New Panama Papers - Tony Bliar

[Byker28i]

New panama papers are accusing our former PM of avoiding £312,000 in taxes on a property in London that they scored by buying an offshore company. The Blairs have denied this

https://www.icij.org/investigations/pandora-papers...

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2021/oct/03/pando...
https://news.yahoo.com/pandora-papers-tony-cherie-...

[CubanPete]

The guardian is very unaccusing of the Blairs.

Bet there's not many other multi millionaires doing tax free trades with Gulf based sheiks through the BVI that would have their sympathy...

[Kevin Cozner]

There's nothing wrong with tax avoidance, everyone does it to some degree. Tax evasion is the problem.

[Byker28i]

Mods - please link to the other thread - didn't see that
https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&...

[Northernboy]

Byker28i said:

New panama papers are accusing our former PM of avoiding £312,000 in taxes on a property in London that they scored by buying an offshore company. The Blairs have denied this

https://www.icij.org/investigations/pandora-papers...

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2021/oct/03/pando...
https://news.yahoo.com/pandora-papers-tony-cherie-...

The property was only for sale as the assets of the company being sold. They had no other way to buy it, so it’s really not clear what they are supposed to have done wrong in this particular case.

[TwigtheWonderkid]

Northernboy said:

Byker28i said:

New panama papers are accusing our former PM of avoiding £312,000 in taxes on a property in London that they scored by buying an offshore company. The Blairs have denied this

https://www.icij.org/investigations/pandora-papers...

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2021/oct/03/pando...
https://news.yahoo.com/pandora-papers-tony-cherie-...

The property was only for sale as the assets of the company being sold. They had no other way to buy it, so it’s really not clear what they are supposed to have done wrong in this particular case.

Indeed. And once they owned it, they scrapped that arrangement and brought it back under normal ownership, so the next buyers would have to pay stamp duty, thus effectively reducing the value of the house they'd just bought.

I don't like the Blairs, but this trend of assuming that everything they ever did was crooked is quite tiresome.

[Murph7355]

Northernboy said:

The property was only for sale as the assets of the company being sold. They had no other way to buy it, so it’s really not clear what they are supposed to have done wrong in this particular case.

Had he not given a very empassioned speech about avoidance using offshore companies (to be clear, about it being "wrong") then he probably wouldn't be getting the attention he is. Rank hypocrisy is not solely his domain, but he is awfully good at it. As are most politicians.

[Murph7355]

TwigtheWonderkid said:

Indeed. And once they owned it, they scrapped that arrangement and brought it back under normal ownership, so the next buyers would have to pay stamp duty, thus effectively reducing the value of the house they'd just bought.

I don't like the Blairs, but this trend of assuming that everything they ever did was crooked is quite tiresome.

It's unlikely to impact the value of that property. Just means the next buyers don't get the 300k+ windfall they did.

I wonder how much the property went up in the meantime.

Subsequent govt's could, of course, close this loophole. Doubtful any will though. Too busy shuffling the taxation deckchairs to help the "hard working".

[OldAndTired]

You need to try to understand how markets work.

For example. Let’s assume you have two identical properties in the same location.

Property A - is in an offshore company.
Property B - is not.

Let’s say stamp duty is 10% and property B is marketed at £1,000,000.

So a purchaser of property B will have to pay £1,100,000 for it. £1,000,000 goes to the seller. £100,000 goes to the tax man.

Property A will still cost £1,100,000 to any buyer. The difference being that all the £1,100,000 will go to the seller.

It won’t be cheaper for the buyer because the market has shown a buyer is willing to pay £1,100,000 for it.

If you subsequently take the property out of the vehicle you will immediately lose £100k because although the property is still worth £1,100,000 you would now only receive £1,000,000 for it.

I hate defending Blair. But he hasn’t gained anything. In fact it’s cost him the same as if he had bought it through the normal process.

