A Right Royal Tax Avoidance

The hot topic of the past week (aside from Priti Patel) has been the revelations in the ‘Paradise Papers’, which were a huge leak of financial documents obtained by the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitungthat (try saying that after a couple of cold Bavarian ‘refreshments’) that throw light on the top end of the world of offshore finance……where companies and individuals register offshore to avoid UK tax and pay far lower local tax in which they are registered.

 

There have been plenty of tabloid headlines that don’t need regurgitating here……from Apple avoiding tax in the Channel Islands to Lewis Hamilton avoiding VAT on his private jet to a Lithuanian shopping mall partly owned by U2 star Bono……and plenty in between.

 

Tax avoidance is what it is……the wealthy avoiding paying the going rate of UK tax by using law loop holes, offshore companies, trusts, etc. etc. It’s gone on for ever and it will continue to go on. The difference now in comparison to 10 or 20 years ago is that more and more of the stories are being leaked.   

 

To be honest, I am ‘amblivious’ to the subject. We all live by our own moral compass and we are the greater judge of our own actions.

 

Well, that was until I read about members of the Royal Family.  

 

Prince Charles campaigned to alter climate change agreements after his private estate (Duchy of Cornwall) had purchased shares in a company offshore with a financial interest in what he was promoting. The Paradise Papers show the Duchy of Cornwall in 2007 secretly bought shares in a Bermuda company that would benefit from a rule change. Conflict of interest I hear you say? Surely not!

 

In addition, the Queen’s estate (Duchy of Lancaster) has around £10 million invested offshore in the Cayman Islands and Bermuda.  

 

And that’s got me angry. I have voiced my concerns as recently as last month about the lack of transparency with MPs and their business dealings http://stevesmithlive.blogspot.co.uk/2017/10/intended-or-unintended-consequences.html

as well as the lack of reporting to the public in an easy to understand manner. Does this really now need to be extended to the Royal Family also? Is that how far we have now come?

 

We live in an age of mistrust of the leaders in this country and this fragments and polarises. Yet, the more transparent our leaders are……the more we trust and believe in their actions……the more we will embrace their decisions and support the movement.

 

Or we could just continue as we are.