Compared to $21 trillion estimated to be offshore these sums look low. There are four possible reasons.
First, voluntary schemes have not lured the big money in: that is holding out in the belief that automatic information exchange for tax havens will not work or that there will not be staff in home tax authorities to use it, which is certainly possible in the case of the UK.
Second, the countries with the highest proportionate wealth offshore – many of them developing countries – are not on this list.
Third, the money has moved: there are still, unfortunately, places to go.
Fourth, the wise have read the runes and the money has been quietly coming back.
Actually, there’s a fifth reason. As with those Swiss accounts and the Liechtenstein Disclosure stuff. Other than one or two politicians that Ritchie shills for the vast majority of this offshore money isn’t, from the UK tax system point of view at least, tax dodging. It belongs to non-doms (who MUST keep it offshore, entirely legally, to miss the UK tax system) or UK citizens who are not resident (who do not owe UK tax on it anyway).
That pot of gold for the tax system just ain’t there. As was so embarrassingly proved when people actually tried to go collect it as Ritchie and the TJN had insisted they must. There’s rarely been as useful a proof of the stupidity of their ideas as the Swiss bank deal.
“There’s billions in Switerland to tax!”
“We are the Swiss banks and we combed through every account and there ain’t”
“We never said that!”
Lying toads.
Not the Swiss banks of course….
Tim
You can say this until you’re blue in the face and it makes no difference – we’ll get the canards – ‘Uk is fourth largest economy in the world, therefore we should be able to pay NHS care for people that do sod all in perpetuity’, ‘there is enough money for a green new deal providing good jobs for all from the taxpayer’, ‘ if we cut tax avoidance and use the magic money tree there is enough money to renationalise everyone and everything’ – it is all total nonsense, but persuasive enough for a country where educational standards are so low that the message, in however garbled a form, comes through loudly –
It’s all someone else’s fault and I have a right to whatever I want without having to put in any effort…..
I presume that’s 21T for the whole world, tell me it’s not for the UK?
Problem is, one man’s offshore is another man’s down the road. Is Vodafone’s German local kitty “offshore”? Is Vodafone’s UK kitty not “offshore” to the German fisc in respect of their activities there?
And the £20 in my UK Barclay’s account is as surely “offshore” as anything. Fully declared, and fully wealth-taxed at 0.25% though!
Glad to see he’s still following my advice, although if I were being really picky I’d say he could double or treble the $21 trillion…
Then, following on from VP above post, he could say “The UK is the fourth largest economy which is nearly the third so we divide $63 trillion by 3 and therefore the UK tax gap is $21trillion” which would really make Corbyn’s eyes light up.
And, of course, unlike most of Dick’s ramblings, the arithmetic is faultless.
Anyone know where the 21 trillion thingy me currency estimate comes from? These estimates get bandied around like tabloid gossip but never with any references or links to research.
I like his idea that everything will be solved by hiring more tax inspectors. Does he really suppose that some of the wealthiest people on the planet basically guess that their affairs will never be looked into?
The previous post on Murphy being a moron (there are so many – his position as the ‘man behind Corbynomics’ is now inviting attack which we all know he won’t be comfortable) referenced his almost Alex Jones/David Icke like belief in a ‘state within a state’ (I don’t know if they’re blood-drinking lizards but it may be possible?)
It brought to mind this post from way back when, Tim
http://treasureislands.org/for-cyprus-the-tax-haven-apologists-are-out-in-force/
For me the first paragraph’s message is that however rapacious or grasping the state, no-one has a right to evade its clutches or reduce the amount of money accruing to it. Under this logic, the North Koreans (for example) who try and evade the clutches of their vile regime are ‘a threat to the integrity of the state’. It’s hard, I think to overstate how evil a conception that is – I get abuse from the by now legendary stool pigeon, ‘Lawrence from Guernsey’ for emphasising Murphy’s distastefulness but he is effectively saying that the state has carte blanche to do whatever it likes to its citizens and if they try and move their money out of its clutches, they are ‘the enemy’ – its a formulation seen by many a victim of totalitarianism over the years….
Presumably the bugger thinks that because I have a UK passport I should be paying taxes to HMRC, even though I spend an average of about ten days a year in the UK.
Four possible reasons. He’s on a roll.
Speaking of Ritchie’s calculational skills, in his post about bank deposit insurance I asked him in a comment if he could give or cite some calculation of bankers’ inadequate premiums for deposit insurance. He answered that he had not done it, had seen it referred to, and the idea that the premiums were token seemed reasonable.
One Camilla Maguire then asked Ritchie “How did you work that out ? Did you consider their capital structure, risk of a default, size of recovery and position of depositors in the capital structure. Like an insurance company ?”
Ritchie’s answer was spectacular: “Yes Instinctively, as I and many others have done”
The man can do complicated actuarial mathematics “Instinctively”. His brilliance shines as does the sun.
And “Camilla Maguire” is a subtly sarcastic person.
Under the totalitarian cult of the all powerful leader, all decisions are brilliant and instinctive and anyone who disagrees gets a bullet in the back of the head.
“Presumably the bugger thinks that because I have a UK passport I should be paying taxes to HMRC, even though I spend an average of about ten days a year in the UK.”
Well, he used to, but then Seamus got him to U-turn totally.
He never thought that he should have to pay taxes to Ireland though, strangely… Nor that, if the UK started to come over all US on taxation that it was conceivable that other countries might ask for some reciprocity – imagine the fun to the Labour base if India, Pakistan and Bangladesh started to tax their citizens in the UK, who are wildly rich in comparison with their compatriots in the mother country.
Abacab
One if his fastest U-turns ever – he was quick to realise reciprocal tax treaties with the subcontinent and Sub Saharan Africa were likely to go down like a lead balloon – seems not everyone shares his sentiment ‘The joy of tax’…..