[markh1973]

Murph7355 said:

TwigtheWonderkid said:

Indeed. And once they owned it, they scrapped that arrangement and brought it back under normal ownership, so the next buyers would have to pay stamp duty, thus effectively reducing the value of the house they'd just bought.

I don't like the Blairs, but this trend of assuming that everything they ever did was crooked is quite tiresome.

It's unlikely to impact the value of that property. Just means the next buyers don't get the 300k+ windfall they did.

I wonder how much the property went up in the meantime.

Subsequent govt's could, of course, close this loophole. Doubtful any will though. Too busy shuffling the taxation deckchairs to help the "hard working".

If it were a house - it isn't - then the ownership of it through a company (or certain other vehicles) would be caught by this

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/annual-tax-on-envelope...

[ATG]

TwigtheWonderkid said:

Northernboy said:

Byker28i said:

New panama papers are accusing our former PM of avoiding £312,000 in taxes on a property in London that they scored by buying an offshore company. The Blairs have denied this

https://www.icij.org/investigations/pandora-papers...

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2021/oct/03/pando...
https://news.yahoo.com/pandora-papers-tony-cherie-...

The property was only for sale as the assets of the company being sold. They had no other way to buy it, so it’s really not clear what they are supposed to have done wrong in this particular case.

Indeed. And once they owned it, they scrapped that arrangement and brought it back under normal ownership, so the next buyers would have to pay stamp duty, thus effectively reducing the value of the house they'd just bought.

I don't like the Blairs, but this trend of assuming that everything they ever did was crooked is quite tiresome.

Indeed.

[sugerbear]

Especially when you have verifiable proof that Tory donors have been involved in bribery.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-58783460

34 MP's trousered some nice donations as well https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-58791274. Along with the Tory Party which also received a nice donation.

That's about 2 million in dodgy money into the Conservative party.

[Condi]

sugerbear said:

That's about 2 million in dodgy money into the Conservative party.

Sure if you looked a lot of the money going to the Tory party is dodgy in one way or another.

The money given to Robert Jenrick's office shortly after signing off a planning application wasn't officially dodgy though, that's just business as usual for the Government. Same with Matt Hancock's mate down the pub with his NHS contracts, and of course the man who put up the money for the flat at Number 10, all above board.

Anyone would think these people give money to the Government out of the goodness of their own heart.

[Castrol for a knave]

Northernboy said:

Byker28i said:

New panama papers are accusing our former PM of avoiding £312,000 in taxes on a property in London that they scored by buying an offshore company. The Blairs have denied this

https://www.icij.org/investigations/pandora-papers...

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2021/oct/03/pando...
https://news.yahoo.com/pandora-papers-tony-cherie-...

The property was only for sale as the assets of the company being sold. They had no other way to buy it, so it’s really not clear what they are supposed to have done wrong in this particular case.

I agree - I deal with assets (or rather company acquisitions day in day out) and the stamp duty on a company purchase is lower than on an asset purchase.

That's it in a nutshell.

The fact it is an offshore is not unusual.

[Murph7355]

OldAndTired said:

You need to try to understand how markets work. ...

I hate defending Blair. But he hasn’t gained anything. In fact it’s cost him the same as if he had bought it through the normal process.

I understand perfectly how markets work.

Your scenario assumes 2x identical properties being available at any one time. These are not Beezer Homes identikit houses on an estate of 650 properties where buyers are stretching for their 3.5x multiples and scratching down the back of the sofa fpr legal costs. They are multimillion pound (6m?) properties of which few will likely come up, in an area where buyers aren't going to be short of a quid or two.

He will lose nothing whatsoever on this transaction. He saved 300k+ in tax in one transaction.

Note that I don't have an issue with that in and of itself. And I think the press handling of this huge expose across the board is typically dire and divisive.

The rank hypocrisy, however, is classic. (Also not unexpected as he's been a blatant hypocrite forever. However, one thing to be thankful for him for were his interjections on the EU referendum. Forget "lies on a bus" and look at this fella for how it was won. Every cloud ).

[The Rotrex Kid]

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https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&...