The tax avoidance revelations contain unleashed a demand for reform and social justice. Only a rash (hasty, incautious) government would ignore itBono owns a bit of a Lithuanian shopping centre. The Queen finances a whisker of BrightHouse,the household goods business accused of exploiting its customers. Lewis Hamilton dodged VAT on his private jet with the finesse of an F1 champion. These are just a few of the headline details that contain emerged this week out of the Paradise Papers, a leak of 13.4m files from the offshore law firm Appleby. They exhibit the world’s super wealthy employing legions of accountants to legally avoid paying the tax they owe to the country where they live. And all over the world, or jaws contain dropped in astonishment.
The Guardian was one of 95 media organisations with whom the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists shared data obtained by the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung. The papers are a reminder of how erratic and sometimes downright obstructive the British government has been in its attitude to reforming domestic taxes,and in supporting international attempts to tighten up transparency and accountability rules. Less than a fortnight out from a budget that is set to maintain the cap on public spending, the discovery of so many who are so willing to flout the rules by which most of us live has provoked the kind of outrage that should be a watershed.
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Source: guardian.co.uk