappear into tax-havens. They will serve tourists, serve coffee, break plates, make mournful music and Zorba dance for their supper. They will catch fish, grow olives and grapes - but the diaspora, creditors and tax collectors will take the harvest. Their ferries and ships will sail but all the income will go the same day to tax-havens. Greek shipowners don't live in Greece and are tax exempt. Greece will revert to medieval peasant conditions.

If they recover slightly. If they overcome the Herculean tasks and rebuild any semblance of an economy - the survivors will themselves adopt the "clever" centuries old habits of their ancestors - and cheat and steal and emigrate, as fast as their brave Olympian legs will carry them. Nobody on Earth is so foolish as to try to rescue a crippled economy with massive long term investment. No Greek citizen is foolish enough to make some money and leave it in Greece. The siphons will be active and immediate and one way only - out to tax-havens. Tax-evasion-capital-flight** is a major symptom of the Greek disease - and after it has passed the diaspora event horizon - it is incurable.

Maybe Russia will buy Greece at a knockdown price. Or, perhaps the only possible future is total, calamitous, chaotic collapse and civil war - followed by 250 years of Sharia Law.

*"Greece needs debts cancelled and growth" Guardian letters 21 Jan 2015.
** "Up to $32 trillion is hidden in tax havens. Just who does this benefit? Not the people who own it - and they can't take it with them" Guardian letters 21 Jan 2015.
http://www.theguardian.com/tone/letters


More reading:

CYPRUS - THE BUTTERFLY'S WING

$102 BILLION FOR GREECE







Friday, 16 January 2015

OBAMA GOES FOR GOLD



















************

3 FEB 2015.

Obama goes for Gold: The Guardian 3rd Feb 2015 reports that "Obama plans levy on $2tn stockpile held abroad by US firms" and explains that major US companies hold their profits offshore to avoid 35% corporation tax. Obama wants to tax them and force repatriation. The Republicans are of course, inevitably against investing this useless, frozen $2tn in America, to boost the GDP by a whopping 1.5%.

I suppose its no fun being the richest people on Earth, ever, without hordes of beggars and 35 million Americans on food-stamps - to feel superior to. Its called aristocrats and peasants. It caused the French & Russian revolutions.

But - the financial reporters and journalists are missing the big game. While Obama publicly hunts down the $2,000,000,000,000 that supposedly honest auditors report as being legitimately held and frozen offshore by the big corporations - and for which he needs Republican support to repatriate, Wall Street expert, James Henry, calculates there is globally $32 trillion in tax-havens - which by definition is anonymous and illicit and can therefore be clawed back by tax-collectors, under existing laws. No Republican votes required. The OECD, Paris agrees with Wall St.

I estimate that America's share of the illegal $32,000,000,000,000 (80 million long term good jobs) is $16 trillion - or $50,000 for every man, woman and child in the US. Unfreezing that cash-pile will reboot the economy and pay-off every deficit.

President Obama already has the legal rights to send in the IRS to tax this $16 trillion, as illegal back-duty-tax cases, which usually recover the evaded tax, plus compound interest, plus penalties, plus costs - which usually adds up to all the assets siphoned out to the tax havens. Such transfers from America and other OECD economies are illegal when effected via self-invoicing, however maze like or Enron like the convoluted trail from Main Street to Banana Bank.

BUT WE CAN'T FIND THEM ! wail the relatives, lawyers and friends of the anonymous, shy super-rich. Its all too complicated. But, fortunately, Hallejulah! the NSA, FBI, CIA and GCHQ in the UK have been tracking everyone's communications for decades - and know precisely where the criminal funds are; they have to for money-laundering, drug-dealing and terrorist security purposes. IBM computers run 99% of the world's banks. Last year for example, the ICIJ journalists published 130,000 accounts in the British Virgin Islands - just one of the world's 71 tax-havens. So we do know where they live - and Obama can send in the Collectors - today.

Every American can look forward to receiving their $50,000 bonus, in 2015.

As Europe faces up to the Greek debts - to forgive and forget that debt - a main condition is to stop the drains, sewers and siphons of Greek corruption and endemic tax-evasion. The new rulers in Athens will no doubt repatriate Greek capital from tax-havens. Globally, it will be a race between governments to recoup the assets in tax-havens - first. Then they'll sort out who owns what. 2015 will be an interesting year.

LETTER IN THE GUARDIAN. PAY NO TAX AT ALL, EVER.

From: Noel Hodson [mailto:noel@noelhodson.com]
Sent: 16 January 2015 09:36
To: 'guardian.letters@theguardian.com'
Subject: Amazon LuxLeaks Self-Invoicing

Would Guardian legal experts please advise. Reading “Brussels set to publish report on Amazon” Guardian 16 Jan 15, while I’m finalising my own tax returns, and with 50 years professional experience of tax accounting, I note that the EU’s complaint is that sweetheart deals are anti-competitive. No criticism is made of self-invoicing €557 million (annually) to siphon profits away from the tax-regions where the customers live. Self-invoicing was illicit in OECD and UK tax-law, with such non-commercial deductions added back to taxable profits. Self-invoicing and keeping two set of books put Al Capone in jail – it was illicit in the USA. Are we asked to believe that the beneficiaries are distinct and at arms-length, being gifted the Head Company’s millions – or are the transactions circular, going back to head office – and thus back to self-invoicing? Has the tax law changed or can I, and all Guardian readers, today self-invoice my entire UK income, via, say, a funny-money, faux-directors Channel Isle company, and pay no tax? Time is of the essence; please urgently advise.

