It's interesting that the Isle of Man can find time to dedicate a six week trial to election fraud.
It's a shame they can't deal with the international tax haven fraud they openly encourage every day.
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What tax haven fraud? 🙂
Surely Richard you don’t doubt the Isle of Man Treasury Minister, who this week assured Tynwald: “The Isle of Man is regarded all over the world as being in the category for the highest international standards. The Isle of Man’s record is second to none. ” ? !
As reported yesterday by a complicit Daily Telegraph, “the Isle of Man has been recognised by the G20 as a front-runner in the crusade to stamp out tax evasion.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/offshorefinance/8956767/Isle-of-Man-to-be-removed-from-Spains-tax-haven-blacklist.html
Of course, I don’t believe any of this any more than you do. The point is that they don’t ‘openly’ encourage tax fraud, they openly encourage doing business in a well-regulated stable economy (or some such trite words). What they do behind closed doors is entirely another matter. But whatever it is, it’s not exactly open. And they are determinedly resisting setting up a Freedom of Information Act.
There seems to be a very strange IOM gremlin operating here – and not for the first time. I tried several times to make the above post, but including a link to the article on isle of man dot com site which cited the Treasury Minister. Nothing happened. No error message, but it clearly wasn’t going anywhere and certainly not reaching you. This happened once before, some weeks back. On each occasion, I finally got it to work simply by removing the link to that particular site. If anyone has any idea how that can be I’d be glad to know!
Freedom of Information is non-negotiable. It is critical to the governance, and therefore, existence of Tynwald. The Island will change or be damned.
It never ceases to amaze me how you can have 24 or so honest and well-meaning people elected to an institution, only to produce the most destructive institutional/defensive behaviour.
This trial is just one of those institutional responses. Although one has to question the wisdom of challenging people engaged in the democratic process (whether fairly engaged or no). The IOM’s electoral processes are just not robust enough to sustain the challenge – enough questions asked elsewhere and it’ll make a mockery of any sentence should there be a guilty verdict.
Just picked up the following in an Independent article by Antony Hilton, tweeted by Richard http://ht.ly/82wTC:
” Typically, [a wealth manager, referring to a visit to China] said, while most investors in the West are desperate to find ways to put money into the People’s Capitalist Republic, the main preoccupation for his clients there was to find ways to get their money out.
It is not something the Chinese Government is too keen on, so it’s not the sort of business he wants to encourage. Unlike UBS, it seems, which must have been hugely embarrassed on Thursday when a four-year-old document surfaced in a London courtroom which openly discussed creating an offshore account for an Indian client in apparent breach of Indian law.”
Also, it seems, unlike the IOM government. As extensively reported on the isleofman dot com site on 18 Nov (extracts only here) :
“THE Isle of Man has been promoted heavily at a series of high profile events in China attended by more than 800 professionals, involving a partnership between business and government.
Global fiduciary services provider the ILS Group, in partnership with the Department of Economic Development, Capital International and Appleby Global, promoted the Island’s reputation as an established platform for business success and prosperity, at an exclusive Isle of Man focused event within the China Offshore Summit in Shanghai, China.
They joined forces to showcase their services in a special half-day event entitled “The International Tool Kit: Achieve your wealth management goals through international offshore structures and investments”. More than 70 Chinese professionals attended the exclusive seminar.
Using the case study of a successful high net worth Chinese professional named Mr Wang, the seminar depicted the entrepreneur’s life and growing wealth in conjunction with Isle of Man case studies and solutions to help him, and other high net worth individuals, achieve their wealth management goals through international offshore structures and investments.
…
“In terms of wealth Asia-Pacific is the third biggest in the world with more than 40,000 UHNW individuals controlling total assets of $6.2trnm, and it’s expected to surpass Europe in 2024 and the US in 2032. These figures continue to reinforce the importance of Asia and the potential it holds for the Isle of Man.
…
“As Asia-Pacific prepares to welcome more members into the UHNW club, there are tremendous opportunities for wealth professionals in helping Asia’s future UHNW amass their wealth, grow their fortunes for future generations and their legacy.
“As such the ILS Group is committed to promoting its services and the Isle of Man as an established platform for business success and prosperity in Asia and we look forward to returning as Gold sponsor of the China Offshore Summit series of conferences in 2012, in Beijing in April and Shanghai in October.”
My heart bleeds for the Isle of Man 🙂 They say they have been “blacklisted by Spain as a tax haven because we have been caught in the crossfire with Madrid’s dispute over Gibraltar”.
“Speaker Steve Rodan claimed Banco Santander had been making ‘zealous and intrusive’ demands for information from its customers who are island residents as a consequence of this definition of the Isle of Man as a tax haven being enshrined in Spanish law.”
http://www.iomtoday.co.im/news/isle-of-man-news/isle_of_man_caught_in_spanish_crossfire_over_gibraltar_1_4064735
As I have commented there:
” … Protestations from the Manx authorities over such requests can serve only to reinforce the widely-held belief that the Isle of Man is indeed a tax haven and increase the suspicions of the Spanish (and other) authorities that it is not serious in the fight against money-laundering and large-scale tax evasion. …”