David Cameron lied --- The British are going to take advantage of the referendum of June 23rd, for dismiss him ?
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General / Off-Topic David Cameron and the Panama Papers
- Thread starter Patrick_68000
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At the risk of being called some sort of fan boy, I'm not 100% sure he's done anything out of the ordinary.
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Now, let me say first, that how he has admitted it has been less than ideal. If he'd come out on day one and said, "my wife and I had shares in this fund. We bought them in 1997 and sold them in 2010. The appropriate taxes were paid on the profits, we no longer have any shares or involvements blah blah blah" it would have been much better. Having it dribble out is pretty poor.
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But let's get to the heart of the matter. Did DC do anything shady? According to Robert Preston, the "Blairmore" fund in question is not particularly unusual. It's a vanilla offshore investment fund of the kind literally available on the high street (I've got some money in one, it invests in far eastern companies I've never heard of, who operate in Indonesia, Malaysia, Hong Kong etc. None of those companies pay UKntax because they are not involved in the uk at all).
That is to say, although the fund/company itself was designed not to pay any UK tax (which is not a fundamental wrong. Lots of companies in the world pay no UK tax) on the other hand, the UK based investors who held shares do have to pay UK taxes.
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It seems like DC had some shares in an investment trust that happened to have been started and run by his father but that's all.
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this seems very different to the schemes Jimmy Carr and Gary Barlow were involved with which, although legal, were designed to minimise the UK taxes of the user.
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And it's a world away from the evasion schemes where tax is evaded rather than avoided.
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Now, let me say first, that how he has admitted it has been less than ideal. If he'd come out on day one and said, "my wife and I had shares in this fund. We bought them in 1997 and sold them in 2010. The appropriate taxes were paid on the profits, we no longer have any shares or involvements blah blah blah" it would have been much better. Having it dribble out is pretty poor.
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But let's get to the heart of the matter. Did DC do anything shady? According to Robert Preston, the "Blairmore" fund in question is not particularly unusual. It's a vanilla offshore investment fund of the kind literally available on the high street (I've got some money in one, it invests in far eastern companies I've never heard of, who operate in Indonesia, Malaysia, Hong Kong etc. None of those companies pay UKntax because they are not involved in the uk at all).
That is to say, although the fund/company itself was designed not to pay any UK tax (which is not a fundamental wrong. Lots of companies in the world pay no UK tax) on the other hand, the UK based investors who held shares do have to pay UK taxes.
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It seems like DC had some shares in an investment trust that happened to have been started and run by his father but that's all.
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this seems very different to the schemes Jimmy Carr and Gary Barlow were involved with which, although legal, were designed to minimise the UK taxes of the user.
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And it's a world away from the evasion schemes where tax is evaded rather than avoided.
I have to agree.
This fund was simply exempt from UK tax....the fund is exempt. Not any gains on it. He still had to pay the appropriate taxes on what he made and at the end of that day it was 30 grand....not exactly George Soros levels of money making eh.
I see that Jimmy Carr is gloating about it on twitter and thats not the same thing either at all. What DC did wasn't like what Jimmy Carr was doing with his K2 scheme which was a very convuluted hemi-legal tax avoidance scheme and the he was hiding away 3 million in that.
This fund was simply exempt from UK tax....the fund is exempt. Not any gains on it. He still had to pay the appropriate taxes on what he made and at the end of that day it was 30 grand....not exactly George Soros levels of money making eh.
I see that Jimmy Carr is gloating about it on twitter and thats not the same thing either at all. What DC did wasn't like what Jimmy Carr was doing with his K2 scheme which was a very convuluted hemi-legal tax avoidance scheme and the he was hiding away 3 million in that.
I'm surprised that this is what is used to make calls for resignation.
I was calling for his resignation, when he first stepped into office. But perhaps that comes from my proximity to working with the homeless, elderly and disabled and seeing what type of disgusting and sick person it would take to "understand" their plight and yet make it harder.
