Lord Fink, the Tory Party Treasurer has told the Guardian:
If you want to be a successful business and attract invisible earnings to the UK, you have to be based offshore.
Contrast that with Peter Oborne, arch Tory and Telegraph commentator who said last weekend:
People and companies who don't pay tax should be shamed.
I believe as citizens and as political beings on the left or the right that we have a duty to shame companies that don't pay their taxes, that don't fulfil their civic duties.
As he out it, there is a "very strong moral case" for paying tax.
Also contrast it with Giles Fraser who has said in the Church Times today:
I understand that there is a complex line between tax avoidance and tax evasion. Even so, when you have an army of clever accountants, money can be squirrelled away in various offshore accounts in ways that are there only to avoid tax, and the legal can also be deeply immoral.
[T]he government to compete with the island and other offshore havens by easing the tax burden on wealthy foreigners who invest in hedge funds.
and:
Many of the structures in the [hedge fund] business have to be based offshore anyway. Otherwise why would a Japanese person investing in a hedge fund want to pay UK tax? All of the industries I am involved in have to have some offshore entities, if only to help those investors.
So, let's draw a conclusion from what he says. His argument is that the tax system has to be designed to make sure that the rich do not pay tax. That is the only reasonable construction that can be put on the claim the UK tax system must be designed to help wealthy hedge fund investors.
Compare and contrast with Oborne and Fraser. I think I need add no more.
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Was he told to Fink the unFinkable?
Very good
Yet another demonstration of the moral and intellectual bankruptcy of the political right, and, seeing that it’s not just Tory MPs and peers involved in the use of tax havens, politicians in general. There’s a briliant article by an American conservative, Mike Lofgren, in a recent edition of American Conservative, which highlights the way in which the elite are trying to extract themselves from any obligations from the societies they live in whilst at the same time extracting as much wealth as they can from those very societies.
Kink, and others like him, are utterly unfit to hold any position of public office. This a prime example of capitalism eating itself. Fink and his fellow travellers don’t create wealth, they expropriate it from the rest of society. But as that society grows poorer thanks to the policies of governments run by people like Fink, where are they going to get their wealth from in the long run?
To be fair, I think there is a bit you left out. Why should WEALTHY FOREGNERS pay UK tax? They are not UK resident. If they come here to visit and purchase goods, they can even reclaim VAT upon leaving. So, why should they be taxed in the UK on their foreign investments?
It’s called the source basis of tax
Invest here: [pay tax on the income arising here
Why not?
We provide the means to earn here
Because it goes against virtually everything you advocate about country by country reporting and paying your fair share of tax on income in your home country.
You clearly know nothing about country-by-country reporting at all
Isn’t the point that hedge funds invest in many things that aren’t based where the hedge fund is. The source of the income is therefore elsewhere, the income arises elsewhere and the hedge fund is simply a structure through which the investment is made. Consequently the individual will wish to place the investment through a tax neutral jurisdiction, not one that taxes for the privilege of acting as a conduit?
Of course income should be taxed by the jurisdiction it came from and there will be some transparency issues because of the presence of the hedge fund’s country, but the principle seems sound even if it doesn’t work well in practice.
I don’t see why a Japanese person investing in a UK based hedge fund that holds all its assets outside the UK would wish to pay UK taxes, but I would expect taxes to be payable in those other countries the hedge fund has invested in and to be subject to tax in the individual’s home jurisdiction after taking into account taxes already paid elsewhere. Charging more tax in the UK would probably reduce taxes payable in Japan, but it appears the UK is the least deserving place to receive the tax money.
Why the obsession with no tax and tax neutrality?
In a world where witholding and source rates are always low and credit is always given in the country of residence for tax paid elsewhere you claim does not stack. The onbly reason for the concern is the income is being diverted to an untaxed vehicle in a low tax jurisdiction
And just what is wrong with source taxation anyway?
I think the phrase ‘successful business’ puts things in perspective. This country is not a business – it is a community of people who elected representatives from within that community to care in a responsible manner for ALL the members of that community. So far this bunch of reps earn a bid FAIL. The most vunerable parts of our so
ciety are being treated with contemp. ASBO’s all round.
.