Paradise Papers (& Panama Papers)

haydenm

john80 wrote:

Transparency is the key here. If I or any other individual could within 1 hour find the format and ownership of any asset/company then a lot of avoidance would be reduced as what they were doing was transparent. Would Lewis Hamilton be arranging his life in this manner if every press conference focussed on private jets. Would Amazon continue with their arrangements if we did not buy stuff from them. People will always push the boundaries and this gets particularly out of hand if they don't think they will be scrutinised.

Financial transparency with regulators and letting every simple minded moron in the country decide if they agree with your personal finances are not the same thing. I'm not suggesting anyone on here is a simple minded moron by the way, but the papers certainly cater for the wider public. Worth remembering that to the majority of the World we all look super rich, would you want someone living in a third world country deciding what is truly fair? Because it certainly isn't this.

Hating rich people because they are is just as bad as hating poor people because they are poor. I'm all for creating a fairer tax system but we do need to be a bit careful.

Matthewfalle

KingstonGraham wrote:

Matthewfalle wrote:

KingstonGraham wrote:

Stevo 666 wrote:

Mr Goo wrote:

Stevo 666 wrote:

Mr Goo wrote:

The Isle of Man has approx 1000 private jets in its civil registry. Some of them unable to actually land on the island!!! Now Lewis Hamilton will be used as a high profile example of a tax dodger using an 'M' plate for his jet. HM Gov needs to close the door on this and kick it out.

What are you talking about Goo?

It's a VAT/import tax fiddle to register a bizjet in the IoM. Read the news.

Is it really. As you've read the papers you can explain to me how it works then.

As a someone who does tax for a living I know that one of the places you don't look if you want an accurate and informed view on tax and tax 'fiddles' is the papers.

What Panorama apparently said was that that Hamilton intended to use the jet for personal use a third of the time, and his company use two thirds. So it should have been one third of a private jet, subject to VAT on import to the EU.

But Hamilton's IOM company leased the jet from Hamilton's British Virgin Island company, then leased it to a UK company, who leased it to Hamilton's Guernsey company. Hamilton then leased it from his company. So it's an entirely natural business flow from Hamilton to Hamilton to Hamilton, and eventually, to Hamilton.

In The Times: "The lawyers said that reducing taxes was not the motive."

No it shouldn't as it either never entered the EU (he wouldn't have leased it to a UK company as that's plain daft - no one with with any money or common sense uses the UK for anything as it's pretty tat all round).

See post above for some reasonings behind the structure.

It's a very, very simple aircraft owning/funding/leasing structure. Simpler to do than paying your plumber cash in hand and gloating to your mates down the pub about it.

So every report saying that it was leased by Stealth (IOM) to a leasing company in Farnborough in order to make a profit and be "in business" is incorrect?

The company in IOM was set up with the expressed intention of chartering the aircraft to other clients, again, to make it a business, but amazingly, no other clients have ever chartered it.

I can understand having structures to hold assets for other reasons, but if he has set something up in such a way as it is not honest about its use or purpose, then there may be consequences when the authorities are alerted to it. If the IOM company was genuinely in business as an aircraft leasing company, then there's no problem, is there?

It's not his fault that no one else wanted to charter it. It may be because they are all chartering the aeroplanes that Goo was telling us about.

Farnborough - think about it. What's in Farnborough that may, just may, tie into an aeroplane chartering scheme?

Matthewfalle

HaydenM wrote:

john80 wrote:

Transparency is the key here. If I or any other individual could within 1 hour find the format and ownership of any asset/company then a lot of avoidance would be reduced as what they were doing was transparent. Would Lewis Hamilton be arranging his life in this manner if every press conference focussed on private jets. Would Amazon continue with their arrangements if we did not buy stuff from them. People will always push the boundaries and this gets particularly out of hand if they don't think they will be scrutinised.

Financial transparency with regulators and letting every simple minded moron in the country decide if they agree with your personal finances are not the same thing. I'm not suggesting anyone on here is a simple minded moron by the way, but the papers certainly cater for the wider public. Worth remembering that to the majority of the World we all look super rich, would you want someone living in a third world country deciding what is truly fair? Because it certainly isn't this.