Noel Hodson, Oxford

Read More:  

CAMERON CALLS IN THE TAX HAVENS



Wednesday, 14 January 2015

2015 ECONOMIC FORECASTS

14 JAN 2015.

Dear John

When banks collapse - who pays?

In answer to  your questions, the bank bail-in laws are complicated. Anticipating their impact is like trying to foresee 20 moves ahead in chess.

(New UK bank laws start on 1st January 2015)


My political view is that if we stick to The Free Markets - then the owners of banks etc should pay the bail out costs. In theory, but I doubt in practice, We the People - depositors and bank shareholders, will read our banks' balance sheets with zeal; we will stop executive greed entirely; we will insist on claw-back of bonuses and pensions; we will insist that casino-banking stops in our banks. We may even insist that auditors stop fiddling the books, report honestly, and bear financial responsibility for errors (as might happen at TESCO).

I note that inter-bank balances are largely exempted from risk; odd, as other banks are the only ones who might be able to read a rival's balance sheet and see danger looming.

Of course, we cannot know the true state of any bank - so we will be flying blind, waiting to lose our savings over £85K. I note the Free Market attack on Mutuals /Building Societies - converting non-risk savings into risky shares; which may drive small savers to the Big Banks.

If we are to have the risks heaped on our shoulders -  then I forecast a new profession of Real-Audit - firms that watch bank executives and funny-money subsidiaries like hawks and sue to recover the losses they cause. A New Scientist article pointed out that nobody collects bank balance sheets data across the world - and compares them. It would be quite simple in bookkeeping terms to run a mandatory daily spreadsheet of all financial institutions - When totalled across the page, all the debits and credits  would cancel to zero, leaving only the true bank-owned assets. But there are so many secrets to keep, not least tax-evasion-capital-flight, that this simple tool will only be applied after another massive failure and theft from small savers.

Greece - Greece (less than 2% of Europe) could balance its budgets next week if it repatriated the offshore tax-evasion-capital-flight on the lists hacked from Zurich (most from HSBC), passed to Christine Lagarde,  now head of the IMF, who passed them to the Greek tax-collectors - who buried them. Shipping companies and families in Greece are tax exempt. I guess anyone who is anybody in Greece, pays no taxes and siphons out all capital. The Greek Diaspora could re-fund the Greek economy - but the nation and its exiles choose not to. This is one reason why the EU gets pissed off by Greece. The other is that for decades Greece has been a major net recipient of billions from the EU - all immediately diverted from the intended projects - to tax-havens. They are a bunch of spivs. You can read the list here:




What will happen? I think a socialist government will take power - and take the populist route of writing off Greek Debt - at the expense of the EU. Greeks of all persuasions do not pay tax. It could tip the EU's hand to aggressively action long, tediously planned, bureaucratic steps towards Fair Tax - particularly for Greece, Italy, Spain and the UK. But it may have to wait until President Juncker, the Luxembourg "industrial scale" tax-dodging PM resigns as head of the EU.

(FROM EURODAD: 13th Jan 15 - FAIR TAX - Please accept this brief update on the European Parliament's response to the LuxLeaks scandal.

As you know, we have been calling for the EP to establish an inquiry committee. Although the proposal has been met with resistance the idea is still alive. At the latest count 165 of 188 needed signatures from MEPs have been collected, and significantly a few EPP representatives have now also signed, including the powerful EPP vice-chair of the ECON committee (Economic and Monetary Affairs).)

The banks are of course at the heart of all tax-evasion-capital-flight, particularly London banks. 

As I said, I think governments will do whatever is needed to maintain confidence in the banks and currencies - even total nationalisation if needed.

Noel

(Mr) Noel Hodson
16 Brookside, OXFORD, 

***********************
13 Jan 2015


Hi John and Tony

Thanks for the emails and papers. I  am interested in such matters - but I comment as a very cautious and small investor. My eldest brother Richard was a Chartist (extrapolating past graphs to make forecasts) and he gambled - often cleverly and profitably - but ultimately gambling in commodities, land (in Mellor), currencies and metals, wiped him out - and very nearly bankrupted my father who followed Richard's recommendations. So I am cautious.

Taking McHugh's Forecasts for 2015:


STOCKS - Gamblers love a volatile Stock Market. Steady growth is boring. However, the fixed assets underpinning most public companies are a significant part of the global real-economy and overall, on average, they keep pace with that other stable asset - land and property. With offshore cash growing at $1 trillion a year (now more than $32 trillion, 80 million good jobs) we can expect volatility in all real-economy markets as the money-economy (paper) thrashes around.

