Tag Archives: panama papers

Alice Thomas

Offshore 101, or: Can we please stop asking David Cameron to resign?

By Alice Thomas | Thu 14th April 2016 - 12:56 pm

One of my favourite things about the Liberal Democrats is members don’t just get stuck into debates – they go looking for the evidence to back up what they’ve got to say. That’s why this week’s furore around what David Cameron did or didn’t do has been so frustrating.

The Panama Papers are fascinating to me, as a lawyer and a would-be tax specialist. It looks likely that when the dust has settled there will be evidence of money laundering, of tax evasion, of tax avoidance and of regulatory failings. But so far most journalists and commentators are throwing around words like fund and trust as if they’re the same thing, and treating tax avoidance, tax evasion and money laundering as equivalent acts. Unfortunately, much of the social media discussion so far has accepted these red herrings.

Continue reading »
Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged and | 57 Comments
Advert

Recent Comments

  • Roland
    @Jeff - I didn’t say resources were scarce, just that they are in short supply. So whilst there might be decades of fossil fuels in the ground, you may have n...
  • Paul R
    It might be better to spend the money on increased assistance to help people switch to EVs instead. Otherwise motorists will always be dependent on the next war...
  • Michael BG
    Nigel Jones, “When we debated FPC’s planned program last year, some said we should have included tax issues in that program” Indeed. I didn’t s...
  • Suzanne Fletcher
    Far too late for me to comment, but just skimmed through the replies and I agree with most. Most important is that as Caron says, it was announced where hundre...
  • Robyn Peel
    A key difference between the Liberal Democrats and other parties is that members go in their own right, not as representatives of their local party; we have att...