Last night we were treated to the talk on Tax Havens entitled 'The Rise and Rise of Britain's Tax Justice Empire'. It was by John Christensen from the Tax Justice Network who kindly agreed to be filmed - so myself and a colleague will be putting something together over the next weeks that will hopefully be available on Youtube. It was an inspiring talk.Photos: from the evening
To get a flavour of some of the issues it is worth reading 'The truth about tax havens' - see here a first extract from the book, 'Treasure Islands' by Nicholas Shaxton working closely with John Christensen - and second extract here.Here is an extract with a point I made in my letter that was printed in the SNJ this week: "
There was a huge amount covered and I wont go into it now as the films will be up soon but one campaign that got a mention was Action Aid's around Grolsch’s owner, SABMiller, - they are apparently dodging taxes around the world.Action Aid write: "The money that African countries lose each year could put an extra 250,000 children in school." See here where you can also send an email to the chief exec.
I am sure even those companies like Boots and Vodaphone know that tax avoidance is wrong? The protests have even made it into Accountancy Age - see here. The government insists that drastic public spending cuts and a hike to VAT are essential. They also claim that we’re all in this together. But both the cuts and the VAT increase will hit the poor and most vulnerable hardest, whilst the richest in our society dodge tax with virtual impunity.
5 comments:
I removed the post as I was told it made allegations against a specific person. To be honest I have no idea about the details or whether this did identify a person so have removed while I look into it - I cannot see the comment was unreasonable and makes the point well about issues relating to what money a political part might receive and how that money was made.
In short it was alleged a person with significant sums of money, some of which was made in tax havens, gave up their non-dom status and then donated some money to the SW Green party.
In general the Green party has one of the highest standards of any party re donations - you will not have seen donations from large corporations.
What a load of nonsense - how can you tell the money made was made in tax havens? Look at these tax dodgers that are our government:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1321217/Channel-4-explosive-row-millionaire-Tories-tax-dodge-investigation.html
Let's not get side-tracked here - we are about ending tax havens
I have now spoken with Green SW Treasurer and there is no evidence of any non-dom status - any donation above £500 must be declared to the Electoral Commission via PPERA returns that must be completed every quarter. Before accepting large donations then the donor must be checked against the appropriate Electoral Role. Only then can the donation be accepted. I hope that gives necessary reassurance.
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