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?

His father is responsible, however Cameron did attend board meetings in the Bahamas, so he obviously was very much aware of the set up.

How am i supposed to pay my window cleaner his £6 a month

If you have assets abroad (incl in a tax heaven), every 7 years you have to make a full declaration of your full revenues where ever they are in the world.
If DC has inherited from his dad assets abroad

• what has he done with it, did he keep them and in that case, has made his full declaration and paid taxes accordingly? Of not, what happened to the money (see point below)
• when he received his inheritance did he also pay all his inheritance tax (ie did he declare says assets in Panama)?

As someone who says he 'only' own a house that he is currently renting as he is living in Downing Street...

If DC has inherited from his dad assets abroad

That is it if. His mother is still alive so it maybe he hasn't yet 'inherited' anything.

clash you sum up my view so much better than I could- thank you!

I thought if you were using tax avoidance schemes you have to declare them on your tax return, so you are not hiding the fact that you are using such a scheme. You then run the risk that the loopholes are closed (sometimes retrospectively) and you have to pay the tax that would now be due.

You do if you're using a recognised scheme which has been promoted as a tax avoidance scheme. You also have to, in most cases, actually pay the tax saving up front nowadays.

I would suspect that DC's fathers arrangement is not an actual 'scheme' that legally requires disclosure - however a prudent advisor may suggest making a voluntary disclosure to protect from discovery assessments. A white space note on their tax return would theoretically prevent hmrc going back further than four years and also limit penalties that could be imposed should the arrangement be found to be unlawful at a later date. We have no idea whether or not this was done, obviously.The arrangement in place is a very common one (so far as I can tell from the info available) and fairly simple and I would suspect a full disclosure wouldn't raise too many eyebrows at hmrc.

IdealWeather posted
If you have assets abroad (incl in a tax heaven), every 7 years you have to make a full declaration of your full revenues where ever they are in the world.

No you do not.

You make it every year if you were the transferor. Its DC's father's Tax Returns that will show this. And how do we know DC inherited anything? He may be one of a number of family beneficiaries who may only benefit if the trust, wherever resident, decides he should.

rufus paying by cheque or standing order would provide more audit trail as money received can be traced through a bank account. Cash can simply disappear.

For the people who disapprove of large scale tax avoidance schemes can they hand on heart say that if they were offered a perfectly legal scheme which could reduce their tax bill substantially they would not use it? How many people complain about inheritance tax and try and do their best to reduce the potential bill by legal means? Does it just seem morally wrong because of the amounts of money involved?

ineed

A cheque for £6 going through a business account would attract charges wouldnt it, standing order would be interesting as sometimes he doesnt clean that month if it was raining on his "round"

I think i will stick with assuming that he is not a potential tax evader

Pay by cash in my local cafe as well

Our whole society is driven on the premise that people are honest until proven otherwise...dh just said that. Its probably bollocks, as dh said it

silver I'm sorry but I dont follow you.

As far as I know if you have revenues from two countries (for ease of explaining), you can decide to either pay all your taxes in the uk and nothing in the other country (providing agreements are in place etc) or to pay taxes in the uk only on what you are bringing back, the rest where the money is created. In the second case, you still have to tell HMRC about all your revenues every 7 years and pay taxes on them.
If the other country is one where you go pay taxes, whatever you ha d already laid will be deduced from taxes here (if agreements in place), obviously if it's a fiscal paradise, you have to pay taxes in full.
At least that's how it's supposed to work...
I'm sure you do g have to pay taxes on all your evenirs in all the countries you have assets.

Having said all that, of DC hasn't received any inheritance and his mum gas, dies it mean he will want to launch an investigation to know what has happened to that money abdomen whether his mum has committed fraud re taxes I wonder....

Actually NOT declaring your income in an off shore company etc to HMRC is fraud even if the money never gets to the uk.

Btw that's the whole point of these papers. It does show the names of a lot of people who have used these societies to avoid taxation.
That's why it's so interesting for the HMRC and all other similar departments in other countries.
Yes they are legal. But they are created to avoid taxes, money laundering etc.
I can't imagine anyone creating one of those wo wanting to do something with it, ie commit fraud. The whole purpose is to hide your idenditity!

That means that DC father did aim to do that. And any person who inherited that money and carried on using that society is too.

Out of interest why does Cameron get called Shiny Dave. What is it referring to - a flawless reputation or complexion ..?

I always thought he was known as Dodgy Dave myself.

idealweather that's not quite correct...you don't, in most cases, get to 'choose' what gets taxed where, it's usually based on what country the tax payer is resident in.

So, for example, a U.K. resident will be taxed under uk tax law on their worldwide income. Say they have a Spanish business interest, they will pay Spanish tax on that and will need to declare in Spain. They would not need to declare their UK income in Spain. They would, however need to declare their Spanish income in the UK as they are UK resident, and pay uk tax on this - however, they will gain credit for the Spanish tax suffered so the total tax paid will not exceed the highest amount of tax due on either country.

The issue in this case is the fund is a separate legal entity which appears to be resident in the Bahamas. The income arising from this for tax purposes is therefore the funds, not DC's family's and the U.K. has no taxation rights over this.

Exposure to uk tax would arise should David Cameron, for example, receive a distribution (I'm not sure how it's set up but assume it's a trust) from the fund; the distribution would be taxable in the uk and would need to be declared appropriately.

There is no evidence that this has not happened; the issue is the artificiality of the fund being resident in the Bahamas and thus avoiding tax on the fund income, rather than tax on the extraction of this income.

I think.

This is all old news 2012 Guardian article.
The Icelandic Pm is different and not about tax. He secretly held millions of krona of bank bonds before the banking crisis. The day before becoming PM he sold them to his wife for £1. He is responsible for negotiating how much compensation bond holders should get and how much the govt should get - an obvious conflict of interest.

The 'old news' , extremely interesting, and rather makes a mockery of David Cameron's statement in the same article that wealthy individuals need to pay their fair share.

His own inheritance though, does seem modest at £300000 given the size of the estate.

It's most definitely not like an ISA. The amount you could put in for 2015/16 was
£15,240. Given the current poor interest rates you are likely to make something like £300 in interest at max per annum.

Why is it different, the law allowed offshore trusts and it didn't allow ISA's in the past. Now ISA's are ok, but offshore trusts have been clamped down on. Or os it the amount of tax saved? my saving/dodging £500 a year is fine, but rich bastards doing the same legally but benefiting £500k are morally wrong?

I think the likelihood is that Cameron has done nothing illegal, or even anything that would raise eyebrows under normal circumstances. Many Tory MPs are independently wealthy with rich families and expensive educations; did anyone seriously believe that these people do not benefit from the best tax advice aimed at paying as little tax as possible?

The issue for Cameron is not so much his tax affairs, but that this new scandal follows hot on the heels of IDS resignation, the academies balls-up, and the steel crisis. A year ago, this news would have been met with a collective shrug and an intensification of anti-Labour headlines. How times change.

carol when you are prime minister there is a very significant ethical difference between saving a few hundred quid in a domestic savings account, and half a million in an offshore vehicle. Cameron is personally responsible for his country's economic performance and global reputation. Hiding money abroad is destructive of both.

peregrina that might be the case for a bog standard cash ISA but lots of investment ISA's have much better returns depending on the level of risk you are willing to take goes slightly off topic