Prime Minister David Cameron said he has “no shares, no offshore trusts, no offshore funds” after questions were raised about his family’s tax affairs following the data leak known as the Panama Papers.
Advertisement
According to the Guardian, which has seen the documents, Mr Cameron’s father Ian ran an offshore fund that avoided ever having to pay tax in Britain by hiring a small army of Bahamas residents – including a part-time bishop – to sign its paperwork.
Labour lawmaker Wes Streeting, a member of parliament’s Treasury Select Committee, told BBC Radio the latest statement from Cameron’s office was welcome but there were still questions about whether he benefited from offshore funds in the past.
Well Cameron insisted this afternoon that he has no shares, no offshore trust, no overseas funds, no hidden wealth – just a house that’s rented out and some interest-paying savings.
A source close to the Chancellor said later: “George has no offshore interests, in shares or anything else, and as he made clear earlier all his interests are properly declared in the register of interests”.
Too much time has been spent by Downing Street spin doctors crafting carefully worded statements on the Prime Minister’s personal affairs and not enough time given to dealing with this insidious financial cancer eating away at the worldwide reputation of United Kingdom plc.
But despite several years of pressure, few UK Crown Dependencies and Overseas Territories – said to make up a large part of the tax havens referred to in the papers – have taken concrete action to open up the books.
But what about the prime minister as an economic entity in his own right – does he engage in tax “planning”, to use the euphemism employed by accountants who devise clever schemes to legally reduce their clients’ tax liabilitiies?
But his failure to say whether he or his family would benefit in future only intensified media speculation, with the story splashed across many newspaper front pages on Wednesday. It has however been confirmed that in 2010, when David Cameron became the UK’s Prime Minister, ownership of his father’s company, Blairmore Holdings Inc was moved to Ireland.
The calls for change echoing around the world in the wake of the Panama revelations are not entirely new.
Among them, the Fleming family that supported David Cameron’s bid for the Conservative party leadership has donated millions and is apparently the owner of more than 18 Mossack Fonseca companies managed from Liechtenstein. They say one thing and do another.
Advertisement
Number 10 issued a statement after the opposition Labour Party called for an investigation into Britons implicated in documents leaked from a Panama law firm. All in all the Panama Papers have so far revealed 12 national leaders among 143 politicians, families and friends who are named. The Icelandic prime minister Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson has “stepped aside for an unspecified period of time” following the leak.
