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https://panamapapers.icij.org/20160403-panama-papers-global-overview.html

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-35918844

Watched a bit of this on the news this morning. Looks like the biggest thing since the MP expenses scandal.

Could be some really interesting stuff coming out over the next few weeks.

Obviously nothing will actually happen because everything they've done is legal but at least we'll have something to moan about for a bit.

Surprised at the lack of comment on this.   

Or are people still working their way through it? 

Not sure what yet is surprising, foreign dictators hide money in Caribbean is hardly a suprise.

Iceland is interesting, tax avoidance issue is not understood, it's also not illegal. So until they find an example of a politician who is being two faced about it, then it will be quiet.

i'd be surprised if many of those named weren't looking to use tax havens.

great investigative journalism, quite the scoop, and potentially a big story but nothing too surprising yet i'd say

Is this avoidance though?  Avoidance doesn't require secrecy.

No, it has nothing to do with tax avoidance - I just missed typing a full stop, missed the correct button on the iPhone keyboard.

What allegation are people making against Cameron, with regards to Panama?

I don't imagine that he has a significant income from capital in his personal name, that he is not paying tax on.

That some of his inherited wealth comes from funds from a company set up in Panama by his dad, blairmore holdings. His dad died in 2010.

It is a load of nonsense.  It is like the idiocy in the Daily Mail over Milliband's father hating Britain.  You can't choose your parents and you have no control as to how they lead their lives.  The people making news of this have put themselves on a par with the Daily Mail. 

If Cameron himself had set up a company in Panama he should be hounded out of office.

Surely by focusing on Cameron, we give the real villians in the story a free pass?

FWIW he inherited £300,000 from his father.  It was highlighted when the original story came out a few years ago.

I agree, unsurprisingly. I was just pointing out the perceived issue

there is plenty in there and plenty of people to go at

the audit trail of what happened to the Brinksmat money and how UK law firms allegedly obstructed its recovery is a good one

the Iceland stuff is good

Putin involvement has lots of implications

but the idea that people or corporations aren't going to manage their tax affairs in some of these ways is just naive....its very widespread. the guardian for example (someone was making the point they were being hypocritical, i just point them out as i saw the point this morning) has cayman funds and a luxembourg shell company through which it funnels money. All perfectly legal.

of course there are big vested interests (large slugs of some of these offshore economies for example) why its not gonig away either

Just to make it clear, I think putting money offshore to avoid tax is a scummy thing to do, whether it is legal or not. 

Criticising David Cameron for the things his father did is also a scummy thing to do.

Cameron was modest enough to bring up his Mother recently when heckling Corbyn, so one would assume he held her in great esteem and no doubt his old fella. 

wasn't he responding to a heckle about his mother?

Which of these would you consider tax avoidance?

1. Having a pension
2. Having an ISA
3. BT Plc making a profit but not giving a dividend (of shares you own) (so you are not paying tax this year)
4. A private co, being profitable but not paying shareholders dividends
5. An offshore trust not paying out an income but making a profit (don't pay any tax)
6. An offshore trust not paying out an income, making a profit then giving a loan to its beneficiaries of this amount (tax free)
7. An offshore trust paying beneficiaries an income (of say £20k each) but they don't pay tax on it

I would say only 3 are.

He was, a Labour MP shouted 'ask your Mother' at something he was asking a rhetorical question about.

It bears no similarity to that whatsoever. The father hating Britain thing has nothing to do with Milliband Jnr. That's just one persons opinion and that persons child can have an entirely different opinion. The other is a family using tax loopholes to avoid IHT. The chances that Cameron didn't know what his father was doing are pretty much zero so he's guilty by association. Fortunately he's not guilty of any crime because it's all perfectly legal.

Iceland's leader is first head to roll

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-35966412

Not entirely sure I agree, money is one of the few things that people who are close often don't talk about. I have no idea what any of my mates earn and I didn't have a clue what my own parent's financial situation was until my Father passed away. It is a topic people are shy about.

Having said that, if you are going to be PM, does seem like the sort of thing you should do due diligence on.

That and pigs heads.

Wow that's awesome. I saw something earlier about 8000 protesters in Reykjavik demanding his resignation but it said he wasn't quitting.

Must be some people really worrying right now.

Think it probably depends on how much money the family has got. If there's enough that losing half of it to the tax man through IHT becomes a problem then there's more chance of having to discuss it and do some creative planning.

Obviously it can never be proved in the Cameron family's case so it's all his Dads fault. How convenient.

How can you be sure.  I had absolutely no idea of how my father ran his affairs before he got dementia and neither did his wife.    I had no idea what was in his will until he died.   I think all these assumptions of guilt sit uneasily with me.

Even if he knew everything, I still don't see how he has responsibility for it.  I may be able to talk to my mother, I may be able to tell her I think what she does is wrong on occasion, but I have no powers whatsoever to do anything about it.  She may be intending to leave all her wealth to the BNP for all I know.  

Sure the Cameron family may be different to mine, but I still think it is a leap to make to assume that he both knew about it and that he condoned it.  Given we don't actually know the exact detail, then I am not sure we can conclude it was legal either.

That's the issue though isn't it - different people will have different opinions.  We need to go by the law, not by moral judgement.  If the law is wrong then we should elect politicians to change it.

The Milibands also did some Inheritance Tax planning to reduce Ed's tax liability on the family home.  The argument at the time (rightly) was Miliband had little control over the tax affairs of his father, so the same argument applies to Cameron.

So if my parents gift £100k each to me and my sister now would people class that as IHT planning or tax avoidance? The reason for doing it would be that they hope to live at least another 7 years at which point IHT doesn't apply to gifts.

