Panama papers?...
 

What are they? What's going on?... :/

http://www.theguardian.com/news/live...b0fde262ff63fc

You need to listen to the BBC news Kizzy, details of tax haven accounts leaked WH did a poem on it this am :joker:

I'll stick to the Guardian thanks ;)
Still fair play to the BBC here.

We'll be up to our scrawny necks in it too no doubt.

Its more a case of who hasn't been doing dodgy deals there .... really funny now they are all found out

The information contained in the documents is huge. This is a story that will continue to run and reveal for years.

Dear David - wow talk about 'on top' and about bout time ! Of course ' we're all in it together ' Yeah ok

But watch how they turn our attention away from what's happening on our own front doorstep. I mean, lets all talk about Iceland and Putin!.

Poor Dave; I bet he was totally unaware of his father’s own attempts to hide the ownership of Blairmore Holdings, Inc. in order to avoid paying taxes in the UK :hehe:
http://www.thecanary.co/2016/04/04/g...onaire-father/

This was discussed at length this afternoon on BBC 5 live so no hiding the issue

Looks like everyone's okay with these documents being "leaked". I mean, it fits in with a lot of people's agendas, doesn't it. David Cameron's Dad... how fortunate.

Anyone interested in who it was who leaked these documents? I mean, there is a whole other thread about Apple refusing to allow the Security Services to access a terrorist's phone because it'll apparently threaten "personal privacy"... but there's an awful lot of support... and a certain amount of glee... that some nameless, faceless organisation has unlawfully accessed what are essentially private files because it shames people you don't like.

You can't have it both ways... no access for the security services but full acceptance of some spotty hacker because he reinforces your own agenda.

Personally, i always protect peoples right to privacy. However, if someone breaches that and the information enters the public domain, then there is no going back, and if wrong doing has been committed, then it should be acted upon.

If it was a whistleblower/hacker, if they broke the law publishing it, they should be prosecuted. Simple really.

Whilst Cameron is not accountable for his fathers actions, he does have a duty to answer questions about whether or not he still has links to this offshore company. He can't claim its a private matter when tax evasion is of public interest and very much a public concern.

Lets also not forget that Cameron has a very privileged background which was financed by his fathers offshore dealings. If my parents stole the crown jewels and left them to me in their will, I wouldn't be allowed to keep or benefit from those jewels because they never really belonged to my parents, they belonged to the country.

Ian Cameron's offshore dealings were public knowledge years ago.
Plenty of people put their money offshore, the same as Swiss bank accounts. If it is not illegal then what is all the fuss about.....Ohhh yeah, someone with money and privilege might be getting one over on the taxman, these same people that probably already pay more taxes than us plebs earn.
Good for them. Seems it is a sin to be well off in this country. :idc:

When a crime is being committed, as we see here; then we often rely on whistle-blowers. Lets take a nursing home scenario where elderly folks with dementia are being abused. Its usually just one person who sees the going on as morally wrong and decides to pull the plug on this criminal activity.

I work in an environment where we are expected to whistle-blow if we see anything we deem to be suspicious.

The person who has pulled the plug on this massive tax evasion has not done so for financial gain or for notoriety, though he/she did ask for protection. They did not personally meet journalists in the flesh or talk to them on the phone. Everything was handed of in encrypted files. If the government had been able to unlock encryption, these files very probably couldn't of been handed over because they would of been immediately blocked and traced back to the sender.

Oh and before anyone says, tax evasion is not a crime...in my eyes its very much a crime. Its ****ing appalling that people are allowed to get away with this sort of theft.

You cannot prosecute the son for the sins of the father and David Cameron has no duty whatsoever to speak for his father's actions, whether he's Prime Minister or not. Seems to me that Cameron's biggest crime is to be considered "privileged".

Of course tax evasion is a crime. I can't imagine anyone saying it isn't.

So... this kind of action is okay in your books, respectable even. But terrorists can continue to use their cellphones with impunity knowing that the security services can't touch them. And let's face it, you're making up your own story here about the noble hacker doing it for the greater good and what the government can and can't access when you know no more about this story or who is responsible than any of us.

One rule of unlawful whistle-blowers, another for the security services.

Smudgie smacking the nail on the head, there...

It is the confusion between evasion and avoidance that is the beggar here.
Avoidance may appear unfair to most, but until they change or tighten up the rules then it is quite within the law to stash your stash.
Well worth a visit to a decent financial advisor if you come into a little windfall.

You're right Smudgie... making a habit of it, aren't you?!

If you have a good accountant he can save you a bomb, like you say. And I don't know anyone who says no... I won't claim that as a business expense because I want to pay as much tax as I can. Quite the reverse.

On The PM
his dads account is legal.

New Labour had 13 fecking years
left it all.

Now Blair is Rich

Don't put words in my mouth Livia, nobody said prosecute Cameron; I said Cameron needs to answer questions regarding his current interests in his inheritance.

The deliberately muddled terms between “tax evasion” and "tax avoidance" tend to get used interchangeably, even by conservative MP's.

Absolutely. The whistle-blower in this case has done the British nation a huge service. They have very decently just confirmed what we already suspected but it needed a vigil anti with more guts than a xmas turkey to reveal the corruption going on by billionaires around the globe. Now Cameron has to be seen to be doing something because the majority of the nation won't allow this one to be swept under the carpet.

The British bourgeoisie and aristocracy have been benefiting from these arrangements for a very long time. Half this country is now owned by offshore investors and so no, I don't accept that the few crumbs the government throws at the British electorate is enough to pacify me. Why should the minions who humbly pay their taxes have to subsidise these massive tax avoiders.

So... NO, I don't trust this corrupt government to gain access to our privacy and I don't believe for a second that they want access to encryption because of terrorism.

