Not a tax haven.

[woolley]

 

Do you believe that this is all due to laxity and incompetence on their part? Of course it isn't. It is self-serving.

I don't believe in they.

 

You must have difficulty expressing yourself in English then.

 

ETA: You have taken that extract from my post without the context. They/their in this instance refers to the governments of major nations and that was clear in my post. I know you are not stupid, so you are being wilfully naive.

Edited April 5, 2016 by woolley

[Andy Onchan]

Oh deer. Luoks leeke-a zee-a prime-a meenister ouff iceluond is deep in zee-a puop

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-35966412

 

Hvers vegna gerðir þú ekki þýða það inn í íslensku? Það hefði gert meira vit.

[Lxxx]

 

There may be votes in hammering the tax havens as Barrie said, but that is not really important because politicians are not really important. They are short term and expendable. How it all pans out will be decided globally over a protracted period by those several strata above politicians and it will be based on their reading of what they can preserve of their privileged position for future generations and what they might sacrifice to keep the lid.

That's borderline secret-world-govt stuff IMO.

 

 

But not inaccurate.

[Lxxx]

 

 

Do you believe that this is all due to laxity and incompetence on their part? Of course it isn't. It is self-serving.

I don't believe in they.

 

You must have difficulty expressing yourself in English then.

 

ETA: You have taken that extract from my post without the context. They/their in this instance refers to the governments of major nations and that was clear in my post. I know you are not stupid, so you are being wilfully naive.

 

 

Or argumentative.

[pongo]

 

You have taken that extract from my post without the context. They/their in this instance refers to the governments of major nations and that was clear in my post. I know you are not stupid, so you are being wilfully naive.

Or argumentative.

 

Not either.

 

The belief expressed is, as I understand it, that the gradual pace of progress towards international standards is either deliberately slowed by self interest or else is inhibited by incompetence. Which seems very much a reflection of same sort of thinking which has given us the angry world Trump/Corbyn/Farage supporters and also Occupy, anti-Capitalism and the world of internet conspiracy thinking in general.

 

More likely I think, it's simply that the evolution of agreed standards re tax and reporting is a gradual and on-going process which often involves compromises.

[notwell]

As i said earlier in the thread the world is full of tax avoidance that is completely agreed on by most nations.

 

The fact of the matter is that countries like the UK cannot operate by dictating to very wealthy people, huge companies and employers what they will and won't do. It isn't good business for anyone.

 

The problem we have here is that it started out as people hiding money to evade taxation or taxation in interest earned. That is illegal and wrong. Steps were taken a long time ago to (especially in relation to the UK's relationship with the likes of the Crown Dependencies) to extinguish that. And that really isn't a big issue to the UK anymore and in reality wasn't that huge anyway. They'll have been disappointed with the results which is why you never hear anything about it.

 

So instead a small band of people start banging on, not about evasion, but about perfectly legal and legitimate avoidance that the UK government encourages and indeed supports.

And now Cameron et al are in a really tricky spot. If anything offshore finance centres (which is actually what the Isle of Man is) could well find this a watershed moment from a positive perspective. The world needs offshore finance centres. So what is it better to be? A relatively transparent one or Panama?

There will no doubt be the odd issue arising for the IOM out of this. There are 11.5m documents.

 

But it puts the government in a really tricky place because they are going to have to defend huge portions of it all. It's going to get interesting.

Edited April 5, 2016 by notwell

[Kopek]

 

The SNP have made no secret of the fact that they are seriously considering basing their economy on a low tax economy but with socialist principles (does that sound familiar?). So it will only be a matter of time before they will be in the club.

 

No, where do you mean.

 

I wish the Island would follow that principal!

[Tarne]

Pirate party for Iceland! Pirate party for Iceland!

[woolley]

 

 

You have taken that extract from my post without the context. They/their in this instance refers to the governments of major nations and that was clear in my post. I know you are not stupid, so you are being wilfully naive.

Or argumentative.

 

Not either.

 

The belief expressed is, as I understand it, that the gradual pace of progress towards international standards is either deliberately slowed by self interest or else is inhibited by incompetence. Which seems very much a reflection of same sort of thinking which has given us the angry world Trump/Corbyn/Farage supporters and also Occupy, anti-Capitalism and the world of internet conspiracy thinking in general.

 

More likely I think, it's simply that the evolution of agreed standards re tax and reporting is a gradual and on-going process which often involves compromises.

