Name: Tax havens: for and against | FT Comment
Uploaded: 2016-04-08T03:53:11.000Z
Duration: 4 min 32 s
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Johnathan, in the wake of the Panama Papers, we've had a lot of revelations about

well to do people sending their money off to faraway places in order to avoid tax liabilities.

Is this kind of behavior ever acceptable?

Well, I think we should start by making a distinction between various different sorts of activity.

Clearly, running off with assets from a country, looting it as a political leader and salting them away in some foreign place.

It is totally indefensible, and I would put into the same category.

Tax evasion, where you take your money, put it into a foreign place and hope that the tax man never finds out what you've done in your country of origin.

But I think that there is a third sort of activity which involves rooting finance through jurisdictions.

Such as the Virgin Islands or Panama, which is not necessarily in anyway illegitimate.

Ok. A classic example would be an investment fund.

An investment fund containing investors from various different countries,

which who gather together to put their money into a third country.

Let's say it's an emerging market with a somewhat shaky legal system.

So therefore, they want to find a place where they can gather together with their cash

where they enjoy certain protections between each other and with the end-investor or the investee.

So, at the same time, the profits that come back are not then taxed heavily in the point at which they've gathered,

but are likely taxed and then the profits from that return to those investors in their countries of origin.

And then, they declare their tax to their own local authorities.

Let's say I've made my money in London or in Birmingham or in Edinburgh, and I wanna leave it to my children.

If I am putting that trust abroad, let's say, it seems like I'm making an effort to do a kind of arbitrage.

I like living here, I like the tax system over there even if I don't want to live there, and I'm trying to have both.

Look, trusts have very clear rules. Each jurisdiction, Britain, America, draw very tight rules about how trusts can be set up.

On the question of where the money is located and the use of foreign jurisdictions like the Virgin Islands.

The point I would make is this, which is we do live in a world where essentially citizens are free to move their capital around the place.

I can invest in China if I choose, I think.

Where I can get it passed the Central Bank or I can invest in America.

It seems to be rather odd to draw a distinction than to say that the British Virgin Islands is somehow off limits.

Then we put this question to you. Are people and companies different in this respect?

Are the responsibilities of the two different?

I personally am very sympathetic to the idea that companies should be obliged to be very open about what they do.

Anything which enjoys limited liability should do so in plain sight in my view.

And I think shell companies should not be allowed to exist in offshore jurisdictions in the way they do.

If somebody is doing a legitimate business, a company is making a legitimate investment through the British Virgin Islands,

And it should be possible for you and me to see what's going on.

But people，you think should get a bit more privacy?

I think individuals, well, I actually think this more broadly. I think it should be the case onshore as well as offshore.

I think we should be, I think a company's tax affairs should be much more public than they are in the UK.

But I think in the case of individuals, I think it is reasonable with natural persons to allow them a degree of confidentiality in their tax affairs.

So, if you and I are put in charge of the UK or indeed the world's tax regime, where do the reforms need to happen?

Very simple, lift secrecy on corporate transactions, shell companies,

undisclosed shell companies should be a thing of the past.