NEWS FROM THE CELTIC LEAGUE
No food? Can’t pay the gas bill? That’s strange we’re pumping billions of pounds into the United Kingdom
The much publicised BBC documentary about the Isle of Mans tax haven status says, according to a report in IOM Newspapers:
“Exact details of the tax avoidance scheme have been kept under wraps but is said to involve shifting intangible assets to the Isle of Man and setting up a trading arm in the Netherlands.”
So despite all the guff about TIEAs and ‘White lists’ and ‘Know your customer’ the Isle of Man is once again in the tax haven naughty corner!
It’s hardly a surprise after all a CBC documentary team trailed half way round the world to film a series of expose’s recently which demonstrated that the ‘corporate greed machine of Athol Street and its environs’ is still in business ripping off the world.
Not so! Says the Chief Minister in one of those astonishing interventions he’s occasionally prone to. However on this occasion his ‘defence’ may come back to haunt him and his Treasury acolytes.
Allan Bell advanced that:
‘We work closely with the UK tax authorities and no way encourage this type of behaviour.
‘The Isle of Man economy pumps billions of pounds into the UK through the City of London and indeed wider with, for instance, investment in Merseyside through Manx companies like Peel Holdings.’
The opening gambit is the usual and as for the closing line about Peel Holdings well I’m bloody sick of hearing about ‘Peel Holdings’ does it actually do anything for the Isle of Man. Ask yourself has it improved your life markedly of late?
No actually it’s the middle bit of ‘Allan’s utterance’ that was interesting where he says:
“The Isle of Man economy pumps billions of pounds into the UK”
It begs the question – were the team that went down to London some years ago to be told the UK was going to snatch even more VAT back aware of this?
Remember this from the Treasury Minister Ann Craine back in 2011 when she came back from London with the Manx delegation after they had their backsides kicked by the UK Treasury:
“There will be those who say that Government has not fought hard enough, that we should have refused to accept any revision of the Revenue Sharing Arrangement, or that more robust political lobbying in the United Kingdom could have improved our position. To those I would say, the Isle of Man Government has negotiated robustly in a much harsher economic and financial world than most people on the Island have experienced. The world has changed; we have to get real. The present financial situation within the United Kingdom is serious and their Government is substantially reducing Department budgets and fund allocations to Local Authorities. To expect sympathetic or preferential treatment from the UK Government, especially in the current economic climate would be naive.”
Well why on earth would you NOT expect ‘preferential treatment from the UK’ if as Allan now says we are pumping billions into its economy every year.
There is something here that does not ‘gel’. Manx people pay through the nose in charges and taxes, people look forward to a cold winter (courtesy of Manx Gas), food bank use is on the increase and yet we are pumping ‘billions into the UK’.
POLITICAL LIES DECEIT EVASION IS THERE NO END TO IT!
Link to IOM Newspapers story:
https://www.iomtoday.co.im/news/isle-of-man-news/welsh-town-to-copy-isle-of-man-model-in-tv-tax-haven-documentary-1-7574869
BERNARD MOFFATT
Issued by: The Celtic News
18/11/15
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