Sir Howard Elston, ennobled man of the people, fields a query about macro-finance and those funny little islands which Britain owns and uses as tax fiddles.
Sheree Ann Koppel from Boise, Idaho asks: Sir Howard, now that we know that the Queen and her son Charles have squirrelled away zillions in tax free dodges that are perfectly legal but morally dubious, will they take their money out of those offshore markets?
Sir Howard Elston: Yes. The House of Windsor, as we speak, is lining up outside their banks ready to dump their non-taxable loot in their joint accounts to allow the exchequer to tax them at the appropriate amount in order to fund roads, schools, hospitals and social services. They are also telling their advisors never, never, never, ever get caught out again like this.
Questions for Sir Howard are always welcome. Cheques should be payable to The Howard Elston Charity for Sick Kiddies, c/o Dudley Post Restante, UK
“Anyone may arrange his affairs so that his taxes shall be as low as
possible; he is not bound to choose that pattern which best pays the
treasury. There is not even a patriotic duty to increase one’s taxes.
Over and over again the Courts have said that there is nothing sinister
in so arranging affairs as to keep taxes as low as possible. Everyone
does it, rich and poor alike and all do right, for nobody owes any
public duty to pay more than the law demands.”
Judge Learned Hand
(1872-1961), Judge, U. S. Court of Appeals.
I detect a strong whiff of hypocrisy in all this shouting about tax avoidance.
Guardian Media Group used a tax-exempt shell company in the Cayman Islands to avoid paying corporation tax when it sold its 50 per cent holding in Auto Trader to Apax Partners in 2008 (hat tip to Guido Fawkes). That produced £302million and not a penny of tax paid. What about the hundreds of millions GMG has invested in offshore hedge funds over the years?
Nearly all gone now I’m afraid.
The real trick to being wealthy is not avoiding tax but being a wealth creator. We may not like them but such people are rare and precious. We need them in our economy and if we discourage them through punitive taxes etc. they will take their business elsewhere.
If you want to see this in action look no further than the sweetheart deals Juncker did when PM of Luxembourg to get ebay,amazon and paypal (among many others) domiciled there.Pop.600,000, GDP per capita at $107,000 the highest in the world and $30,000 ahead of Switzerland in second place.
12% Corporation tax in Eire, they have Microsoft and Google in Dublin.
Look how Juncker and the EU squirm when the UK threatens to match the Irish rate if they aren’t sensible about Brexit.
Those are the arrangements which are costing the UK exchequer billions.All the little people in these exposes don’t add up to a hill of beans in comparison.