Hating rich people because they are is just as bad as hating poor people because they are poor. I'm all for creating a fairer tax system but we do need to be a bit careful.

A lot of them aren't even that rich - those dudes from Mrs Brown comedy show really aren't up there to tell the truth.

LH and the such like - yeah super rich. Mrs Brown people would get a small team (3-5 people) and a trainee administrator overseen by a senior administrator 5 years experience) to run their stuff - they would one of a portfolio of a hundred or so clients that trainee administrator would have.

Pretty base leve work farmed out to someone naive enough to believe that what they do matters a freakin' groat in the real world.

Moonbiker

Apple & Nike on the fiddle also..

:roll:

What is funny is when the goverment pretend to be outraged by it all etc, but don't/ and will never change polices to stop them.

They bring new regs to make new loop holes:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-41888614

Most of IOM economy is based on tax aviodance, would be a poorer backwater place without it.

rick_chasey

Matthewfalle wrote:

It's like holding a rental property in your own name - not a bloody chance I have any of mine in my own name. Madness..

You’re a pikey little sh!t if you do that.

kingstongraham

Matthewfalle wrote:

KingstonGraham wrote:

Matthewfalle wrote:

KingstonGraham wrote:

Stevo 666 wrote:

Mr Goo wrote:

Stevo 666 wrote:

Mr Goo wrote:

The Isle of Man has approx 1000 private jets in its civil registry. Some of them unable to actually land on the island!!! Now Lewis Hamilton will be used as a high profile example of a tax dodger using an 'M' plate for his jet. HM Gov needs to close the door on this and kick it out.

What are you talking about Goo?

It's a VAT/import tax fiddle to register a bizjet in the IoM. Read the news.

Is it really. As you've read the papers you can explain to me how it works then.

As a someone who does tax for a living I know that one of the places you don't look if you want an accurate and informed view on tax and tax 'fiddles' is the papers.

What Panorama apparently said was that that Hamilton intended to use the jet for personal use a third of the time, and his company use two thirds. So it should have been one third of a private jet, subject to VAT on import to the EU.

But Hamilton's IOM company leased the jet from Hamilton's British Virgin Island company, then leased it to a UK company, who leased it to Hamilton's Guernsey company. Hamilton then leased it from his company. So it's an entirely natural business flow from Hamilton to Hamilton to Hamilton, and eventually, to Hamilton.

In The Times: "The lawyers said that reducing taxes was not the motive."

No it shouldn't as it either never entered the EU (he wouldn't have leased it to a UK company as that's plain daft - no one with with any money or common sense uses the UK for anything as it's pretty tat all round).

See post above for some reasonings behind the structure.

It's a very, very simple aircraft owning/funding/leasing structure. Simpler to do than paying your plumber cash in hand and gloating to your mates down the pub about it.

So every report saying that it was leased by Stealth (IOM) to a leasing company in Farnborough in order to make a profit and be "in business" is incorrect?

The company in IOM was set up with the expressed intention of chartering the aircraft to other clients, again, to make it a business, but amazingly, no other clients have ever chartered it.

I can understand having structures to hold assets for other reasons, but if he has set something up in such a way as it is not honest about its use or purpose, then there may be consequences when the authorities are alerted to it. If the IOM company was genuinely in business as an aircraft leasing company, then there's no problem, is there?

It's not his fault that no one else wanted to charter it. It may be because they are all chartering the aeroplanes that Goo was telling us about.

Farnborough - think about it. What's in Farnborough that may, just may, tie into an aeroplane chartering scheme?

I remember going to the Farnborough air show as a kid. Sure it was in England back then.

surrey_commuter

Matthewfalle wrote:

KingstonGraham wrote:

Matthewfalle wrote:

KingstonGraham wrote:

Stevo 666 wrote:

Mr Goo wrote:

Stevo 666 wrote:

Mr Goo wrote:

The Isle of Man has approx 1000 private jets in its civil registry. Some of them unable to actually land on the island!!! Now Lewis Hamilton will be used as a high profile example of a tax dodger using an 'M' plate for his jet. HM Gov needs to close the door on this and kick it out.

