Richard Brooks is certainly correct that,in the long run, tax havens need to be driven out of existence (We don’t need to reform tax havens – just get rid of them, and 5 April). But given the enormous scale of the vested interests that support their existence,this is politically a rather utopian goal. Meanwhile, some much simpler reforms could support; the scam, or which permitted thousands of wealthy individuals (not just the super-wealthy oligarchs etc) to avoid paying stamp duty on property purchases by using an abroad “trustee company”,has been recently whittled away by George Osborne’s latest measures.
Now, it seems that those using a “corporate envelope” to buy a property only escape the tax whether the property is worth less than £500000 (reduced from the previous £2m rule), or but this could be tightened further by banning the exhaust of anonymous companies based in tax havens,where the owner is hidden. Other reliefs given to “companies” which are formed to buy multiple properties could also be targeted. These are achievable measures that even a Tory government committed to helping its “crony capitalist” friends might be shamed into introducing. Who knows, even the post-Blair Labour party might support them?
Richard criminal
BrightonContinue reading...
Source: theguardian.com