The Paradise Papers

[chrisp65]

10 hours ago, Risso said:

Good on them. The information wasn’t leaked, it was stolen.

agreed

what sort of world do we live in where fraudsters, criminals, tax dodgers and the secretly wealthy can have their dubious and morally sordid financial affairs exposed in this heartless indiscriminate way

our watch words should always be 'lock up the whistle blowers'

why the rich should pay tax at all is a mystery to me, if they were allowed to keep more of their money we could experience the love of the trickle down as we clean their houses and shampoo their dogs

some people just don't have our vision

[Risso]

4 hours ago, Dr_Pangloss said:

Same for those who say "good on them", some very bizarre people out there indeed.

Yes, imagine a law firm wanting to keeps its clients’ affairs private. Good grief.

[OutByEaster?]

Yes, imagine a law firm wanting to keeps its complicity in its clients’ crimes private. Good grief.

If we had laws based around justice rather than money, Appleby would be in court for entirely more sensible reasons.

 

[Risso]

10 minutes ago, OutByEaster? said:

Yes, imagine a law firm wanting to keeps its complicity in its clients’ crimes private. Good grief.

If we had laws based around justice rather than money, Appleby would be in court for entirely more sensible reasons.

 

Which crimes exactly?

[lapal_fan]

Robin Hood was a cool cat.  

[OutByEaster?]

32 minutes ago, Risso said:

Which crimes exactly?

They'll claim none because they collude with parliament to write laws that encourage business and enterprise and leave plenty of room for 'avoidance' rather than breaking of laws - but by any sensible, moral definition, theft - stealing money from the public purse by hiding it using all those grey areas in the law that money can afford to employ. 

 

 

[Risso]

Ever paid for anything cash in hand?

[OutByEaster?]

9 minutes ago, Risso said:

Ever paid for anything cash in hand?

Not that I recall actually, I'm sure I have - that said, it's a ridiculous argument - I've killed a fly on my windscreen and it doesn't make me the Yorkshire Ripper.

If it was entirely straightforward and within the law, you wouldn't need a law firm to do it in secret for you. If it was moral and decent, we wouldn't need whistleblowers to expose it and the people exposed wouldn't be angry - we're talking about appalling, immoral, obscene behaviours which are enabled by people with no morality or care for the societies in which they live other than in terms of how those societies can be used to feed their own greed.

 

 

[markavfc40]

25 minutes ago, Risso said:

Ever paid for anything cash in hand?

Reminds me of some prat on question time a couple of weeks ago who compared someone buying a couple of hundred fags duty free to what Lewis Hamilton was up to. You are comparing chalk and cheese and insulting the intelligence of those you are debating with.

[Dr_Pangloss]

34 minutes ago, Risso said:

Ever paid for anything cash in hand?

 

[Risso]

36 minutes ago, markavfc40 said:

Reminds me of some prat on question time a couple of weeks ago who compared someone buying a couple of hundred fags duty free to what Lewis Hamilton was up to. You are comparing chalk and cheese and insulting the intelligence of those you are debating with.

 

53 minutes ago, OutByEaster? said:

Not that I recall actually, I'm sure I have - that said, it's a ridiculous argument - I've killed a fly on my windscreen and it doesn't make me the Yorkshire Ripper.

If it was entirely straightforward and within the law, you wouldn't need a law firm to do it in secret for you. If it was moral and decent, we wouldn't need whistleblowers to expose it and the people exposed wouldn't be angry - we're talking about appalling, immoral, obscene behaviours which are enabled by people with no morality or care for the societies in which they live other than in terms of how those societies can be used to feed their own greed.

 

 

I’m not sure you fully understand how law firms work. Everything they do for every client is confidential, at whatever level. And of course people need lawyers to help with complex legal transactions.  If you own your home I doubt you did the legal aspect yourself, and you wouldn’t expect the law firm to release any details about it.

[peterms]

6 minutes ago, Risso said:

 

I’m not sure you fully understand how law firms work. Everything they do for every client is confidential, at whatever level. And of course people need lawyers to help with complex legal transactions.  If you own your home I doubt you did the legal aspect yourself, and you wouldn’t expect the law firm to release any details about it.

And because the trade of assisting taxdodgers by its nature involves dealing with criminals, such firms have regulatory and professional standards to which they must adhere.

