Property News · April 6, 2016

London is a tax haven much closer to home | Letters


Richard Brooks is certainly correct that, in the long run, tax havens need to be driven out of existence (We don’t need to reform tax havens – just get rid of them, 5 April). But given the enormous scale of the vested interests that support their existence, this is politically a rather utopian goal. Meanwhile, some much simpler reforms could help; the scam, which permitted thousands of wealthy individuals (not just the super-rich oligarchs etc) to avoid paying stamp duty on property purchases by using an overseas “trustee company”, has been recently whittled away by George Osborne’s latest measures.Now, it seems that those using a “corporate envelope” to buy a property only escape the tax if the property is worth less than £500,000 (reduced from the previous £2m rule), but this could be tightened further by banning the use of anonymous companies based in tax havens, where the owner is hidden. Other reliefs given to “companies” which are formed to buy multiple properties could also be targeted. These are achievable measures that even a Tory government dedicated to helping its “crony capitalist” friends might be shamed into introducing. Who knows, even the post-Blair Labour party might support them?Richard CrookBrighton Continue reading…

Source : theguardian.com
Read more…London is a tax haven much closer to home | Letters

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