{"id":17102,"date":"2012-09-03T09:01:21","date_gmt":"2012-09-03T08:01:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/?p=17102"},"modified":"2012-09-03T09:01:21","modified_gmt":"2012-09-03T08:01:21","slug":"tax-haven-uk-is-alive-and-prospering-on-the-back-of-corruption","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2012\/09\/03\/tax-haven-uk-is-alive-and-prospering-on-the-back-of-corruption\/","title":{"rendered":"Tax haven UK is alive – and prospering on the back of corruption"},"content":{"rendered":"

The FT reports this\u00a0morning<\/a>:<\/p>\n

A \u00a338bn development boom in London\u2019s most expensive neighbourhoods has been spurred by rampant demand from European and Asian buyers\u00a0seeking safe investments\u00a0away from turbulent Eurozone economies.<\/p>\n

The pipeline of upmarket housing projects in planning or already under construction in the UK capital has increased more than two-thirds during the past year, with 15,500 units slated for delivery by 2021, even as building work in other parts of the country remains stagnant.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That's one version of the story. The\u00a0Guardian offers another (in a compelling story that deserves to be read in full). They report<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Britain has allowed key members of\u00a0Egypt's toppled dictatorship to retain millions of pounds of suspected property and business assets in the UK, potentially violating a globally-agreed set of sanctions.<\/p>\n

The situation has led to accusations that ministers are more interested in preserving the City of London's cosy relationship with the Arab\u00a0financial sector\u00a0than in securing justice.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I and the\u00a0Tax Justice Network have long argued there is an economy within an\u00a0economy\u00a0n the UK - which is that of tax haven UK. Boith these reports are clear signs of this.<\/p>\n

Of course money floods to the UK - but that is\u00a0because our domicile rule makes the UK a perfect tax haven. But these people who come do not add value: they simply\u00a0distort our housing markets, destroy the balance in our society,\u00a0encourage more financial services\u00a0which\u00a0imbalance our economy and have no role to play in our democratic and other processes. It's worse than that though: as the second report shows, far too much of this money is\u00a0illicit\u00a0and the UK has a\u00a0willingness to turn a blind eye to such funding that is reflected in the\u00a0behaviour of our banks who all to knowingly it seems do just the same thing.<\/p>\n

This is tax\u00a0haven UK at work, like a cancer within our country,\u00a0destroying it from within.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The FT reports this\u00a0morning: A \u00a338bn development boom in London\u2019s most expensive neighbourhoods has been spurred by rampant demand from European and Asian buyers\u00a0seeking safe
 Read the full article…<\/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":[35,32,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17102","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","category-tax-havens","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17102","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=17102"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17102\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17102"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17102"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}