Quote Originally Posted by Barry Dragon View Post
As far I can can extract from whats out there. He held shares in a scheme his father setup. He paid tax on the dividends he received from the company, and when he disposed of the shares the capital gain (split between the 2 of them) was below the capital gains tax threshold so no tax was payable. So he has not directly avoided any tax.

Its as good as a non story. Especially compared to the levels of dodgy tax avoidance uncovered. Its purely an anti tory rhetoric. Completely avoiding the real story.
A tax avoidance scheme us illegal.

It is perfectly fine to have offshore investments, but anyone who is a UK resident/domicile MUST declare income and gains to HMRC. Tha aim of many of these companies is to hide ownership etc of assets, and they do not have to declare to UK HMRC any details if individuals. The same used to happen in Jersey but about 10 years ago the rules changed and Jersey based companies had declare interest etc to the UK. Cameron said that investing in the Panama based trust allowed investment in overseas investments and investments in other currencies. That can be done FA the UK Stick Market quite legally with full reporting structures to the tax authorities. So why invest in these trust then? Simple....tax avoidance.

One question not yet asked us how much if wealth accumulated in his dad's trust grew tax free with no tax reporting?That would mean anyone who inherited this wealth has benefited from something that didn't pay tax and therefore was worth much more because of not paying tax.

These people can give whatever excuse they want, and a large number of people will believe them as their explanations are perfectly plausible, but others know the real reasons.