The Guardian is launching a series of articles on Monday on the Tax Gap. As Polly Toynbee says in her article in the Guardian today: On Monday the Guardian reports on its investigation which reveals corporate tax avoidance on a gargantuan scale. Respectable FTSE 100 companies, household brands that are cornerstones of Britishness, have for
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The following press comment has been issued by Jersey Finance: Jersey Finance notes the inaccurate comments made today by the TUC with regard to the UK banking sector’s offshore activities. There is no credible or practical evidence to suggest that international financial centres threaten financial stability. Jersey is a well-regulated jurisdiction which meets or exceeds
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These are my links for January 29th through January 30th:

• Cover story: 'Rise of the red Tories' by Phillip Blond | Prospect Magazine February 2009 issue 155 – Superficially appealing

  Actually, really quite nasty underneath it all

• We need more than sticking plasters, warns leading Labour backbencher - – John Cruddas urged Mr Brown to launch "two crusades". One would be on "tax justice", including minimum tax rates throughout the incomes scale so that the rich paid their fair share and joining President Obama's crackdown on offshore tax havens.

  The second would be a state-funded programme to build 100,000 houses a year, which would provide homes for those who need them and create 50,000 jobs in the construction industry. "That is the language people will understand – not mechanistic but emotionally in tune with people who are suffering."

  What can I say?

  Go for it!

• Guernsey deal extends taxman's reach – Accountancy Age – Sorry – but as I say in the piece – the evidence is TIEAs are not enough

  Jersey has supplied 4 pieces of data to the USA in 6 years

  I do not call that meaningful exchange

• Offshore Asset Protection – Another Roundup of the Usual Suspects – Bob clearly thinks we exist to supply him with cause for invective

  I've got news for Bob….

  Those governments aren't letting us use their name in vain

• Letter from the City: UK plans amnesty program for offshore bank accounts – Quite funny really: the banks say they aren't involved in offshore tax avoidance but Stephen Timms seems to be saying they are most certainly assisting offshore tax evasion. Why else is an amnesty needed?
• ‘We’ve nothing to hide’ » News » This Is Guernsey – Yes you have

  If you haven't you wouldn't have created the massive veil of secrecy that surrounds all corporate activity in Guernsey

  I wonder if he realises how daft he sounds?

The Big 4 have spent years demanding access t markets. And then this happens in India: “During interrogation [the auditors, Subramani Gopala Krishnan and Talluri Srinivas] confessed their involvement in the crime,” deputy superintendent Rao said in a document requesting a Hyderabad court to remand them in custody for 15 days. “They also colluded .
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The BBC web site offered the rebuttals made by the four banks which were the subject of the research published by the TUC on their use of tax haven / secrecy jurisdictions. The responses are amusing: The banks in question refuted any charge of tax avoidance. Heaven forbid they should ever do such a thing
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From Bloomberg: Britain’s main banks should provide more detail of their activities in offshore financial centers such as the Cayman Islands and Jersey, a union group said. Barclays Plc, HSBC Holdings Plc, Lloyds Banking Group Plc and Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc together have more than 1,000 subsidiaries in tax havens, according to a
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KPMG has published its latest survey on the UK’s tax competitiveness. It’s message is clear: it says the UK is slipping behind. But look who it compares us to: Let’s be blunt: Ireland, Luxembourg and the Netherlands are all small states who are tax havens. It’s an impossible business model for the UK to emulate.
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These are my links for January 28th through January 29th: FT.com / UK / Business – Call to make bail-out banks list havens – More coverage for the TUC research on bank use of tax havens Of course what they're doing is legal But we know that 40,000 people admitted using them to facilitate their
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I was discussing the International Accounting Standards Board and International Financial Reporting Standards projects with an accountant of high repute this morning. Our discussion was framed within the context of the current economic crisis. We agreed that the IASB project had the supposed goal of facilitating globalisation and of reducing the cost of capital. We
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