So, we now know we were right to be concerned. Around £570 billion is held in tax havens. You might expect that to yield a useful tax return each year, split between tax on income and gains.
But, as Dan Neidle discovered, HMRC has no idea how many of these accounts are properly declared, and nor has it sought to find out. It’s as if they don’t care. Instead, they are actually offering excuses, suggesting for example that most such accounts are probably held by non-doms and therefore not a concern, when in itself that is simply not true.
They did exactly the same shouting about the Swiss bank accounts. And were then most put out, when the full combing of the books came through, to be told that only some small minority had not been paying tax legally doe. The vast majority were either on-doms or non-residents. Neither of whom have to pay UK tax on money not in the UK.
Instead, they are actually offering excuses, suggesting for example that most such accounts are probably held by non-doms and therefore not a concern, when in itself that is simply not true.
How does he know whose accounts these are? I’m sure the correct answer is “he has no fucking idea”, which is the correct answer for any of the Spud’s aperçus.
Why is tax ‘useful’? Surely tax is an overhead (which as an accountant he should know). So equally surely should we not always be seeking to minimise taxation?
Is this Dan Neidle that Ritchie is so comprehensively referencing the same Dan Neidle with whom he regularly falls out, or is that another Dan Neidle?
Also:
I can get on with people I don’t always agree with
Not only is this patently untrue, but history tells us that the mad cnut will eventually and necessarily fall out with people he does agree with.
Only 570 billion in tax havens? A few dozen oligarchs would cover it. Before you got to some of the FAANG money temporarily parked to delay US tax. In neither case does HMRC have a claim.
Your pensions, Crypto currencies, ISAs and now ‘tax havens assets’
Yes – that’s right. There is indeed a fat retard In Ely that knows how to spend your money better than you do…
“non-residents. Neither of whom have to pay UK tax on money not in the UK.”
So the swine pay tax in Spain, say, since it is the might of the Spanish state that will protect them from Putin and mock-refugees, not Our Own Brave Boys? Seems fair enough, actually.
@philip
US megacorps don’t have to park money offshore any more since Orange Man Bad made that part of the tax system work (relatively) sanely, thus increasing revenues and improving capital efficiency. But, for some strange reason, that isn’t something that you can discover from most media outlets…