Marty Sullivan has been continuing his work on the UK's offshore tax havens, this time looking at the Isle of Man. He concludes:
At the end of 2006, there were $150.5 billion of assets in the Isle of Man financial sector beneficially owned by non-Isle of Man individuals who were likely to be illegally avoiding tax on those assets in their home jurisdictions.
Rapid growth of bank deposits (15 percent during the first six months of 2007) and of mutual funds shares (27 percent during the first nine months of 2007) suggests this total could edge close to $200 billion by the end of 2007.
How do you justify that, Allan Bell?
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“are likely to be illegally avoiding tax”.
What is the basis of this assumption? There are many reasons why one might wish to hold assets offshore, and I suspect that tax evasion is the least likely scenario.
Richard R
Richard
Go on then, Name all the others and suggest why secrecy (which is implict in the Isle of Man) has any role to play in them.
Then explain why most people in the Isle of Man who could opt for automatic information exchange do not do so and how this fact can be used to explain their willingness to comply with the requirements of their domestic taxation law.
I look forward to your reply.
Richard
Richard R sounds very typical of the people currently polluting the Isle of Man, enthusiastically helping to lay waste a beautiful island motivated solely by greed.
The Isle of Man and Channel Islands are not independent but separate jurisdictions part of the British state ie part of Britain known as “the British Islands” but not in the UK. So as the Isle of Man Appeal Court with its address in Manchester has long since held that the Isle of Man Government has no independent legal existence, and the Manx Treasury comes under the Crown, and by convention Westminster rarely interferes openly and directly for constitutional reasons how much tax revenue is being lost annually by such artificial niceties? Why doesn’t the UK govt merely put down real pressure, say, “You’re British. We are your superiors. Its our tax. Give us the accounts. We want to collect it now”. Currently, tax collectors from the UK get thrown off the Isle of Man and in the past have been locked in the cells. I have an Isle of Man passport. It is 100% British marked EU and Isle of Man “British Islands” issued by the Lt. Governor. In the past month I have temporarily left the Island and using my National Insurance paid on the Isle of Man to Isle of Man Government have been able to collect a full range of unemployed benefits, social housing, NHS, NHS dentist, Council tax benefits etc. So with an Isle of Man passport I am as British as anyone and am treated as such yet the UK tax authorities lose X billion Pounds a year to an Island which Britain owns and which has the Queen in Privy Council as Head of State and whose laws require the Royal Assent just like Westminster. The Channel Islands are similarly placed. So how much tax could we get back if we simply said hand it over and damn the (unwritten) constitutional conventions. Have you a total? 2:Barrie Stevens 4 Leigh Terrace Douglas Isle of Man barriestevens@manx.net
Barrie
Your logic is impeccable: it is clear that most people in the Crown Dependencies get all the benefits of being British and have none of the responsibilities (but note: Protocol 3 passport holders do not have this benefit).
How much is lost? Marty Sullivan says $1 trillion is held in these places. That’s $50 billio0n of income, at an average of 30% that’s $15 billion lost, or £7 billion or so.
Of course, not all would be recovered. But it would be a step on the way.
It’s more than the GDP of the Crown Dependencies. Think on that as the price of rights without responsibilities in these places.
Richard