Donnachadh McCarthy wrote:
David Cameron - Tax Haven Enabler in Chief!!
Make no mistake, all the current propaganda about Cameron "cracking down on tax-havens" is a joke.
I wrote extensively in The Prostitute State - How Britain's Democracy Has Been Bought about how Cameron and Osborne, whilst pretending to be cracking down on tax-havens, are actually doing the oppposite i.e. making it ever easier for UK firms and the 1% to avoid taxation.
But on his personal level, below is an extract from what I wrote about Cameron's own connections to tax havens, as opposed to how he is abusing our government to facilitate tax-avoidance by the rest of the 1%.
A KEY QUESTION if we had a free-press that Cameron needs to answer is WHERE DID THE MISSING £7.3 MILLION FROM HIS DAD'S TAX HAVEN DERIVED FORTUNE GO WHEN HE DIED?
ta
Donnachadh
www.theprostitutestate.co.uk
Free ebook version of The Prostitute State is available to Occupiers, Fractivists, Momentum/Green Party members and students who cannot afford to buy a copy by emailing
contact@3acorns.co.uk
EXTRACT:
"Cameron’s connections with tax-havens are numerous. In April 2012, the Guardian reported that his father’s wealth accrued from setting up tax-haven investment funds. Ian Cameron was chair of Close International Asset Management Jersey, a director of Blairmore Holdings Panama and a shareholder in Blairmore Asset Management Geneva. Blairmore Holdings was not named after the lucrative lobbying activities of Tony Blair but rather after the Cameron ancestral home in Scotland. In 2006, the hedge-fund’s prospectus said it was basing itself in Panama, whose laws impose zero taxation on hedge-fund earnings made outside Panama. Investors had to invest a minimum of $100,000 in the fund, so it was explicitly aimed at the tax-avoiding super-rich. The Guardian said that the prospectus boasted that "The Directors intend that the affairs of the Fund should be managed and conducted so that it does not become resident in the United Kingdom for UK taxation purposes. Accordingly the Fund will not be subject to United Kingdom corporation tax or income tax on its profits."
In 2009, the Sunday Times Rich List estimated Ian Cameron's wealth at £10m. Yet when he died in late 2010, his will left only £2.7 million from which David Cameron received the sum of £300,000. A possible explanation lies in the fact that the family-will only details the estate’s assets in England and Wales. The Guardian said his “Offshore investments would only be listed in submissions to HMRC for inheritance tax purposes. It is unclear what those assets (if any) are worth and which family member owns them.” As with his father, so it was with his father-in-law Lord Astor. In June 2012, the Daily Record reported that Astor’s Scottish estate was owned by a Bahamas tax-haven registered company.
Despite the government’s rhetoric condemning tax avoidance, Cameron, like Blair before him, has rewarded his tax-avoiding funders with actual seats at the government table. Philip Green is one of Britain’s ten richest billionaires, with a fortune estimated at £4.1 billion. He owns the Arcadia fashion empire which includes Topshop, Burtons, Miss Selfridge and British Home Stores. However on paper Philip Green does not actually own Arcadia. Instead, it is held in the name of his wife Tina Green. But she “officially” lives in Monaco, where she pays no income tax.
In 2005, Green awarded himself £1.2bn, the biggest pay-cheque in British corporate history. This dividend was paid through a network of offshore accounts, via tax havens in Jersey, to his wife’s Monaco bank account. According to the BBC this saved Green £285 million in UK taxes. This single tax manoeuvre would pay the salaries of 20,000 nurses. Despite public outrage, this tax arrangement remains legal. The next time he fancies a billion pound dividend Green can do it again – no problem. Yet Cameron rewarded him by appointing him to oversee the government’s cuts programmes. These are the same cuts to services for the poor, happening because billions in pounds of corporation tax are being legally avoided by people like Green. Meanwhile, The Sun, Express and Mail fan the flames of hatred against EU democracy or are totally up in arms over looters caught stealing some bottled water, rather than the real corporate thieves in our midst."
