Anna B Posted October 4, 2021 Share Posted October 4, 2021 Nothing will happen. When your rich enough, you can't be touched. Sure the odd one will be made an example of now and again to pacify the plebs, but there is no doubt any more that there is one law for the rich and another for the rest of us. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tony Posted October 4, 2021 Share Posted October 4, 2021 Can somebody point me towards anything illegal in these "Pandora Papers"? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RollingJ Posted October 4, 2021 Share Posted October 4, 2021 Just now, Tony said: Can somebody point me towards anything illegal in these "Pandora Papers"? Sorry, @Tony- I haven't, and won't be reading them, so you'll have to ask someone else - @Box11, maybe? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr Bloke Posted October 4, 2021 Share Posted October 4, 2021 5 minutes ago, Anna B said: Nothing will happen. When your rich enough, you can't be touched. Sure the odd one will be made an example of now and again to pacify the plebs, but there is no doubt any more that there is one law for the rich and another for the rest of us. Hmmm... This is Mr Box's "Pandora Papers" thread! Not to be confused with "Pandora's Box"... ... where curiosity led to releasing physical and emotional curses upon mankind! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RollingJ Posted October 4, 2021 Share Posted October 4, 2021 2 minutes ago, Mr Bloke said: Hmmm... This is Mr Box's "Pandora Papers" thread! Not to be confused with "Pandora's Box"... ... where curiosity led to releasing physical and emotional curses upon mankind! 😀😀😀 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Carbuncle Posted October 4, 2021 Share Posted October 4, 2021 3 hours ago, Tony said: Can somebody point me towards anything illegal in these "Pandora Papers"? 1. The boundary between right and wrong is not the same as the boundary between legal and illegal. Eg the Blairs avoided paying stamp duty but it was presumably not illegal. 2. There is plenty that suggests illegality. Eg national leaders turning out to have large caches of hidden assets with no (apparent) legitimate method for acquiring them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
El Cid Posted October 4, 2021 Share Posted October 4, 2021 3 hours ago, Tony said: Can somebody point me towards anything illegal in these "Pandora Papers"? As far as Mrs Blair goes, stamp duty does not apply to bussinesses, all perfectly normal. 21 minutes ago, Carbuncle said: 1. The boundary between right and wrong is not the same as the boundary between legal and illegal. Eg the Blairs avoided paying stamp duty but it was presumably not illegal. 2. There is plenty that suggests illegality. Eg national leaders turning out to have large caches of hidden assets with no (apparent) legitimate method for acquiring them. This should be investigated, but these ex-leaders get thousands just for speaking at venues and millions for ghost writting books. I would be suprised if they were not wealthy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ECCOnoob Posted October 4, 2021 Share Posted October 4, 2021 (edited) 2 hours ago, Carbuncle said: 1. The boundary between right and wrong is not the same as the boundary between legal and illegal. Eg the Blairs avoided paying stamp duty but it was presumably not illegal. 2. There is plenty that suggests illegality. Eg national leaders turning out to have large caches of hidden assets with no (apparent) legitimate method for acquiring them. Yes but we do not have a court of morals therefore if it's not illegal proven beyond reasonable doubt there can be no punishment. Suggesting something is illegal is meaningless unless it comes with evidence and solid evidence at that. I'm certainly not surprised by this document but I am rather bemused as to why these journalists and wannabe investigators have taken such great risks creating this data leak on something I suspect a vast majority of people already knew. Putting aside the meaningless moral arguments, surely by now, it's almost common knowledge that anyone who has vast amounts of wealth is always going to be well advised by their lawyers, accountants and other such advisors how to make sure they keep that wealth. In fact, I challenge anyone on this forum to seriously and 100% honestly tell me they would never consider similar schemes if they were fortunate enough to be in a similar wealthy position. Given the fact that millions of us engage happily in our low levels of perfectly legal tax reduction, tax avoidance, duty avoidance, jurisdiction advantage and other such activities all the time I really don't think these Papers are going to be the smoking gun that the journalists and amateur detectives think it is. Just like the Panama ones, a few famous faces will be embarrassed, they will make public statements and probably undertake some sort of token redress to appease the pitchfork wielding crowd. After that will be some another news story tomorrow and the water cooler gossip will be totally different. Its a fact that people do not become vastly wealthy by giving away a penny more than they have to. I don't care what anyone says, that applies to all of us. It's a simple question, was there any wrongdoing in law. If the answer is no - end of conversation. Be prepared for the spotlight inevitably switching to any illegal activity undertaken by said journalists in obtaining this highly sensitive and well secured information. We cannot avoid the potential hypocrisy that when sensitive information on ordinary low-income citizens gets splattered around during a data leak, they are entitled to vast compensation and sympathy for the victims. But I bet that's not going to happen to the uber wealthy and powerful subject to this data leak. Is it an unreasonable question to ask why not? After all, if all these rich and powerful have done nothing illegal and nothing wrong why should their personal data, investments and financial interest be publicly exposed. The only difference is the amounts involved which should be totally irrelevant. The principle is still the same after all. Edited October 4, 2021 by ECCOnoob Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
El Cid Posted October 4, 2021 Share Posted October 4, 2021 2 hours ago, Carbuncle said: 1. The boundary between right and wrong is not the same as the boundary between legal and illegal. Eg the Blairs avoided paying stamp duty but it was presumably not illegal. If stamp duty was payable on second commercial properties, everytime Morrisons, Asda, Sainsburys etc bought another store there would be more stamp duty to be paid, which would filter ythrough and effectively be paid by their customers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Carbuncle Posted October 4, 2021 Share Posted October 4, 2021 (edited) 2 hours ago, El Cid said: As far as Mrs Blair goes, stamp duty does not apply to bussinesses, all perfectly normal. Not so fast, (I believe) stamp duty is also payable on business owned properties over a certain value where the business is domiciled for tax purposes in the UK. The difficulty arises where a non UK domiciled company owns UK property and ownership of the company rather than the property is transferred. This does not look like a UK taxable event and that is sometimes the reason to structure matters this way, ie it is tax avoidance. 46 minutes ago, ECCOnoob said: I'm certainly not surprised by this document but I am rather bemused as to why these journalists and wannabe investigators have taken such great risks creating this data leak on something I suspect a vast majority of people already knew. Putting aside the meaningless moral arguments, surely by now, it's almost common knowledge that anyone who has vast amounts of wealth is always going to be well advised by their lawyers, accountants and other such advisors how to make sure they keep that wealth. I don't see why you see moral arguments as meaningless. Having a fair tax system is a matter of morality but we are frustrated, at least in part, by the difficulty in writing law that captures the moral sense. The problem is the difficulty (loophole) of preventing two transactions that are practically/ morally the same being legally or financially engineered to appear different as when the transfer of a UK property is made to look like the transfer of a foreign domiciled company. It doesn't help when somebody like Blair who expressed a commitment to reducing such avoidance turns out to be happy to make use of it. It also helps to have some transparency so that the population, most of whom do not have access to such shenanigans, can see who is getting away with this and how they are doing it. 2 hours ago, El Cid said: This should be investigated, but these ex-leaders get thousands just for speaking at venues and millions for ghost writting books. I would be suprised if they were not wealthy. I suspect that Putin, Kenyatta and so forth are not on the lucrative speaking circuit so where exactly are they getting their money? Edited October 4, 2021 by Carbuncle Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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