Bringing inheritance forward must surely be very common in families to avoid paying the otherwise inevitable IHT.

The question is who is the one avoiding the tax? It's the children that would have had to pay the tax so surely it's them that have avoided it. However it's the parents money when it's gifted so entirely their decision and you can't blame the kids. What a superb win all round.

It's both. Tax avoidance isn't illegal

Something something arctic roll.

There's a pun in there somewhere, I'm sure of it.

I'm in full support for whatever you want to do.  We have laws so if you don't break them it is none of my business.  What I don't agree with is picking and choosing who to have issue with based on a subjective personal scale.

this is a good long form read on the background, the details and the implications on why it matters

http://www.vice.com/en_uk/read/why-you-should-care-about-panama-papers-mossack-fonseca

I couldn't help but smile at the irony in the Cameron Trust Fund name, Blairmore.

First thing I thought when I saw it lol, wonder when it was set up  :D

transcript of the Peston/Cameron interview

http://www.itv.com/news/2016-04-07/david-cameron-admits-he-had-a-30-000-stake-in-his-fathers-offshore-trust/

took about 4 poisition changes to get this far, which i suppose does the damage from how badly it was handled, rather than there being anythign illegal here

Ladbrokes now make it 2/1 that Cameron will be replaced this year.

12/1 yesterday

(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CfglT13XIAIBgOQ.jpg)

he has a real moral issue here.  He took ages to come clean and I don't care what he says, these offshore trusts are always going to look bad.  Investing offshore seems such a bad thing to do if you have dreams of becoming PM one day and so stupid for a sum of money that isn't going to mean that much to him too.  He could have got virtually the same benefits from an ISA and nobody would bat an eyelid.

The hypocritical angle is weird, do people expect him to only vote in his own self interest?  Strikes me as a ridiculous standpoint to take.  Acting too much in their own self interest is exactly the issue most people have with politicians. 

If my father owned an offshore company that was not illegal I would like to support him and own a handful of shares. I see nothing wrong in that. However he should have come clean from the start.

Why is this me hypocritical angle weird?  He smoked Jimmy Carr last year in an interview.  You can't slate other people while doing a similar thing yourself.  You can't preach about everyone "paying their fair share" when you have offshore trusts.  I'm a Tory voter generally and I think his credibility is now zero.

Having an offshore trust to avoid tax isn't really similar to the tax avoidance schemes he was criticising though (I think) - weren't they more about trying to 'trick' the government and exploit loopholes to avoid tax; I thought putting money into an offshore trust is a very basic and simple measure - like a rich person's version of an ISA.

Even if it is the same he didn't slate him while doing something similar - he slated him several years later, similarly he didn't preach about everyone "paying their fair share" when he had offshore trusts; it's understandable to think he might be embarrassed by it but isn't it possible he learned from his own experience and became a 'better' person for it?

Oh dear Dave

There is absolutely no similarity to Jimmy Carr's scheme and this one.  Jimmy Carr's scheme was one to avoid virtually all income tax, this is one where Cameron as invested after paying income tax.  All this scheme seems to have done for Dave is roll up his money gross.  He could have done the same with an ISA or pension.   This is the difference between tax evasion and avoidance. 

Jimmy Carr and those other celeb's who did that deserve all the crap that came their way.  They probably deserved more, and should be viewed similarly to benefit fraudsters, as what they did was far worse than what Cameron has done. 

Of course we should hold celebs to lower standards than a PM, MP or similar.

Cameron has done what all politicians do, desperately tried to avoid the question for days instead of being honest about it and just saying what happened from the word go. If he had done that it wouldn't have quite been a non issue, but it wouldn't be as bad as it is now.

I don't think what he's done is wrong in the slightest, morally or illegally. However if it takes this to finish him off then I'll be delighted, maybe some sort of justice for all the disgraceful things he's done since being PM.

Grrrr! I wish people would stop tarring the single mother on benefits who doesn't fess up that her new boyfriend has moved in and saves a few quid with the same brush as millionaires who decide that isn't enough and they want to cream off a few hundred thousand more.

Does anyone believe for a second that this 30k is all Cameron had in this trust? 

This is likely to be the tip of the iceberg.   Given his family's history and previous practices.  I have always found him dishonest, false and lacking moral fibre. 

A rich kid, who was primed from an early age to be leader. 

I expected nothing better. 

This what I assumed too. If Daddy had millions in this fund then surely Cameron would have a lot more than just 30 grand in there. Saying on the news today that he got 300k inheritance plus a 200k gift from Mummy after his father passed away. Those are more serious figures but I reckon every investigative journalist in the UK will be digging deep on him now, hopefully just a matter of time before he's emptied.

ffs being rich isn't a crime.

The issue is tax avoidance.  It appears that a large number of people and businesses are enjoying the benefits of western society while not paying a proportionate amount to maintain those benefits.

To some it is...

There's another element to this, those that want to see the back of Cameron but want to stay in the EU should be careful what they wish for. If this keeps rumbling on Cameron will be less credible when campaigning for the in vote, it increases the chances of the out vote winning. They need to decide what's worse, another 2 or 3 years of Cameron or leave the EU.....

On the BBC article about his tax returns they reported that it basically showed he's done nothing wrong but it does emphasise how rich he is - and that this might damage him.

It's a pretty sad reflection that being rich is a political liability.

Some people are just jealous of others that have money, I say good luck to successful people who have managed to get a few quid for themselves and their families. I'd rather be like them than people who never make anything of their lives and barely have two beans to rub together.