Gordon Brown calls on G20 to end tax havens
Gordon Brown has written an open letter and launched a petition calling for an international agreement to be reached to ‘immediately’ close down centres which help the wealthy dodge tax, in response to this week’s Paradise Papers data leak.
Jersey was at the centre of one of the major media stories generated by the leak of 13.4 million documents, after it was revealed that U.S. tech giant Apple moved subsidiaries to the Island to allegedly help avoid tax on £250 billion held offshore.
The Island has continually been referred to as a ‘tax haven’ in media reports and was the subject of a Panorama report broadcast on Monday.
In response to the Paradise Papers, Gordon Brown has written an open letter, with an accompanying petition, to the chairman of the G20 calling for him to end the practice of money being moved offshore to avoid tax.
The letter, which is addressed to Argentine President Mauricio Macri and other G20 leaders, says:
‘The level of global inequality is appalling – eight people own as much wealth as half the planet. And the gap is growing, thanks in part to the shadowy world of tax havens which lets trillions be syphoned offshore from our economies. Right now, the rich get richer, and the rest of us pay.’
The right-wing Macri administration has been rocked by both the Paradise Papers and Panama Papers.
Finance Minister Luis Caputo was shown to have managed two undisclosed offshore investment funds with at at least $100 million under portfolio, while Energy Minister Juan Aranguren was tied to two Barbados-domiciled natural gas suppliers which his own energy ministry awarded over $250 million in contracts.
Macri himself was one of five sitting heads of government listed in the Panama Papers and Open Corporate leaks, published in April 2016, with over 50 offshore shell companies in his name or his family's dating from as far back as 1981.
At: https://jerseyeveningpost.com/news/2017/11/12/brown-calls-on-g20-to-end-tax-havens/
Link to open letter: https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/staggers/2017/11/there-way-outlaw-tax-havens-and-i-ll-personally-tell-world-leaders-how-do