What are you talking about Goo?

It's a VAT/import tax fiddle to register a bizjet in the IoM. Read the news.

Is it really. As you've read the papers you can explain to me how it works then.

As a someone who does tax for a living I know that one of the places you don't look if you want an accurate and informed view on tax and tax 'fiddles' is the papers.

What Panorama apparently said was that that Hamilton intended to use the jet for personal use a third of the time, and his company use two thirds. So it should have been one third of a private jet, subject to VAT on import to the EU.

But Hamilton's IOM company leased the jet from Hamilton's British Virgin Island company, then leased it to a UK company, who leased it to Hamilton's Guernsey company. Hamilton then leased it from his company. So it's an entirely natural business flow from Hamilton to Hamilton to Hamilton, and eventually, to Hamilton.

In The Times: "The lawyers said that reducing taxes was not the motive."

No it shouldn't as it either never entered the EU (he wouldn't have leased it to a UK company as that's plain daft - no one with with any money or common sense uses the UK for anything as it's pretty tat all round).

See post above for some reasonings behind the structure.

It's a very, very simple aircraft owning/funding/leasing structure. Simpler to do than paying your plumber cash in hand and gloating to your mates down the pub about it.

So every report saying that it was leased by Stealth (IOM) to a leasing company in Farnborough in order to make a profit and be "in business" is incorrect?

The company in IOM was set up with the expressed intention of chartering the aircraft to other clients, again, to make it a business, but amazingly, no other clients have ever chartered it.

I can understand having structures to hold assets for other reasons, but if he has set something up in such a way as it is not honest about its use or purpose, then there may be consequences when the authorities are alerted to it. If the IOM company was genuinely in business as an aircraft leasing company, then there's no problem, is there?

It's not his fault that no one else wanted to charter it. It may be because they are all chartering the aeroplanes that Goo was telling us about.

Farnborough - think about it. What's in Farnborough that may, just may, tie into an aeroplane chartering scheme?

No it shouldn't as it either never entered the EU (he wouldn't have leased it to a UK company as that's plain daft - no one with with any money or common sense uses the UK for anything as it's pretty tat all round).

kingstongraham

I love the idea of an accountant explaining to Lewis Hamilton that his plane couldn't enter the EU.

dinyull

kingstongraham

The problem is, that kind of bollocks is what the tax planning accountants will be telling their clients. That it is normal, and that it is legal, as long as you write the right things down, never mind the reality.

Matthewfalle

Rick Chasey wrote:

Matthewfalle wrote:

It's like holding a rental property in your own name - not a bloody chance I have any of mine in my own name. Madness..

You’re a pikey little sh!t if you do that.

not really - i just have a larger diversified property portfolio than you.

what makes you say such a rude comment anyway?

Matthewfalle

KingstonGraham wrote:

The problem is, that kind of **** is what the tax planning accountants will be telling their clients. That it is normal, and that it is legal, as long as you write the right things down, never mind the reality.

it is normal, it is legal and it is the reality.

Matthewfalle

KingstonGraham wrote:

I love the idea of an accountant explaining to Lewis Hamilton that his plane couldn't enter the EU.

ffs ...

its the same as a yacht - they can entercthe eu for a certain amount of time before they fall foil of the rules - yachts are x days a year, not sure on aeroplanes.

google it.

Matthewfalle

Dinyull wrote:

yup - losing a discussion so resort to silliness......

mate - just because someone knows more than you don't get all angry.

Matthewfalle

Right - what we learnt so far

Rick is absolutely clueless and although he intimated that he worked in the City I think he means at Pret or at the Tube station. knowing othing about property holding means that he's not even an estate agent.

Kingston G has a clue but needs to read more and think about it before he posts. Also, LH is only a racer driver, not a treasure, he's not H Jones and yes, I'd tell him to keep his aeroplanes out of EU if he didn't want it to be a taxable asset.