I posted some time ago a list of the failings of Bad Appleby in this respect, as described by one of their staff whose job was to know about such things.  I don't recall you addressing it, despite your close contact with leading lights of said firm.

Perhaps you could enlighten us as to where their compliance officer was wrong about their repeated failures to act properly? I'd really like to know if I have been misled into thinking less highly of this firm than they deserve.

Come on, don't hold back, get down and dirty with some facts.  Never mind all this bollocks about "It's all confidential, that the most important thing in the world, they have a right to secrecy, you wouldn't like me going through the drawers in your bedroom" and all that diversionary guff.

[Risso]

1 hour ago, peterms said:

And because the trade of assisting taxdodgers by its nature involves dealing with criminals,

I think that if that's the point that you're coming at this from Peter, nothing that I say is really going to sway you very much, is it?

[peterms]

1 minute ago, Risso said:

I think that if that's the point that you're coming at this from Peter, nothing that I say is really going to sway you very much, is it?

It's a simple matter of fact that criminal charges have been levied against some of the people exposed via the Parasite Papers, and more charges are being considered.

You must know this.

Yet you try to portray this as some kind of unreasonable namecalling?  Is that kind of superficial diversionary tactic your best call?  Really?  I hope they're not paying you for this.

[Risso]

22 minutes ago, peterms said:

It's a simple matter of fact that criminal charges have been levied against some of the people exposed via the Parasite Papers, and more charges are being considered.

You must know this.

Yet you try to portray this as some kind of unreasonable namecalling?  Is that kind of superficial diversionary tactic your best call?  Really?  I hope they're not paying you for this.

If I only I got paid for posting rubbish on the internet, I'd be a gazillionaire and would probably need the services of a good offshore lawyer.  Probably one with a better firewall than Appleby though.

[peterms]

9 minutes ago, Risso said:

If I only I got paid for posting rubbish on the internet, I'd be a gazillionaire and would probably need the services of a good offshore lawyer.  Probably one with a better firewall than Appleby though.

No doubt.

But on the substantive points, I see you don't dispute what I say.  That's noted.

[Risso]

24 minutes ago, peterms said:

No doubt.

But on the substantive points, I see you don't dispute what I say.  That's noted.

Oh Peter, I dispute every single thing you ever say.  I don't think I've agreed with anything you've ever said.  I'll dispute your nonsense at a time of my choosing, if that's all the same. A quick one liner should in no way be taken as a tacit acceptance that you've posted something even remotely sensible.

Edited December 22, 2017 by Risso

[OutByEaster?]

3 hours ago, Risso said:

I’m not sure you fully understand how law firms work. Everything they do for every client is confidential, at whatever level. And of course people need lawyers to help with complex legal transactions.  If you own your home I doubt you did the legal aspect yourself, and you wouldn’t expect the law firm to release any details about it.

A law firm doing conveyancing for working class people and a law firm doing tax avoidance for the super rich are not the same thing - it's silly to compare them. I wouldn't expect good, moral journalists/industry insiders acting in the public interest to be digging around my conveyancing documents - I'd expect them to be concentrating on those people hiding immoral practice - and I'm glad that they are.

In a decent proper world, many of the people involved in this scandal would by now be behind bars, those that hid money from the British taxpayer using every inch of the law and a little more wherever they could and those facilitating the avoidance of tax for their own profit. They're not...and, well, that's the law, I think those laws need to be strengthened, I think the entire financial sector needs a massive overhaul of regulation in fact, but that's not happening any time soon. We the people don't write the modern constitutions, that's done by the money, so if anything those changes are going to go the other way. I don't expect that to be changing.

What I would expect at least is a little shame - these people have been caught with their pants down doing their dirty business where they'd hope no one saw - I'd expect them to want to hide away, I'd expect their futures to be a little less bright, their names sullied. Sadly, the financial industry is such that they can't even manage that, this legal action is brazen and it's indicative of the contempt in which they hold the rest of 'society'. They're a dog stood in the corner of the front room in a pool of their own piss demanding that you bring them a steak.

 

[blandy]

9 hours ago, Risso said:

Yes, imagine a law firm wanting to keeps its clients’ affairs private. Good grief.

