Friday 21 June 2013

SILLY OLD NIGEL CAUGHT OUT OVER OFFSHORE FUNDS

Nigel Farage, it emerges, opened an offshore trust fund in the Isle of Man in a plan to avoid tax bill. The revelations come just the day after UKIP lost its deposit at the Aberdeen South by-election. I wonder what would have happened had they come a day earlier.

Farage has said that his financial advisers recommended the Trust  for inheritance purposes as a vehicle to build up a trust fund for his children or grandchildren.

He told the Daily Mirror:  “It was a mistake for three reasons. Firstly, I'm not rich enough to need one and I am never going to be.

“Secondly, frankly, the world has changed. Things that we thought were absolutely fair practice 10 years, 20 years ago, 30 years ago aren't any more.

"Thirdly, it was a mistake because it cost me money.”

However, whatever the dubious truth of that is, it sits badly with his criticism of offshore tax havens, including the Isle of Man, which he actually named in a speech in the European Parliament.

There are, apparently, only two good reasons to set up an Isle of Man trust.

One is secrecy, and the other is tax avoidance. Of course, as he says he had nothing to do with either of these,  it  begs the question that if he was setting up a trust for his grandchildren, why would he not do it in his own country?

Tax dodging costs the UK billions of pounds a year, far more than benefit fraud, which the government is trying to stamp out, killing off poor people in its trail.  Tax Research experts say the sum involved could be as much as £123 billion.


David Cameron backed a deal at the G8 summit this week to crack down on corporate tax evasion. He must be laughing like a drain that Farage has got himself into this mess.

20 comments:

  1. It must have been a nasty, racist Nat that opened the account in his name, then ran away.

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  2. Hmmm... how did you know?

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  3. Is Lord Monckton is a Trustee? Perhaps it was opened after the Stirling by-election?

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    Replies
    1. Delete the 'is' after the Loon.

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    2. Lordy, he's a right one. I've just watched the interview he gave STV. He lied from the time he started to talk until the end...

      He brings a whole new meaning to swivvel eyed.

      I'm wondering if they opened it to celebrate Alex Salmond being thrown out of the Labour party, or maybe it was indeed that Stirling by-election, or maybe it was when the Greenlandic Army conquered Canada and installed Queen Margrethe as head of state... Certainly one of these historic and epochal memorable moments, that actually didn't quite get round to happening.

      Still, as poor old Nigel has to make 85% of all the laws that affect us in Scotland, I'm not surprised to hear that he doesn't always... or indeed ever...get his facts right.

      BTW, I think the trust is a beer money fund...

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  4. Tris.


    Well at least he owned to being a tax avoider
    Just try and get Cameron and Osborne to talk
    About their tax avoiding offshore funds.

    Which their parents set up for them so thats ok
    Then eh.


    I always wonder if they are unable to alter the funds
    Why they being patriots don't calculate what they would
    Of paid in due tax.
    And to help the nation through austerity decade
    Donate the cash
    Now that would a selfless act of pariotism.


    As you know ? Stanley Baldwin did a similar donation
    After the first world war.

    See the snp won but it's not a good sign for
    There Indy campaign now is it.

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    Replies
    1. He was tricked into it by the Mirror, Niko. When they confronted him with the evidence he had to own up.

      We all know that the Tory cabinet members have money in the BVI. Despatches made that clear right at the beginning. It mentioned Osborne, Mitchell and Hammond, in particular. Of course being a foul mouthed boor, Mitchell is no longer in the cabinet.

      Donations from them... Oh please, don't make me laugh.

      ****

      I thought the independence polling was really quite good... in Aberdeen. I'm certainly buoyed by that.

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  5. Just wondering here, as I do from time to time.

    As we all know that very nice Mr Farage had a great deal of difficulty finding out where Aberdeen is. Apparently his UKIP atlas has Aberdeen down as a suburb of Edinburgh. Perhaps he also used this atlas to find the Isle of Man and discovered that the I.o.M. is actually ANOTHER suburb of Edinburgh and so thought his tax avoidance exercise was legal. :-)

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  6. Och, Arbroath if only I had your clear sighted logic I would have worked that out for myself.

    The alternative is that he was a bit uncohappy at the time he set it up, and he thought he was opening one of these PPI with Barclays.

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    Replies
    1. I'm guessing if he thought it was a Barclay's PPI scheme he will have been straight on to the phone this morning to one of those nauseating companies who advertise about the miss-selling of PPI seeing as he is so poor and all that! :-)

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    2. I wish him joy, Arbroath...no wait what am I saying? I don't wish him joy.

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  7. UKIP liars. Guilty of the very thing they condemn the EU of!

    People in glass houses.

    Vindication, UKIP will simply implode all on their lonesome under some rigorous scrutiny.

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    1. He is a complete fraud. But he says the things that people want to hear, and the working people of Northern England have nowhere to go Dean. Labour are taking away their benefits trying to match the Tories pound for pound with cuts in the kind of spending that benefits them. And in the south they want less immigration.

      They think he's wonderful even if he blethers sh*t.

      I don't think they will get far, but they will drag the Tories and Labour farther to the right; father towards all kinds of immigration curbs, even ones that will hurt the economy and of course to the referendum on EU membership which they would not have had but for Ukip.

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  8. tris

    rose colored specs but then why not
    best to be an optimist.
    But the hard math tells a different story.

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    Replies
    1. LOL Niko old dear... I might say the same thing.

      I suppose we do look at it through rose coloured spectacles, but a poll of 20,000 in Aberdeen south showed more people in favour than against... with enough to swing it either way undecided.

      Better Together really have to stop trying to tell us that we will have to set up our equivalent of the British Library, when we already have one... They sound more amateur by the day.





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  9. PS... Remember I sent a complaint to the BBC about Question Time's panel...

    Here is the reply:
    **********
    Your Reference CAS-2151617-Y0L7XK

    Thanks for recently contacting the BBC. We aim to reply to complaints within 10 working days (around 2 weeks) and do so for most of them but cannot for all. The time taken depends on the nature of your complaint, how many others we are dealing with and can also be affected by practical issues such as whether a production team is available or away on location.

    This is to let you know that we have referred your complaint to the relevant staff but that it may take longer than 10 working days to reply. We therefore ask you not to contact us further in the meantime. If it does prove necessary however, please use our webform, quoting any reference number we provided. This is an automatic email sent from an account which is not monitored so you cannot reply to this email address.

    In order to use the licence fee efficiently we may not investigate every issue if it does not suggest a substantive breach of guidelines, or may send the same reply to everyone if others have complained about the same issue. You can read full details of our complaints procedures and how we consider the issues raised in feedback at www.bbc.co.uk/complaints/handle-complaint/. In the meantime we’d like to thank you for contacting us with your concerns. We appreciate your patience in awaiting a response.

    Kind regards,

    BBC Complaints.
    www.bbc.co.uk/complaints


    NB This is sent from an outgoing account only which is not monitored. You cannot reply to this email address but if necessary please contact us via our webform quoting any case number we provided.

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  10. Well what do you know Tris, I received EXACTLY the same e-mail!

    Here we are ALL individuals writing our own INDIVIDUAL e-mails of complaint TO the BBC and what do we get in return a MASS produced piece of bull****e! Nice to see the BBC are taking OUR complaints seriously, oops sorry they're not are they. They are hoping we'll all just fade away and forget about the whole sordid episode!

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    1. No they won't care. The may take the complaint from the Greens a wee bit more seriously... but it won't make any difference.

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