GOLD ETC - Gambler's delight in King Copper and other metals. They are part of the real-economy and will always retain a real-value. However, most Metals are subject to fads and fashions, fears and hopes and bent manipulation of prices. I agree that gold has a utility value in science. But it is not as rare as supposed. I had a client who bought bars of Cornish Tin 40 years ago - he still has them and they have kept pace with the money-economy.

OIL & ENERGY - Who forecast the halving of oil prices from Sept 2014 to date? It is political, to try to bring Putin to heel (I think that will fail) but is also based in the reality that more fossil fuels are being found. We haven't even touched the immense frozen deposits of methane in Russia's tundra. So fossil fuels in the real-economy will fall in price. Several OECD countries are using ever increasing amounts of green energy (despite the press reports) which will reduce the price of fossil fuels. McHugh doesn't analyse the impact of global warming - losing coastal margins and causing migration. Clean & Dirty Energy prices will take warming into account.

RUSSIA - Is not collapsing. This "news" is in the Fox News category that "Birmingham UK is a violent no-go Muslim City!"  Really? The danger to the money-economy is that Putin will turn away from the dollar as the world's reserve currency, and will create other currencies with India, China, Africa and South America. Russia has massive real-assets, land, energy and people who did put the first man into space.

RISING DEBT and CURRENCIES. I don't have much faith in the intelligence of bankers, but they do have the professional job of keeping the money-economy large and fluid enough to serve the ever expanding real-economy. The World has always had rising debt and depreciating currencies as the population and our inventiveness and productivity grows - and always will. Today, computers could launch a new currency, pegged to the reality of what most people want to transact in their real lives, in a few months. Bankers are sometimes crazed gamblers (or thieves) who mistake paper for real assets - but reality re-asserts its dominance very quickly. I assume that all those national treasuries, Wall St and The City etc do have some inkling of the problems that McHugh fears - and make plans to adjust the money-economy accordingly. I think that our children and grandchildren will not meekly sit by and save up for 15 years to buy a washing machine; however much we preach austerity at them. Ditto for houses. People will continue to want real things - and will adjust the paper-economy to get them; think back to TV Rentals in the sixties - and, horror piled upon horror, foretelling the End of The World as our parents knew it -  "Credit Cards".

Half the world's population is very, very poor. They want stuff - real-economy products; and will find ways to get that stuff. Production, automated production, is and will continue to rise to meet the consumer demand. To oil the wheels more paper has to be printed to enable the transactions: e.g. 200 new homes in Cheshire at £500,000 per home MUST have £100M of new mortgages to enable the transactions. QE is only putting back a small fraction of the $32 trillion siphoned out to tax-havens; which, if it sits in Banana Banks long enough, will become worthless as the real-economy rolls by it. (Very Long Term - prices of goods will reduce to the value of the basic raw materials + land. Computerisation will replace all human repetitive labour).

McHugh's "screen generation" will not sit idly by while we frightened old men try to slow the economy back to the 1930's walking pace. Economists must widen their basic (usually hopelessly flawed) calculations of Land x Labour x Capital to include - Land Labour Capital & The Internet. Youth will not tolerate collapsing markets. Lets get back to work in the real-economy.

QED

Noel

**************** 

 Hi John,

Deflation:  It depends on the definition. I think that prices of goods will reduce, due mostly to automation and to mass emerging markets of people with little income. UK Housing is still skilled labour intensive, so I don't expect to see that part of house prices to deflate - but we have deflated mortgage interest and builders' bank interest, which was about 25% of the market cost. Land prices will increase. Low interest rates are the present underlying main cause of reducing prices because interest and bank charges are added at every stage of production and distribution - typically ten stages from e.g. farm to plate.

Deflation of prices is good for the majority. It only becomes dangerous if it is caused by fear of collapse, in turn causing the majority to stop being active in the economy. If the world stops working, everyone is at risk. I don't think that will happen. QE re-boots the economy.

Banks - I think the world will do whatever it takes to keep confidence and liquidity flowing. I can see some scenarios where all banks will nationalised - at least for a time. It is dangerous to have private interests in a position to print and distribute national money. But would we want our bank managers to be civil servants?

Jobs - Our meetings about telework and the Internet - in Brussels from  1992 to 1998, concluded that most repetitive jobs would be automated and that most of us in OECD countries would work far less. I think this has happened. The answer to millions of under-employed lost souls was Lifelong Education. The greatest difficulty is to find new ways of distributing automatically produced real-wealth, without soup kitchen queues. But I think it will be achieved. After all, the bulk of the unemployed are our own grandchildren. There will also be major new hi-tech industries but they will not need mass workers.

WE HAVE WORKED HARD TO ABOLISH WORK - AND SUCCEEDED (compared to factory and field hands pre-1920).

Now back to my damned tax returns.

Noel


******************

From John

OK those are your views.

Will you be surprised if there is deflation?

And what do you think about the bank bail-in regimes being put in place all across the world?

It is one thing saying lets get back to work in the real economy but in fact there are a vast number of people without jobs, almost certainly a lot more than the politicians say, is there an answer to that?