 

It is slowed by the self-interest of establishment old money and inhibited by the compliance of the civil service at the highest level. It is aided and abetted by incompetence at the lower levels. Transitory as they are, politicians barely figure at all in the grand scheme of things. It's no big deal. No meetings of co-conspirators or paper trails. It's the way it is and always has been Change is minor and agonisingly slow.

 

If there was the will to effect real change among the G7 for instance, evasion could be stopped almost at a stroke. What is there to stop that action? Simply, the will does not exist. What we have is spin management.

Edited April 5, 2016 by woolley

[GaryPotter]

On the plus side this makes us look slightly better over things like KSFIOM

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-35918846

These are claims he ensured creditors of Icelandic Banks weren't repaid as if the banks did so the bonds he secretly owned in those banks would be worthless.

Can't see him lasting the week myself.

Actually I'm impressed.

 

That's about 24 hours

 

Thank you God.

Edited April 5, 2016 by GaryPotter

[one hung low]

I think the point when it comes to dictators is that they want to keep the location of the funds a secret. When they are overthrown the new bunch of thugs will not be able to trace where the money is.

 

There are few, if any, reasonable excuses for hiding money away. Being a dictator of a dodgy unstable country could be construed as one.

 

Every one else has to rely on one, and only one, excuse - fucking greed.

[hillshepherd]

 

Oh deer. Luoks leeke-a zee-a prime-a meenister ouff iceluond is deep in zee-a puop

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-35966412

 

Hvers vegna gerðir þú ekki þýða það inn í íslensku? Það hefði gert meira vit.

 

he's fucking OUT.

 

http://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-panama-tax-iceland-pm-idUKKCN0X223E

[Barrie Stevens]

Big wig on R4 PM programme at 5 pm has many years offshore experience and says the only sure way is deterrence. Rightly he says that imposing change over Dependent territories and Crown Dependencies by way of legislation as the sovereign power will take decades and be challenged all down the line. He speaks of the constitutional situation such as imposing Westminster's will over such as the IOM in complete reversal of post 1945 decolonisation policies. He does not say much about how to deter though! The main point is that the difficulty of imposing change is understood. I still think however that the Crown Dependencies are the most vulnerable to being leaned on and breathed on being the nearest and dearest...

[Shake me up Judy]

Now that's how democracy and accountability really works and shows how quickly things can be done. Well done Iceland.

 

Lesson for the IOM here.

 

Anyone else unconvinced by Cameron's 'nothing like that' denial ? Sounds like he's first run that one round the family lawyers....

[thesultanofsheight]

Stretching the analogy, what if I am a business person in the fictional country of Volgaria and I have earned / saved a modest pension nest-egg, denominated in that safe and secure currency the British Pound, on which tax has been paid in Volgaria, and which is earning a nice rate of interest at the Bank of Volgaria. Now lets say that the Volgarian government decides to seize all British Pounds in the country and replace them with Volgarian Pesos at an exchange rate of its choosing. Or worse, I am accused of being a Bolshevik, profiteering from my hard working comrades by disloyally holding onto a foreign currency, and I am rounded up for compulsory re-education at a far away work camp.

 

So being aware of these risks, rather than invest my hard earned Pounds in the Bank of Volgaria, I set up a company in the sunny Virgin Islands and put my Pounds into a bank account in the Isle of Man. My retirement fund will be safe, I think. Until the day arrives that information on my Volgarian residency becomes freely available to anyone with an itchy nose, or the Volgarians and Manx governments enter into a tax information sharing agreement, or until information is leaked by those clever newspaper people, putting my business in Volgaria - perhaps even my life, at risk.

 

Far fetched? Couldn't happen? Perhaps not today, but look at your history and who knows about a few years hence by when our freedoms and privacy will have been eroded by successive governments, beyond redemption .

 

I saw it happen in Argentina in the 1990s. It was only the people who had money outside who didn't get their assets effectively destroyed by the state when banks and bonds got written off, or their wealth de-valued to the point of being worthless as the currency collapsed. It also happens in Africa a lot still where the rich don't trust their governments not to seize their assets if they upset the wrong people or otherwise end up in a situation. It's very hard for people in the West to have any conception of what it's like in some of these country's where it's not just the normal risks of being wealthy you have to consider. That is not making excuses for what seems to be some flagrant abuse covered in Panorama. But there are very valid reasons why places like here are attractive as a safe haven. It's not all about tax.

Edited April 5, 2016 by thesultanofsheight