I was calling for his resignation, when he first stepped into office. But perhaps that comes from my proximity to working with the homeless, elderly and disabled and seeing what type of disgusting and sick person it would take to "understand" their plight and yet make it harder.
Have to agree as well.
If this had been a concerted effort to avoid tax then that might have been a different matter. But it seems to be little more than a single investment. I was actually under the impression the investment was his father's.
I held a pension fund for many years which was invested by a large company on my behalf. I have absolutely no idea where they invested those funds. Just saying.
But as i said in the other thread on this same subject, the whole matter is dubious in the extreme.
I can't quite understand why no Americans have been implicated. The Russians are simply denying involvement.
If this had been a concerted effort to avoid tax then that might have been a different matter. But it seems to be little more than a single investment. I was actually under the impression the investment was his father's.
I held a pension fund for many years which was invested by a large company on my behalf. I have absolutely no idea where they invested those funds. Just saying.
But as i said in the other thread on this same subject, the whole matter is dubious in the extreme.
I can't quite understand why no Americans have been implicated. The Russians are simply denying involvement.
I think its because the Americans tend to use other tax jurisdictions fir their dodgy business. Apparently you can do the same sort of anonymous company in Delaware and Wyoming, so why bother with Panama? I bet if you had a leak from Bermuda it would be chock full of Americans.
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As for the Russians, if you think Putin isn't pocketing bucketloads of cash and stashing somewhere, you're an idiot. No evidence will ever be enough as Putin will just deny it and call the evidence fake. It's sort of a reverse conspiracy, you start with the fact Putin is a wise and just leader, then bend reality to fit that.
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As for the Russians, if you think Putin isn't pocketing bucketloads of cash and stashing somewhere, you're an idiot. No evidence will ever be enough as Putin will just deny it and call the evidence fake. It's sort of a reverse conspiracy, you start with the fact Putin is a wise and just leader, then bend reality to fit that.
Sounds like a lot of supposition with no evidence.
If these other investments were worth it, why is anyone bothering with Panama?
If Panama is worth anything why are no Americans investing there? If they have better investments then why is anyone investing in Panama?
Why the rush to attack Putin? Undoubtedly the biggest fiend since the last fiend, but there are plenty of others.
There is something very suspicious about the whole affair. It's all just a bit too convenient. Cameron, Putin, The PM of Iceland.
Yet to see him in jump suite handing out kebab prizes so I guess he used his tax breaks to get an edukashun.
Mony well spent if you want run the country I'd have thought
Mony well spent if you want run the country I'd have thought
I recently heard on the TV, that it is possible in all the states of the united states
Agreed: I get the feeling that the UK public, will vote against, just to spite him and I felt that before this latest event came to light.
Or just tell the Queen, House of Lords, PM, and everyone else to go F themselves. Then put a democracy in place. We did, seemed to work out.
Signed,
USA
PS -- Problem is, we still can't get rid of conservatives. When you figure out the final solution to that one, lemme know plox. Oh wait
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Not all states. And in Delaware this does not apply to corporations, just LLCs. Directors of corporations cannot be anons.
This issue is not really about what he done; but about what he has declared.
Once again, not wanting to be sounding like a fan-boy and even with carefully chosen words, you can't help, but come across as supporting his actions.
That is the issue: In the UK today there is a growing mind set, that is becoming intolerant of greed. So legally, Dave has done nothing wrong: Of course not, he has paid stooges to make sure that he does not brake the law, but still do as he likes. However: He did not declare the 'Trust' holdings or interests; now in question, as an MP, before 2010. That is the issue. That can get him sacked. Plus, when you take into account, that he would not back a change in the law, with regards Trusts overseas. He would only back changes, that effected corporations, not trusts. Questions, have to be asked, as to his motives, for doing this. Today, he feels, that he can joke, that it has been a bad week and he can joke, that he has been a silly boy and won't do it again. 'I have learnt my lesson and I am sorry'. He thinks, that that will end the matter. Parliament needs to bring him to account. I wonder, if he will even turn up on Monday. Even Corbin, who has refused to comment on this matter, until this morning, has stated, that there are questions to be answered, with regards to his financial interests, before he became Prime Minister.
