The Guardian reported today that:
Tracey McDermott, acting chief executive of the FCA, [appearing before the Treasury Select Committee] ... was ... asked about the scale of money laundering in London and said she did not know. But she said: “We could do better. There have been relatively few prosecutions for money laundering in the UK.”
We don't know because no one asks. And that is because no one wants to know. How do I lnow? Because such fraud would clearly contribute to the tax gap, and HMRC's simply not interested in finding out the true scale of uncollected tax revenue in the UK. Their attitude then flows through into all other regulators.
This is negligent.
And shocking.
But worse, in my opinion this makes the regulators a party to the crime.
That's a big accusation. I think it is true.
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Considering a solicitor is compelled to report relatively minor sums under the Proceeds of Crime Act, this looks like a further example of the “too big to fail syndrome”, only this time it includes not only the Banks but HMRC itself – prosecution of which, or at least its Board, for being accessories after the fact, is deemed to be too embarrassing to contemplate.
I say, prosecute the Board! But then, I would also like to see EVERY member of the Coalition and current Tory Administrations rowed by barge up to Traitors’ Gate at the Tower, where I would have them disembark to be placed in stocks on Tower Green. There we could jeer them, pelt them with rotten fruit etc, and after a whole day (on more?) there, they could be taken to be tried as traitors to the commonality of the realm, and to the principles of common decency and social solidarity for which Britain used to be renowned, before we caught the debilitating disease of neo-liberalism, that robbed the populace of good sense, empathy and judgement.
And on further consideration, there are some from the Blair/Brown Cabinets that deserve the same treatment – Alan Milburn and Steven Byers spring to mind!
You’ve started a potentially very long list there, Andrew, to which I’d certainly add Mandelson – perhaps the worst of a cohort of new Labour stinkers.
Agree with you entirely about prosecuting the HMRC Board. To think that it was not that many decades ago that it was taken as read that public servants acted in the public interest – even if we might argue on occasion as to what that might be. That principle started to fall apart with Thatcher, went steadily into reverse under Blair, and has now been entirely reversed. Thus we have millions of £s of public assets, such as schools, being gifted to private companies, and others sold off at fire sale prices. Traitors indeed!
And not just traitors to “the principles of common decency and social solidarity”, but also to the REAL needs and interests of this country, having exclusively served their needs, and those of their chums in the 1%.
Agree with both of you! It isn’t just the current government but they are such hypocritical doctors of spin who pretend they are doing so much more than the last “labour government” . It’s not about the past, it’s about having a government in power now who will do something radically positive about changing the whole system. Brown promised to support the currency financial tax (now Robin Hood Tax) until he was in power and was in a position to do it.
Are you still in contact with Corbyn or has he stopped consulting you for help?
When LBour call I talk to them
And yes they do call
As do others
Richard, I see I put the wrong defendants in the dock – HMRC, instead of FCA.
We’re so used to HMRC taking the flak for dereliction of duty, it’s easy to assume they’re the target, but to find it is the FCA (!!!!) that is so in the dark – well, it sounds like a wartime George Formvy film my mother used to tell me about: George was playing an employee in the Ministry of Information, whose response to EVERY request for information was to say “I’m sorry, we can’t tell you that: this is the Ministry of Information”!!
FCA should SURELY be in the dock, but that doesn’t excuse HMRC, OR the Cameron/Clegg circus from culpability – there’s far more than one villain in the piece!
Where do they learn how to duck and dive, just hanging out with others of the same ilk. Palms greased but with champagne. Not to be naive of course rogues have always existed but an explosion of wealth accumulation has been ignored and accepted and admired.
Born into wealth plus the lesser mortals in the gang are rigging the game. When is the game up.
LOL, this country is run by a bunch of clowns and this country is way beyond a disgrace. CORRUPT TO THE CORE!
The jibe that no-one wants to hear is “No respectable bank in London ever touches dirty money unless and until it’s been perfectly laundered clean”.
The Anti-Money-Laundering laws, regulation and procedures codify that canard: a pragmatic business practice that generates a satisfying sense of diligence and ‘busy-ness’ while doing business with the nominees and arms-length agents of the powerful, the corrupt and the evasive.
This report of McDermott’s answers is highly misleading. The whole purpose of offshore accounts is for the main part to hide money. Who might like to hide money? The list is endless as are the reasons, but be assured, the majority of them are reasons that deserve scrutiny in order to close the loopholes that exist within the Tax Laws. Much tax dodging is done using them and while they may be “within the letter of the law” they are certainly not “innocent” and this reveals that the legislature must be changed to make such arrangements that “are within the letter of the law” but not “in the spirit of the law” – illegal. As for throwing rotten veg at those culprits in the stocks, I’ll consider nice ripe tomatoes – still in their tin!
To be fair to Tracey no-one knows. But the NCA has had a stab at it—
We assess that hundreds of billions of US dollars of criminal money almost certainly continue to be laundered through UK banks, including their subsidiaries, each year.
para 69 http://www.nationalcrimeagency.gov.uk/publications/560-national-strategic-assessment-of-serious-and-organised-crime-2015/file