Dinyull - well, he's resorted to norm.

Gents - aeroplanes, yachts, etc - that's all about Uk and Non UK situs assets. That's why yachts pop in and out of EU waters to keep their days down.

Property holding in companies isn't pikey - the rented flat that Rick lives in is owned by a company. It's all about landlords liability, estate planning, ring fencing of assets, etc.

so long as you declare the income (your accountant will do this) and pay what HMRC or whatever jurisdiction it's in say you have to it's simple and legal.

The bank who sorts the money to buy the place knows who you are, HMRC knows who you are, Companies' House knows who you are, the estate agent knows who you are, the company that manages the rental knows who you are everyone declares who you are to HMRC.

Residency - don't go there. Rick will have no clue at all and get all abusive, showing himself up as per normal.

Matthewfalle

Surrey Commuter wrote:

Matthewfalle wrote:

KingstonGraham wrote:

Matthewfalle wrote:

KingstonGraham wrote:

Stevo 666 wrote:

Mr Goo wrote:

Stevo 666 wrote:

Mr Goo wrote:

The Isle of Man has approx 1000 private jets in its civil registry. Some of them unable to actually land on the island!!! Now Lewis Hamilton will be used as a high profile example of a tax dodger using an 'M' plate for his jet. HM Gov needs to close the door on this and kick it out.

What are you talking about Goo?

It's a VAT/import tax fiddle to register a bizjet in the IoM. Read the news.

Is it really. As you've read the papers you can explain to me how it works then.

As a someone who does tax for a living I know that one of the places you don't look if you want an accurate and informed view on tax and tax 'fiddles' is the papers.

What Panorama apparently said was that that Hamilton intended to use the jet for personal use a third of the time, and his company use two thirds. So it should have been one third of a private jet, subject to VAT on import to the EU.

But Hamilton's IOM company leased the jet from Hamilton's British Virgin Island company, then leased it to a UK company, who leased it to Hamilton's Guernsey company. Hamilton then leased it from his company. So it's an entirely natural business flow from Hamilton to Hamilton to Hamilton, and eventually, to Hamilton.

In The Times: "The lawyers said that reducing taxes was not the motive."

No it shouldn't as it either never entered the EU (he wouldn't have leased it to a UK company as that's plain daft - no one with with any money or common sense uses the UK for anything as it's pretty tat all round).

See post above for some reasonings behind the structure.

It's a very, very simple aircraft owning/funding/leasing structure. Simpler to do than paying your plumber cash in hand and gloating to your mates down the pub about it.

So every report saying that it was leased by Stealth (IOM) to a leasing company in Farnborough in order to make a profit and be "in business" is incorrect?

The company in IOM was set up with the expressed intention of chartering the aircraft to other clients, again, to make it a business, but amazingly, no other clients have ever chartered it.

I can understand having structures to hold assets for other reasons, but if he has set something up in such a way as it is not honest about its use or purpose, then there may be consequences when the authorities are alerted to it. If the IOM company was genuinely in business as an aircraft leasing company, then there's no problem, is there?

It's not his fault that no one else wanted to charter it. It may be because they are all chartering the aeroplanes that Goo was telling us about.

Farnborough - think about it. What's in Farnborough that may, just may, tie into an aeroplane chartering scheme?

No it shouldn't as it either never entered the EU (he wouldn't have leased it to a UK company as that's plain daft - no one with with any money or common sense uses the UK for anything as it's pretty tat all round).

It wasn't leased to a uk company - he used guernsey, bvi and Isle of Man. He may have used farnborough as a runway as its close to all the f1 stuff.

It would have landed, dropped him off and immediately biggerred off again to keep EU hours down.

Please keep up back there.

kingstongraham

Matthewfalle wrote:

Also, LH is only a racer driver, not a treasure, he's not H Jones and yes, I'd tell him to keep his aeroplanes out of EU if he didn't want it to be a taxable asset.

Just to correct you there - it's not his aeroplane.