"I said Cameron needs to answer questions regarding his current interests in his inheritance. "

DR he did today Live on SkyNewsHD & BBCNewsHD (Northern Live Event)
all legal.
His Dead Dad
seems to be more a Problem with Fecking Labour
wasting time over this.

why do you always use Labour as the straw man?

Today Corbyn rushed onto TV News
I want him to say how he can make the UK better
Not Waste My fecking time
on the PM's dead dad
who broke no laws

If the LibDems did that
I would attack them

http://cdn.spectator.co.uk/content/u...4878675481.jpg
not today it Ain't

its all about he PM's dead dad

tax havens have become honey pots for aggressive tax evaders / avoiders and Corbyn is right to call for an independent investigation into all British citizens who are using this loophole. That investigation includes Cameron.

Doesn't it bother you that a number of Tory peers are involved in a substantial amount of tax avoidance and possible evasion or that the wealthy are taking a staggering amount of money that should have been taxed and hiding it away, when you yourself have been taxed on every penny?.

Isn't that theft?

The PM himself is not part of any of this
Nothing Illegal.

Corbyn turns into Trump
saying "The Prime Minister in his own interest , needs to tell us whats going on"?

Feck All
under 13 years of New Labour
thats whats going on.


Talk Sense DR

Me talk sense!!

Go and have a word with yourself Arista

We can argue how morally indefensible it is for illegal behaviour to out corruption at the highest level, how that is comparable to security services asking for access to data I don't know... In the end they hacked it anyway so there really is no high ground to be had is there?
There is also no 'glee' in knowing this information, nor does it affect anyone I don't like, personally I don't know anyone affected here.

Speak for yourself smudgie.

Tax is proportional, you pay more the more you earn. If you earn not very much you don't have the luxury of moving your money places where you can effectively pay no tax.
It is not a sin to be rich in this country, that's a ridiculous statement. It's the double standards that stick in the craw of many, when the likes of Jimmy Carr were exposed as avoiding tax he was accused of being 'morally corrupt'... seems the more you earn the less corrupt it is not to declare it!
How very odd.

:clap1::clap1::clap1: What you have to understand Livia - as difficult as that may be for anyone with logic - is that this contradiction within some peoples views of 'Neighing' to the Security Services having access to terrorists phones because of 'privacy protection', and the 'Yeighing' to this invasion of privacy in the case of these so-called 'Panama Papers', is nothing unusual.

These are the same people who for years on here, have called David Cameron and some of his closest cronies, every bad name in the book - from 'Evil', 'Dishonest' and 'Corrupt', to 'Uncaring' and 'Heartless' - UNTIL it comes to Cameron and his closest cronies stance on remaining in the EU, which just happens to coincide with their own viewpoint, and then they READILY accept EVERY one of Cameron's claims about the benefits of EU membership, and their hatred of him has visibly shifted to notable EU 'OUT' campaigners Boris Johnson and Michael Gove.

Add to the above, the fact that these same people weep and wail about the impoverished state of the N.H.S., Schools and other services, and the lack of homes, whilst at the same time protesting against any type of immigration control, and there is no wonder we are confused - or should that be THEY are confused?

Who are 'they'? I should like to have a word with 'they,' 'they' seem like really nice people.

The prime minister must explain to the country “exactly what’s been going on” with his family’s financial affairs in the wake of the Panama Papers leaks, and should be subjected to an investigation to determine whether tax has been avoided Jeremy Corbyn has said.

The Labour leader said he wanted HM Revenue and Customs to launch an investigation into all those implicated in the tax haven revelations, including David Cameron’s family.

Corbyn also argued that the government should consider imposing direct rule on British overseas territories and crown dependencies to stop them sheltering tax avoiders and evaders. Downing Street has insisted that the financial affairs of Cameron’s late father, Ian, which were detailed in the Panama leak, were a private matter.

Corbyn told reporters: “Well, it’s a private matter in so far as it’s a privately held interest. But it’s not a private matter if tax is not being paid. So an investigation must take place, an independent investigation, unprejudiced, to decide whether or not tax has been paid. “I think the prime minister, in his own interest, should tell us exactly what’s been going on.”


http://www.theguardian.com/politics/...-panama-papers

Good point, and like Smudgie also says it is important to distinguish here between illegal tax evasion and legal tax avoidance. The latter will probably always be a fact of life and has continued to flourish despite every government in about the last twenty years constantly trying different methods and schemes to close loopholes and clamp down on it. Also think its unrealistic to close down 'tax havens' considering that the economies of a lot of these small countries are hugely reliant on their tax status.

Well to be precise, the rot set in around 1898, but that's a long story that meanders back to the Middle Ages.

There is though, a surprisingly simple way of defusing and clearing up this rather nasty outbreak of corporate fascism that the world is currently suffering from, and it involves a gradual and broad sweeping reform of the tax system, but first the masses have to become aware of it and understand what really happened in the last century.

Personally I make little difference between tax avoidance and tax evasion, both result in likely due taxes not being paid where they should be.

However this has nothing at all to do with David Cameron and just as I was disgusted at the slurs and raking up of old stories factual or not about Ed Miliband's Father, I equally am disgusted at any attempt of getting at David Cameron over this either,relating to his deceased father.

The present govt to be fair, has made a start to deal with tax avoidance and evasion, not enough but it has started, and the company David Cameron's Father seems to have had connections with was dealt with by David Cameron.

Whatever comes from this list, all I hope for is those who should be paying tax are made to do so, if this list helps finds anyone who should be, then even better.

Well I for one am voting for out of the EU or did you miss me saying that?!
If you have more patronising assumptions to make, send them to my secretary.

I think this sums it up. The actual event bears no relation to the Apple case, and it has even less to do with wanting to be in or out of the EU