{"id":13923,"date":"2012-01-31T13:31:47","date_gmt":"2012-01-31T13:31:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/?p=13923"},"modified":"2012-01-31T13:31:47","modified_gmt":"2012-01-31T13:31:47","slug":"tax-haven-uk-could-hide-money-laundering-in-football","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2012\/01\/31\/tax-haven-uk-could-hide-money-laundering-in-football\/","title":{"rendered":"Tax haven UK could hide money laundering in football"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Bloomberg <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/2012-01-31\/european-soccer-ruling-body-asks-u-k-to-probe-funding-of-porto-purchases.html\" target=\"_blank\">has reported today that<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>European soccer ruling body\u00a0<a title=\"Open Web Site\" href=\"http:\/\/www.uefa.ch\/\" rel=\"external\">UEFA<\/a>\u00a0is asking U.K. authorities to investigate two so-called letterbox companies that helped\u00a0<a title=\"Get Quote\" href=\"http:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/apps\/quote?ticker=FCP:PL\">Porto (FCP)<\/a>fund a player transfer.<\/p>\n<p>For Gool Co. and Pearl Design Holding Ltd. provided finance for the two-time European champion to sign Brazilian striker\u00a0<a title=\"Open Web Site\" href=\"http:\/\/www.fcporto.pt\/\" rel=\"external\">Walter da Silva<\/a>for 6.2 million euros ($8.1 million) in 2010, according to Porto\u2019s latest quarterly statement.<\/p>\n<p>As banks ratchet up lending requirements, soccer clubs are seeking alternative ways to raise funds, often in return for a share of a player\u2019s future transfer fee, said Sandalio Gomez, who teaches sports management at IESE business school in Madrid. UEFA officials said this increases the risk of\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/topics.bloomberg.com\/money-laundering\/\">money laundering<\/a>\u00a0because it\u2019s unclear who owns the letterbox companies, which have mailing addresses in the U.K. and seemingly nothing else.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe are urging state authorities to look into it,\u201d\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/topics.bloomberg.com\/uefa\/\">UEFA<\/a>\u00a0Secretary General Gianni Infantino said. \u201cBecause we are a private company, an association, we cannot go to a company when it is a letter box saying \u2018please tell us who you are and what you\u2019re doing.\u2019 They will tell us: \u2018Who are you to ask me?\u2019\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>This is a massive problem facilitated by the UK.<\/p>\n<p>Whilst we in the UK offer limited companies for sale for only a few pounds and utterly\u00a0neglect\u00a0the need to then\u00a0regulate\u00a0or tax these companies - <a href=\"http:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Documents\/500000Final.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">as I have shown to be the case here<\/a> - then the UK is undoubtedly losing out heavily to tax evasion as I have suggested (my\u00a0estimate\u00a0is <a href=\"http:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Documents\/500000Final.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">\u00a316 billion a year<\/a>) and may, as UEFA seem to be suggesting, provide\u00a0opportunities\u00a0for money laundering.<\/p>\n<p>That's utterly negligent behaviour by successive UK\u00a0governments and is all designed to 'save' costs for Companies House and\u00a0H M Revenue &amp; Customs whilst ignoring\u00a0altogether\u00a0the tax foregone and the massive cost to the UK of the tax foregone and crime permitted.<\/p>\n<p>If we want responsible business in the UK we start by making sure each and every company files its accounts, delivers a tax\u00a0return\u00a0and pays its tax. It's really not too much to ask. But our\u00a0government\u00a0refuses to do it. Why is that?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Bloomberg has reported today that: European soccer ruling body\u00a0UEFA\u00a0is asking U.K. authorities to investigate two so-called letterbox companies that helped\u00a0Porto (FCP)fund a player transfer. For<br \/><a class=\"moretag\" href=\"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2012\/01\/31\/tax-haven-uk-could-hide-money-laundering-in-football\/\"><em> Read the full article&#8230;<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[138,107,10,55],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13923","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-companies-house","category-hmrc","category-tax-avoidance","category-tax-evasion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13923","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13923"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13923\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13923"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13923"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13923"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}