David Cameron has to resign.

[PirateSmile]

If there is any evidence he has had even one penny of benefit from his father's dodgy tax arrangement, surely Cameron has to go?
He's saying 'it's a private matter' whilst presumably working on his notes for next month's conference on cracking down on such tax scams. You really couldn't make it up. He will no doubt plead ignorance but that's no defence. He is the PM. He should know he's benefiting from is essentially large scale fraud.
Are we really going to let him get away with this?

It's likely that he sold a portion of his holding, the amount chosen to be just within the CGT limit. If so, this raises the question (as with so many of Cameron's financial affairs) - where are the rest of the assets?

Yes, funny that isn't it tennessee

mydarling the low corporation tax is the train for choosing certain jurisdictions. It attracts investors looking for greater gains. And if returns are higher more tax is recovered in the investors' home country. And if the share price is more then as you say greater CGT is potentially payable. There has been no net loss to HM treasury from DC's investment. And before anyone says it there is no loss of corporation tax because the company would never have been set up in the UK in the first place.

The net loss to hmrc depends upon what the trust was actually doing and where. If, as I suspect, it was actually managed by UK people, but with employed "directors" etc in a tax haven, then it is artificially located in that tax haven. If it, by rights, should have been uk based then the tax that should have been paid to hmrc has gone directly into investors pockets, including the Cameron's.

Legal, but not morally correct in my personal opinion.

Sorry Home, I didn't read to the end of your post. I don't think for a second that trusts would not exist if tax havens were not in place btw.

The company was not "artificially located" anywhere. It was located in a particular jurisdiction for particular purposes. It would never have been established in the UK because of that therefore no corporation tax would have accrued anyway. No loss to the treasury, and gains in that UK domiciled investors were taxed on income (at a higher rate) and for any capital gain

You are right, but they did and they do and people have and still do take advantage of that perfectly legitimately. As I've said all
Of us with pension funds will be benefitting from off shore investments.

Investment trusts based in the UK rarely pay corporation tax because they get income as dividends from their investments, which are non-taxable. There is rarely a tax advantage to setting up trusts overseas - see my link earlier.
The earnings for DC's dad was from being a fund manager.
So, MyDarling no additional UK tax would have been payable if it was based in the UK and not offshore.

He'd have to list if he still had an interest in it though, wouldn't he nauticant ? It would be a very risky thing to say he's sold the shares if he still held them.

On a separate note, the Telegraph home page has much frothing about this, then about halfway down an article titled 'Is it time to move your money offshore?' I can't help but wonder if some of the press are being so vicious due to the fact that many of them are owned by those who are non-domiciled or based elsewhere.

The company was not "artificially located" anywhere. It was located in a particular jurisdiction for particular purposes. I

They hired local people to sign paperwork etc to give the appearance of being "controlled and managed" from the Bahamas. It wasn't. That is artificially locating a company simply to take advantage of the tax regime. I doubt very much whether these Bahamas company officers were active in direction or strategic management of the business at all. Difficult to prove, but certainly isn't the spirit of the law, although not openly breaking it.

Also, why assume DC has other assets? His parents are/were wealthy, so he had a privileged upbringing, but presumably most of his dad's assets went to his mum, so he'd only inherit on her death (shared with his siblings), and what money DC does have looks like it's tied up in property. It's Samantha Cameron that comes from major money, not DC, although he's not by any means poor, but there's nothing I can see that suggests he's super wealthy.

I know arrangements like investment trusts and offshore investment funds are not subjects which come up in everyday conversation amongst most ordinary people, but they are not by any means the preserve of those who are super rich. Some of the best explanations I've heard around this whole thing have been on the early morning money show on 5 Live - they have fund managers on regularly, and they explain stuff very clearly, especially for those of us who don't work in international finance and banking (I don't, and neither am I am tax lawyer or accountant, I just find financial stuff interesting).

He'd have to list if he still had an interest in it though, wouldn't he nauticant ? It would be a very risky thing to say he's sold the shares if he still held them.

I assume he's been involved with transfers of a considerable amount of assets to people close to him with there being no legally binding agreement in place that they have to be returned to him. Naturally though, if these close people decide to transfer assets back to him once he's no longer PM, that's up to them. No problem with the Register of Members' Financial Interests and completely consistent with the 5 statements he's made.

Ok use the word "artificially" as you will. But the point remains that any company can register itself anywhere for any reason. Globalisation innit 😀

Nauticant - you say "assume" I say "completely made up". Really, what evidence have you got to say that DC has been randomly allocating secret assets to people (which people?) only to get them back later? Of all the things I've read on this topic over the past couple of days that deserves a

Doesn't it strike you as being an unusual coincidence that the amount shares in the offshore vehicle Cameron bought was exactly the right amount so that when he sold them just before becoming PM, the gain happened to fall just within the CGT limit? Either that noteworthy coincidence happened or some shares were sold and some other shares were not and are no longer held by Cameron.

nauticant - how do you know they were just within the limit? Has he said what he paid for them initially?

I prefer to deal in facts not coincidences.

My understanding is that dividends are treated as income for tax purposes but I'm prepared to be corrected on that?

I do know that some freelance/self employed people set themselves up as personal service companies and pay themselves dividends instead of drawing wages, thus paying less tax so maybe it's this?

Snarky! That's a new one on me :)

I have NC for this....

In the 1980s HMRC legislated so that there is no difference between how a UK fund is taxed or an offshore fund is taxed. So up intil 2009, if a fund distributed most of its income as dividends then investors were allowed to apply capital gains tax rates when they sold their investment in the fund. A UK fund works in exactly the same way. For UK investors to get CGT treatment HMRC had to examine the fund and give a certification.

In 2009 the legislation changed and offshore funds had to report all of their income, but didn't have to pay it out as dividends (ie you pay the tax even if you haven't received the cash).

Every journalist appears to have missed a couple of basic facts....

HMRC examined this fund every year, which means that in the old days it paid out all of its income so there was no tax advantage.

HMRC publishes a list on its website of all the funds it has examined and certified. Cameron's fund is there on the old list and the new list. It took me 30 seconds to find both lists.

If he had just come out and said, yes I did invest in the fund, HMRC has examined this fund for almost 30 years each year, it would have looked less dodgy. And less exciting.

Oh and looking at what the fund is actually invested in, if the fund had been based in the UK it would have paid LESS tax, not more, even in the days of 33% UK corporation tax rates.

howmany investors invest in the funds that give them the return they want while staying within their personal risk preference. Some of those funds may be registered abroad in jurisdictions with favourable tax regimes for the fund (NB not necessarily for the investor).

I have several stocks and shares ISA's. I used various criteria to choose which ones to invest in. The domicile of the fund manager was not one of them. In fact I couldn't tel you without going to look up the prospectuses where any of the are registered. It's just not an issue for me as an investor.

No contradiction btw. The fund management company pays less tax in the foreign jurisdiction. Therefore its operating costs are lower. Therefore any profit is not diminished by those costs which might have been incurred elsewhere. Therefore more to distribute to investors therefore they, the investors, have more taxable income

Ahhh.
I don't have an ISA. I don't have spare cash for savings.