Matthewfalle

KingstonGraham wrote:

Matthewfalle wrote:

Also, LH is only a racer driver, not a treasure, he's not H Jones and yes, I'd tell him to keep his aeroplanes out of EU if he didn't want it to be a taxable asset.

Just to correct you there - it's not his aeroplane.

Nice - I like what you did there .

You have gone back up in my estimation.

fat daddy

so Tax avoidance costs the UK 2.7 Billion a year .... and there are 29.3 million people in the uk that pay tax ?

so thats like a cost of £92 per person per year ?

..... I am thinking that I save at least £500 a year shopping through Amazon who may or may not avoid tax ...... if this is the case, surely I am better off thanks to tax avoidance than if they close the loop hole ?

Matthewfalle

Bear in mind it's not just the likes of LH owing this - forumite in this thread is positively gleefully that the firm who supplied his wheels only put a value of £100 on the HMRC docket...... I don't see you having a go at him.

viewtopic.php?f=40042&t=13086410&start=20

Guys - everyone is at it.

ballysmate

Matthewfalle wrote:

Bear in mind it's not just the likes of LH owing this - forumite in this thread is positively gleefully that the firm who supplied his wheels only put a value of £100 on the HMRC docket...... I don't see you having a go at him.

viewtopic.php?f=40042&t=13086410&start=20

Guys - everyone is at it.

Fat Ted!! :shock:

His missus is busy tidying their gaffe for the arrival of the Panorama film crews.

Stevo_666

Rick Chasey wrote:

Matthewfalle wrote:

It's like holding a rental property in your own name - not a bloody chance I have any of mine in my own name. Madness..

You’re a pikey little sh!t if you do that.

Apart from the racist overtones in that accusation, why do you say that?

rjsterry

Matthewfalle wrote:

Right - what we learnt so far

Rick is absolutely clueless and although he intimated that he worked in the City I think he means at Pret or at the Tube station. knowing othing about property holding means that he's not even an estate agent.

Kingston G has a clue but needs to read more and think about it before he posts. Also, LH is only a racer driver, not a treasure, he's not H Jones and yes, I'd tell him to keep his aeroplanes out of EU if he didn't want it to be a taxable asset.

Dinyull - well, he's resorted to norm.

Gents - aeroplanes, yachts, etc - that's all about Uk and Non UK situs assets. That's why yachts pop in and out of EU waters to keep their days down.

Property holding in companies isn't pikey - the rented flat that Rick lives in is owned by a company. It's all about landlords liability, estate planning, ring fencing of assets, etc.

so long as you declare the income (your accountant will do this) and pay what HMRC or whatever jurisdiction it's in say you have to it's simple and legal.

The bank who sorts the money to buy the place knows who you are, HMRC knows who you are, Companies' House knows who you are, the estate agent knows who you are, the company that manages the rental knows who you are everyone declares who you are to HMRC.

Residency - don't go there. Rick will have no clue at all and get all abusive, showing himself up as per normal.

Without doing any sums, I'd guess that setting up a limited company to buy a house to then rent it to yourself would likely leave you worse off, rather than better.

mr_goo

Maybe the UK should do as the French and Germans and become more efficient at collecting tax. The performance of HMRC is quite lamentable in comparison.
Also do as the French do. Once a loophole is found, shut it down and make it illegal.
Another idea could be to go after the accountancy firms that are exploiting the loopholes for their clients.
I don't think the current administration are interested in doing anything about this situation. There are too many individuals and corporations that hold sway over the Tories. Not sure if Labour would be any different.

I would also add that the government should also do more to stop the exploitation by benefit cheats.

Stevo_666

fat daddy wrote:

so Tax avoidance costs the UK 2.7 Billion a year .... and there are 29.3 million people in the uk that pay tax ?

so thats like a cost of £92 per person per year ?

..... I am thinking that I save at least £500 a year shopping through Amazon who may or may not avoid tax ...... if this is the case, surely I am better off thanks to tax avoidance than if they close the loop hole ?

According to HMRC it's about £1.7bn pa. So if we closed all the avoidance loopholes we could pay off the national debt in just over 1,000 years. Whoopee.

