I'm pleased to say that the failure of the UK to regulate the companies it permits to be registered in this country is beginning to be notcied. After being a lone voice on the issue for many years I welcome this. Today Reuters report:
To get an idea of how Britain allows individuals to hide behind hard-to-trace companies, take a look at Number 43 Bedford Street, a nondescript brick terrace in central London. The ground floor of the building is lined with myriad mail boxes and is more of a staging post than a conventional office. It is occupied by a branch of Mail Boxes Etc., a franchise chain that provides postal services for other companies.
More than 1,600 companies or partnerships have used 43 Bedford Street as their registered office in the past five years, UK corporate records show. Some exist there in name only and their ultimate ownership is hard to determine, a Reuters examination of corporate filings found.
And as they point out:
[I]nterviews with industry figures and a Reuters examination of corporate accounts, annual returns and other filings over the past five years show business service providers often do not know the people using their services.
You don't need to go offshore to get secrecy when the UK permits it through lax regulation. And that regulation is so lax that HMRC do not know why 1.25 million companies do not pay tax and Companies House has just four people working in its enforcement department. In other words, this failure is not an accident, it's a choice.
So why is the UK government choosing to help crooks, tax cheats and conmen by failing to regulate the companies that permit crime and fraud and undermine the tax system? It's a question in need of a good answer, and cost is not an explanation. Quite clearly tackling this issue would raise tax revenue. So why is it not being done?
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Totally agree. The pressure needs to be kept up on this. A huge amount of this type of tax evasion is right under their noses. Just check out what goes on in Chinatown for a start.
Perchance because it is made up of crooks, tax cheats and conmen/women? This is the new normal I feel – all these behaviours are being normalised into acceptance.
“Why is the UK government choosing to help crooks, tax cheats and conmen?”
Imagine, just once, slipping a Truth Pill to George Osborne and asking.
It wouldn’t do any good with Theresa May: she’s an authoritarian, and hates the disorder and lawlessness of crooks and tax cheats. But she has internalised the contradictions and dissimulations necessary to ‘keep the wagon rolling’ and keep a divided party of tax cheats, conmen and non-executive directors on board.
May may or may not be aware, at some level, that the wheels fell off some time ago and the carcass of the wagon is sliding down a steepening slope at a terrifying speed: and your answer will be that Mrs May has a firm grip on the controls.
And that, at least, will be the truth. For values of the truth that include the phrases ‘white knuckle’, ‘ride’ and ‘Why are you driving with your eyes shut?’
Rhetorical flourishes aside, your question will be met with a silence that supplies all the answers we needed.
Are you serious? Nothing is being done because so many Conservatives are in on the game of cheating their own country. And not just Conservatives. You can’t have forgotten the MP’s expenses scandal? Take a look at http://www.private-eye.co.uk/registry. The beneficial owners are not all Nigerian govt officials, middle eastern oil sheiks etc. Their army of facilitators in turning London’s property market into a home for dirty money like to get their cut too. The industry, which is global, is revealed (a tip of one iceberg) here: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/30/magazine/how-to-hide-400-million.html
Nothing is being done; because those who make and enforce the laws are a large part of the problem.
Look at “expensesgate”. Practically every dishonourable member was well snouted-in. What happened? After a period of time, some paid-back, and then the system was changed to minimise the chance OF THEM BEING FOUND OUT AGAIN!
Tax avoidance/evasion is a major financial industry, with all the major financial companies and accounting/dis-accounting companies heavily involved.
They have no incentive to change, and every incentive to continue.
I could point to the several hundreds of billions of dollars in fines imposed on major banks in the USA…and the lack of similar in the UK…but what would be the point.
The prisons are full of crooks, so are the banks and accountancy firms.
Some crooks are honest: those in prison. Some are not: those in parliament?
http://www.vice.com/en_uk/read/the-seven-reasons-why-super-rich-tax-dodgers-dont-end-up-in-jail-101
A friend suggests, I’d say with good reason, that the answer to your headline question is: they hope to boost investment. What is your response, please, Richard?
You think that tax cheats ate long term thinkers?
Or are keen to gave obvious economic footprints?
Or care for investing in the training if their staff?
Or in R&D?
Really?
How do you think running fly by might companies is consistent with those things?