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Paradise lost

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Lewis and his jet. (VAT not pictured.)

Mired in an unpleasant and seedy world of harassment accusations and casting couch impropriety, some of the rich and famous elite needed something to take them off the front pages.

Lo and behold it happened this week, but only by turning a spotlight on some of the rich and famous elite’s financial sleight-of-hand and unscrupulous practices.

The leaking this week of a veritable mother-load of financial document relating to everyone from senior royals to the stars of Mrs Brown’s Boys (as if they hadn’t already done enough bad things) provided some entertainment, for me at least.

People with oodles of money being made to feel bad about their dodgy tax-avoidance shenanigans? Grand. Unfortunately, they’ve still got lots of dosh in the bank (wherever it may be), so I doubt they’re too traumatised.

We have a notoriously short attention span nowadays, so we will probably have forgotten all about... the thing... sorry, what were we talking about again?

Obtained by a German newspaper, the staggering 13.4 million documents are being pored over with glee by the grandly titled International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. Or “Very Happy Hacks” for short.

The world of Offshore Finance and Tax Havens is a baffling one to many (me included), but the papers from law firm Appleby that make up the leaked stash shine a light on how high-net-worth individuals, and their legal teams, can set up and register companies in offshore locations to avoid paying tax, amongst other dubious and shady practices.

The list of big names squinting awkwardly in the glare includes everyone from U2’s Bono, top officials working for Donald Trump, and Lord Ashcroft, to gigantic corporations such as Apple, and even whole land masses – The Isle of Man apparently passed a law that helps people evade tax. You wouldn’t catch the Isle of Wight doing that.

It’s not often I get to have a dig at my Formula 1 nemesis, Lewis Hamilton, twice in a fortnight, but even he’s on the naughty list. The papers show a £3.3m tax refund for his £16.5m luxury jet. I can’t even begin to understand the complicated back-story to this one, but there’s stuff in there about private vs business use, purchasing it outside the EU, leasing the jet to a new company on the Isle of Man (that bad rock again!) who lease it to a third party who lease in back to Lewis...

Of course, Hamilton is too busy being famous to respond to accusations of dodgy financial practices, but some of his advisers (the one’s that aren’t panicking, presumably) insist everything is above board, and it’s all now with his lawyers.

Lewis might be squirming a bit, but he’ll be doing it in a £16.5m luxury jet, so let’s not feel too sorry for the 2017 F1 World Champ, eh?

If anyone wants to investigate my financial affairs, I’ve got £29.37 in cash, a sizable credit card bill and a whopping £1.43 in an ISA I haven’t accessed this decade. Bring . It. On.

This post first appeared as my "Thank grumpy it's Friday" column, in The Mail, on the 10th of November 2017. The print version was re-titled as "A little taste of paradise", whilst the version used on their website became "Paradise lost - and found".  

 Well, surprise - wealthy people are avoiding paying tax on stuff by using teams of clever advisers and legal peeps. It would appear that what we really need here is a more effective system of closing the loopholes that allows them to constantly get away with it.

(CD A-Z: Temporary pause whilst I listen to the just-arrived new one from Gorillaz - "Humanz".)

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