Just because he has not broken the law, dose not make what he has done, right, or an example to others.
UK has a similar if not stronger from of democracy than the USA if you take into account that fact that we do not have a two party system and also do not accept political action committees (PAC's) and their influence on the election cycle.
The Queen has no influence at all. Westminster is still coined as the mother of all democracy/parliaments for a reason.
Personally i do not believe in the concept of "representative democracy" (or democracy as a whole for that matter) but that is altogether another topic.
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Panama doesn't offer anything other than the standard "tax haven" deal i.e. low taxes on corps and/or trusts, easy setting up, lack of oversight and enough rule of law and stability so that it doesn't all get taken apart in a coup every few years.
Once you can create and control an "anonymous company/trust", wherever that may be (and some of these deals cover multiple jurisdictions, one company in a tax haven, controlling another in a different tax haven, like Russian dolls) then you can start to do all sorts of things to move money and assets around without paying tax or revealing who owns what.
Just like different nationalities tend to go to different holiday destinations, different nationalities go to different tax havens for various reasons.
If you are trying to avoid UK tax, you want somewhere friendly enough with the UK that a company registers there can do business, but not so friendly that they have any cooperation.
Likewise Panama might not be quite suitable for Americans. I imagine it's proximity to, and history of influence by, the USA, means that Americans don't feel that it would "have their backs" if Uncle Sam came knocking. On the other hand, Bermuda is close, is a place you could plausibly visit as a tourist (making trips easy to explain, I think the immigration checks are also very light for US fights), speaks English, is stable and (as a British overseas territory) probably more resistant to US pressure. So for an American Bermuda probably makes sense. For a brit, the opposite is true, and Panama is probably more "opaque" to HMRC.
I agree that his not backing changes for trusts appears wrong.
As far as I'm aware, the trust in question was similar to investment trusts that anyone can buy into. People use these as an easy way to invest in the stock market to get a better return than simply sticking your money in the bank. In fact I think some ISA's are similar investment trusts. The point I'm trying to make is that there was nothing unusual about this trust, he could have bought it at his local high street bank, it just happened that this one was set up and run by his father and some of the paperwork processed in Panama. From heat I understand, this is not an unusual state of affairs for these investment trusts, a lot are run offshore to avoid UK taxes.
I'm not sure that MP's are required to disclose their entire financial affairs, only things that may be considered to influence them (e.g. plane rides from a newspaper company they might be making a monopolies decision on). If the investment trust was "vanilla" and essentially part of their private finances, I'm not sure I would need to be declared. I can't see any other MP's declaring they have £X in a African commodities Investment trust or £Y in a Tech investment ISA.
There are many reasons not to like Cameron, but having some money in an investment trust (like literally millions of other people) doesn't seem like one of them.
Just a lot more supposition.
Whereas the idea that it is all a shady plot tied up with elections and rich Americans have been edited from the data is based on solid ground.....
I guess all sons rebel against their fathers. That would be why Dave was always harping on about how immoral was aggressive tax avoidance, when he knew that his own father was in the business of setting up such tax avoidance schemes.
I guess it's because all these Tory toffs are so used to the idea of avoiding taxes that The Right Honourable Lord Ashcroft managed to wrangle a non-domiciled tax status.
To answer your question, I don't give a flying hoot what that dead-pig's-head-loving, homeless-person-harassing Bullingdon Toff thinks. The United Kingdom is better in the EU.
And also there are other people much worse than David Cameron that are campaigning to leave. There's quite a chilling quote about Rupert Murdoch...
"I once asked Rupert Murdoch why he was so opposed to the European Union. 'That’s easy,' he replied. 'When I go into Downing Street they do what I say; when I go to Brussels they take no notice.'"
And actually some say the USA is the most easy country to hide money in than any other country. Hopefully we won't start seeing mercenaries armed to the teeth walking the streets down there.