See info on page 5 of this HMRC report:
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/655097/HMRC-measuring-tax-gaps-2017.pdf

Going back to this recent leak, wonder how much is at stake and how much relates to the UK? there are a lot of twisted knickers on here before the facts or estimates are out.

dinyull

Mr Goo wrote:

Maybe the UK should do as the French and Germans and become more efficient at collecting tax. The performance of HMRC is quite lamentable in comparison.
Also do as the French do. Once a loophole is found, shut it down and make it illegal.
Another idea could be to go after the accountancy firms that are exploiting the loopholes for their clients.
I don't think the current administration are interested in doing anything about this situation. There are too many individuals and corporations that hold sway over the Tories. Not sure if Labour would be any different.

I would also add that the government should also do more to stop the exploitation by benefit cheats.

Just missing immigrants for a Daily Mail BINGO!!!

Matthewfalle

Dinyull wrote:

Mr Goo wrote:

Maybe the UK should do as the French and Germans and become more efficient at collecting tax. The performance of HMRC is quite lamentable in comparison.
Also do as the French do. Once a loophole is found, shut it down and make it illegal.
Another idea could be to go after the accountancy firms that are exploiting the loopholes for their clients.
I don't think the current administration are interested in doing anything about this situation. There are too many individuals and corporations that hold sway over the Tories. Not sure if Labour would be any different.

I would also add that the government should also do more to stop the exploitation by benefit cheats.

Just missing immigrants for a Daily Mail BINGO!!!

Express delivery with added National Action for Mr Goo at the door.

dinyull

Actually, there was hidden praise in there for Germany and France, so maybe I'm being too harsh...

Stevo_666

Mr Goo wrote:

Maybe the UK should do as the French and Germans and become more efficient at collecting tax. The performance of HMRC is quite lamentable in comparison.
Also do as the French do. Once a loophole is found, shut it down and make it illegal.
Another idea could be to go after the accountancy firms that are exploiting the loopholes for their clients.
I don't think the current administration are interested in doing anything about this situation. There are too many individuals and corporations that hold sway over the Tories. Not sure if Labour would be any different.

I would also add that the government should also do more to stop the exploitation by benefit cheats.

Got any evidence or figures to back that up?

France don't even publish figures for their overall tax gap, nor do Germany. You have to wonder why...

Matthewfalle

rjsterry wrote:

Matthewfalle wrote:

Right - what we learnt so far

Rick is absolutely clueless and although he intimated that he worked in the City I think he means at Pret or at the Tube station. knowing othing about property holding means that he's not even an estate agent.

Kingston G has a clue but needs to read more and think about it before he posts. Also, LH is only a racer driver, not a treasure, he's not H Jones and yes, I'd tell him to keep his aeroplanes out of EU if he didn't want it to be a taxable asset.

Dinyull - well, he's resorted to norm.

Gents - aeroplanes, yachts, etc - that's all about Uk and Non UK situs assets. That's why yachts pop in and out of EU waters to keep their days down.

Property holding in companies isn't pikey - the rented flat that Rick lives in is owned by a company. It's all about landlords liability, estate planning, ring fencing of assets, etc.

so long as you declare the income (your accountant will do this) and pay what HMRC or whatever jurisdiction it's in say you have to it's simple and legal.

The bank who sorts the money to buy the place knows who you are, HMRC knows who you are, Companies' House knows who you are, the estate agent knows who you are, the company that manages the rental knows who you are everyone declares who you are to HMRC.

Residency - don't go there. Rick will have no clue at all and get all abusive, showing himself up as per normal.

Without doing any sums, I'd guess that setting up a limited company to buy a house to then rent it to yourself would likely leave you worse off, rather than better.

nope - standard offshore company practice. Works far better in the long run for many of the reasons I've posted above.

Initial costs if you can't do it yourself are a bit of a hitter (but not too bad) - you just need to find a suitable registered office address and - if necessary - directors and co sec to meet your overall tax planning.

I can do all of it for ours so it's works out alright.

Oh - and in no way read into that that Rick owns a company that owns his rented flat. He doesn't.