Tax evasion

I watched an illuminating documentary film about the birth of tax havens this week, it also explained why the City of London is now so powerful and seemingly untouchable. Short of a revolution I’m not sure how this can be changed.

One interesting aspect of the tax-haven-property-ownership scandal, though, is that over three-quarters of the tax havens are quasi-british, eg. British Vigin Islands, Channel islands, Isle of Man, Gibraltar…

In principle, the UK government could make it much more difficult to avoid and evade tax - and by leading international co-operation could probably end a lot of it.

They won’t of course, because the London ‘Establishment’ - City financiers, Tory donors, Media owners/influencers - are all in cahoots - and when proper journalists expose them, they appoint one of their own - like Eton old boy, 3rd Baronet of Tangley Hill, investment banker in the City of London for 40 years, Sir Laurence Henry Philip Magnus - to ‘investigate’ it.

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I think part of the problem is a lack of public awareness and apathy, whilst I knew what tax havens are and where they’re situated the documentary I watched was on Netflix and made in 2017 and I don’t think it’s been on mainstream television so very few would have seen it.

What’s the name of the documentary?

Britain’s Second Empire.

Thank you Tim and @graham . I shall watch tonight

:exploding_head:

And there’s no need to wonder why, is there? - the BBC Chair being the current example.

Just came across this - different issue, but a clear enough demonstration of how media misrepresentations shape public opinion:

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On that point…

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“Deliberately distracting the public from real news”. In one.

Adult comics :rofl:

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It seems tomorrow’s Observer will reveal that Sunak knew there was a problem with Zahawi’s tax affairs last October, but did nothing. Why?
My guess is that he lives in a world where everybody has off-shore accounts, family trusts in tax havens, etc, etc… Why would he bat an eyelid? For him, it was the norm.

I’ve watched the Spider’s web now - very enlightening…
This is the documentary on YouTube for those without Netflix…

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Zahawi has been rightly sacked.

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took Roland Rat long enough to get his act together :roll_eyes:

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GONE !

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Just read an article on how cheap and easy UK company registrations and virtual absence of regulation have enabled financial scams - people are losing their life savings - which reminded me of my speculation above on Sunak’s failure to see the Zahawi problem:

I was registering a lot of companies for clients over the period they made it ridiculously cheap and easy - and was always puzzled by the motives for reducing Companies House fees to the level of Kazakhstan’s - less than 5% of average EU fees - while slapping extra charges on, say, medical prescriptions. The answer, of course, was to make it very easy for Tory donors, etc, to bend the rules.

The fact that they also made it easy for those that want to criminally break the rules is just collateral damage.

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Not before time.

Not that it does anything to enhance the reputation of Sunak or the Tories generally.

Too little (he’s still an MP after all), too late is the Tory response to improper behaviour of party members, be it financial or sexual impropriety, bullying, backhanders from donors who are then rewarded with high power jobs or a seat in the Lords - it just goes on and on.

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There are still the issues concerning his deputy Raab and the illegal activities of Braverman as Home yet…

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Do you mean this young chap?

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Tautology, often :slightly_smiling_face:

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