 

3 hours ago, OutByEaster? said:

.,...this legal action is brazen and it's indicative of the contempt in which they hold the rest of 'society'. They're a dog stood in the corner of the front room in a pool of their own piss demanding that you bring them a steak.

The two quoted posts seem like opposites, but I think they’re both true. These Appleby banker folks have a contract and duty to keep their clients data protected and confidential. Taking the legal action is some part of rectifying the situation following the theft of that data. They are both obliged to take the action and have a self interest in doing so, in terms of trying to recover some professional credibility. Criticising them for it is IMO completely missing the point. The point of wider interest is the one OBE (& others) is making. People shift money to these offshore places for 3 reasons. All of them involve hiding it. Hiding it from the tax man (bad), hiding it from people who would steal or extort ( potentially understandable) or hiding the proceeds of crime (bad). There’s no other reason to do any of this offshore gubbins, is there?  The Appleby bank, like multiple others, ....they know...they play the game. People with large sums, legal, illegal, dubious  - they can, so they do. Until the wider world co-ordinates an approach to end all this ( it won’t) it’ll just continue. I’m glad it’s been exposed again, and I hope it carries on, but seriously doubt that much will ultimately be done

[Risso]

I can't speak for other jurisdictions much, as I've only seen the regulations and worked on the Isle of Man, but the days of criminals hiding their money offshore are long gone.  The levels of regulation that you have to go through now are enormous.  You need to look at the parties involved.  A law firm like Appleby is exactly that, a law firm, run by qualified lawyers, regulated by the Law Society.  They'll have their own in house compliance team, that will look at all new business and the source of funds and identies of people involved in the transaction.  The penalties for getting this wrong for partners and directors of businesses are serious, eg six years in prison with no parole.  Then there's the IOM financial regulator, the FSA, which is the equivalent of the FCA.  The inspect any business that does regulated business, such as banks, trust companies, investment companies, insurance companies etc; in other words, all of the sorts of businesses that undertake offshore transactions.  Then there are the banks, again who have to adhere to anti money laundering rules and regs.  Also involved in the chain, will be accountancy firms, who audit the law firms, the trust companies and so on.  Basically, all of the firms involved have to do in depth checks into who they're dealing with, and where their money came from.

Now I'm not going to argue that everything is perfect, and that mistakes don't get made, but on the whole, people try to do the best job they can.  As you can probably imagine, there are lots of lawyers and accountants, all of whom can go to prison or be struck off if they do a bad job.  You'll have to take my word for it when I say that it's much, much easier, to open bank accounts in the UK than it is the IOM.  By a factor of about 10.

As to why they do it, well most of the clients are multi-national companies and super rich individuals who have incredibly complicated structures.  Usually, the offshore element is just one part of them, in an attempt to make a transaction as tax efficient as possible. They're not trying to "dodge tax" for the sake of it, they're mainly involved in some sort of business deal, a lot of which will take place offshore anyway.  The reason the IOM is used often, is because it's seen as well regulated and a safe place to do business.  I can't think of a really good example of the sort of transaction where you might use a firm such as Appleby, but if you're say, a Dubai based billionaire looking to buy a telecoms company in Georgia, from a Chinese group with a company in the BVI, you''d probably look to somebody like them.  The reason the likes of the BBC fixate on people like Lewis Hamilton, is that it's easy for the public to identify with.   As has happened on here, people will look at him and say, "he's British, earning a lot of money, he should be paying tax."  The pictures of him gurning on the steps of his private jet play perfectly into the hands of the media.  We've discussed him to death on here, but that sort of transaction I would think is a tiny part of what offshore firms do.  Most of it will be entirely mundane, which is why the likes of the BBC and the Graun pick on the handful of cases that they think readers will identify with.  Millionaire racing car driver is much more interesting and easy to guess at the tax he's dodging (and then convert into the obligatory nurses' salaries comparisons) than a Chinese steel firm buying a shopping centre in Panama.

Of course, mistakes do get made, and nobody is perfect, and I'm sure some criminals will have money in IOM banks, just like they will have in UK, US, German and French banks.  

The only thing that will ever stop people operating offshore would be a worldwide standard set of tax rules and tax rates, which isn't ever going to happen.  Worldwide business is one massive competition, which is why even in the EU you've got hugely different rates of corporation tax, where the likes of Ireland, Cyprus, Malta and of course the UK charge much lower rates than other countries.