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You can find the current article at its original source at https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/nov/10/the-guardian-view-on-the-paradise-papers-not-all-is-lost
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| The Guardian view on the Paradise Papers: not all is lost | The Guardian view on the Paradise Papers: not all is lost |
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| Fri 10 Nov 2017 18.59 GMT | |
| Last modified on Mon 27 Nov 2017 13.57 GMT | |
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| Bono 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 have emerged this week out of the Paradise Papers, a leak of 13.4m files from the offshore law firm Appleby. They show the world’s super rich employing legions of accountants to legally avoid paying the tax they owe to the country where they live. And all over the world, jaws have dropped in astonishment. | Bono 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 have emerged this week out of the Paradise Papers, a leak of 13.4m files from the offshore law firm Appleby. They show the world’s super rich employing legions of accountants to legally avoid paying the tax they owe to the country where they live. And all over the world, jaws have 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. | 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. |
| Unlike last year’s leak of the Panama Papers, which exposed illegal tax evasion, the Paradise Papers have not uncovered criminality. Instead, they reveal a state of mind where it is entirely normal to ignore what most citizens regard as the wider obligations that accompany great good fortune. So, for example, while it is true that until recently the Queen did not even pay tax, it is shocking that her financial advisers saw nothing wrong with investing several million pounds of her personal wealth through such a convoluted offshore fund. | Unlike last year’s leak of the Panama Papers, which exposed illegal tax evasion, the Paradise Papers have not uncovered criminality. Instead, they reveal a state of mind where it is entirely normal to ignore what most citizens regard as the wider obligations that accompany great good fortune. So, for example, while it is true that until recently the Queen did not even pay tax, it is shocking that her financial advisers saw nothing wrong with investing several million pounds of her personal wealth through such a convoluted offshore fund. |
| The stories that have emerged – some of celebrity greed, some of a rapacious capitalism – are all the more shocking as the threadbare state of the UK’s public realm after seven years of austerity is now unmistakable. Setting aside the individual pain of impoverished services, in this past week alone a powerful report from a group of thinktanks argued that the NHS needed an extra £4bn a year to stand still, while the boss of NHS England, Simon Stevens, issued something close to a back-me-or-sack-me appeal as he demanded a similar increase. Teachers’ leaders pressed the chancellor to fund a 5% pay rise; councils demanded that the cap on their borrowing to build is lifted as more than 78,000 families face homelessness. The crisis in social care is unresolved. | The stories that have emerged – some of celebrity greed, some of a rapacious capitalism – are all the more shocking as the threadbare state of the UK’s public realm after seven years of austerity is now unmistakable. Setting aside the individual pain of impoverished services, in this past week alone a powerful report from a group of thinktanks argued that the NHS needed an extra £4bn a year to stand still, while the boss of NHS England, Simon Stevens, issued something close to a back-me-or-sack-me appeal as he demanded a similar increase. Teachers’ leaders pressed the chancellor to fund a 5% pay rise; councils demanded that the cap on their borrowing to build is lifted as more than 78,000 families face homelessness. The crisis in social care is unresolved. |
| Ending tax avoidance may never be possible. Nor, alone, would it raise enough to restore the fabric of Britain’s public services. But it could be much more tightly controlled. And while some abuses like the offshoring of profits by global companies need the kind of international cooperation Gordon Brown advocated in a BBC interview this morning, there is plenty of scope at Westminster too. Yet in the past few weeks an attempt by Stella Creasy to close a loophole that allows foreign-owned companies to deal in commercial property without paying capital gains tax was defeated. This week, despite the revelations, Theresa May ruled out using UK financial clout to demand a public list of beneficiaries of offshore trusts. Financial services are major Conservative donors. A similar proposal in the European parliament was obstructed by British MEPs. And HMRC, the government department that polices tax gathering, is widely accused of having being captured by the tax avoidance industry. It is understaffed and underfunded, while most of the department’s energy is directed towards inventing a customs and excise regime for the world after Brexit. | Ending tax avoidance may never be possible. Nor, alone, would it raise enough to restore the fabric of Britain’s public services. But it could be much more tightly controlled. And while some abuses like the offshoring of profits by global companies need the kind of international cooperation Gordon Brown advocated in a BBC interview this morning, there is plenty of scope at Westminster too. Yet in the past few weeks an attempt by Stella Creasy to close a loophole that allows foreign-owned companies to deal in commercial property without paying capital gains tax was defeated. This week, despite the revelations, Theresa May ruled out using UK financial clout to demand a public list of beneficiaries of offshore trusts. Financial services are major Conservative donors. A similar proposal in the European parliament was obstructed by British MEPs. And HMRC, the government department that polices tax gathering, is widely accused of having being captured by the tax avoidance industry. It is understaffed and underfunded, while most of the department’s energy is directed towards inventing a customs and excise regime for the world after Brexit. |
| Death and taxes were supposed both to be inevitable. Now for anyone rich enough, taxes appear merely optional. But an appetite for change and social justice has been unleashed, and it would be a foolish government that ignored it. | Death and taxes were supposed both to be inevitable. Now for anyone rich enough, taxes appear merely optional. But an appetite for change and social justice has been unleashed, and it would be a foolish government that ignored it. |
| Paradise Papers | |
| Opinion | |
| Tax and spending | |
| Lewis Hamilton | |
| Bono | |
| Monarchy | |
| The Queen | |
| editorials | |
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