Tory Britain: Safe Haven for Crooks
The recent report by Transparency International UK, reported in the serious press, shows startling evidence of the extent to which the corrupt and criminals are using Britain as a safe haven for their money.
· £300bn of dodgy money channelled through financial institutions, accountants and lawyers.
· Money spent on luxuries such as private jets, art masterpieces and hovercrafts.
· 17,000 shell companies in the UK ready and willing to launder money, including 1,455 registered at the same office above a wine bar in Birmingham
· Private school and prestige university fees in Britain paid through laundered money
· Former prime minister of Moldova Vlad Filat finally jailed for 9 years for the ‘theft of the century’.
£300bn is an enormous amount of money. Of course all this is money that is not going to support our social services.
How do they get away with it? The fact is that the Tories have not just let all this happen. They have laid out the welcome mat, for instance by encouraging the growth of Scottish limited partnerships, widely regarded as a vehicle for money laundering.
These crooks are white collar criminals. The sums they are robbing make ordinary crooks look very small time. They are part of the elite in their own country and recognised as the equivalent of Boris Johnson or Jacob Rees-Mogg in the UK. They are kith and kin. That is why the Tories have not cracked down on them.
Marxist economist Michael Roberts puts this in a global context in a review of The Triumph of Injustice: how the rich dodge taxes and how to make them pay, a new book by, Daniel Zucman and Emmanuel Saez. “The Panama papers revealed the extent of international tax avoidance and evasion. And Zucman’s previous book showed that $7.6 trillion in assets were being held in offshore tax havens, equivalent to 8% of all financial assets in the world.
Roberts outlines the particular role of Britain as the biggest tax haven on the globe. “A spider’s web of satellite havens, from the Cayman Islands and the British Virgin Islands to Jersey, captures wealth from around the world, polishes it and feeds it to the City of London. The British Overseas Territories like the British Virgin Islands or Jersey operate for these purposes and it’s the main source of revenue for these islands.” https://thenextrecession.wordpress.com/
Labour has pledged that it will crack down hard on the tax dodgers. It’ll be a difficult job, but under Jeremy Corbyn they are the only Party that has the will to take them on.
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