Paradise Papers

I have a question about offshore tax havens that no one has ever been able to answer. Can you name one legitimate reason to keep your money in a tax haven?聽

The media keeps implying that there must be one. They keep pointing out (mostly to avoid the libel laws) that using a tax haven does not necessarily involve illegality or 鈥渨rongdoing鈥.

But what form of activity that聽颈蝉苍鈥檛聽wrong could possibly involve stashing your cash offshore? And why should we shy away from saying that starving the public purse of money聽is itself wrongdoing?

The Australian operations of mining giant Glencore have been implicated in the Paradise Papers revelations 鈥 the largest leak of documents in history.

The Paradise Papers show that Glencore was involved in currency swaps of up to $25 billion between the Bermuda-based and Australian-based arms of its company.

While theoretically "legal鈥, these types聽of swaps are being investigated by the Australian Tax Office under suspicion they may be used to avoid tax by shuttling interest payments from high-tax nations to low-tax jurisdictions.

Multinational corporations are using tax havens to avoid paying tax and the filthy rich are getting richer. Paradise Papers, Panama Papers, billionaire capers 鈥 what鈥檚 new? This stuff has been going on for yonks.

Britain's socialist Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn the ,聽13 million files leaked files that expose how the rich and powerful systematically evade tax, shows聽鈥渙ne rule for the super-rich and another for the rest".聽