That brilliant blogger No Right Turn penned the words below [in italics] they prove just how far society has shifted from the concept of need and into the sphere of greed under successive right-wing governments over the past twenty years. It seems that we have lost our sense of honour to both our own citizens and even the worldwide community. For it would seem at least to me that success is now measured by the amount of cash you can rip off others by fair or foul means.
This from No Right
Turn:
There's an
obvious question which arises from the recent money laundering exposes and the
repeated revelation that New Zealand companies and foreign trusts are being
used by powerful offshore networks for tax cheating, corruption and money
laundering: why isn't the government seizing those companies and trusts and
their assets?Seriously The Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Act allows property to be restrained if there are reasonable grounds to believe that it is wholly or in part derived from "significant criminal activity" (which means "any crime which makes you more than NZ$30,000"), and forfeited on the balance of probabilities of same. Corruption, money laundering, and tax evasion are all crimes, and given that there's no real legitimate use for offshore banking arrangements other than these criminal enterprises, such reasonable grounds exist for every NZ-domicilsed offshore arrangement for which there is not an obvious, legal purpose. So why not seize them?
Or, to give a specific example: Unaoil exists to channel bribes in the international oil industry. Taking a cut of those bribes is how they make their profits. And they've made a damn sight more than $30,000 from it. That media report alone constitutes reasonable grounds to believe that the company itself is tainted property, derived wholly or in part from significant criminal activity. Better: Unaoil is owned by a shell company in New Zealand. So why don't we restrain that shell company, and put the entire criminal network out of business?
I think the government owes us an answer on this.
I don't like asset forfeiture laws. But the government does. So why do they only use them against the little guy rather than the 1%? Why do they punish only minor league criminals, while letting the real criminals, the international super-wealthy, walk free?
Just imagine
if all tax payers could rip-off the system as these bandits do…it’s no wonder
why such scum just love wheeling and dealing in New Zealand…with a Prime
Minister who is well versed in the manipulation of money transfers, and bonus
taking for buying and sell ing derivative style raffle tickets…these criminals
feel they have a companion brother who will allow their illegal behaviour to
continue. And it would appear that they are correct because Key has more than
once suggested that New Zealand school should become the largest tax-haven in the
Pacific…
The question is ‘how low can we go’ and how can we even futher spoil our so-called
reputation for honesty in business…allowing this world-wide criminal behaviour
here in New Zealand is both shameful and disgusting no matter how you look at
it.
It also shows just how gutless our PM is… where are his so-called
principles, his honesty, and his trustworthiness? Does he actually have any of
those normal human qualities? I think not. Is he more in the Donald Trump mold…you know where bullshit and jelly bean style intelligence indicators are the norm.
New Zealand
is becoming famous for ripping off people by using weak kneed loop holes to
allow people to do the strangest things, ex-PM Jenny Shipley combined with once
Justice Minister and now Corrections Minister Judith Collins and a half dozen
other weirdo’s have designed a deal to give Judith Collins fan club 'Oravida'
This yet
another example of how Key helps his mates make a fortune out of stealing our
natural resources…and his mates in this case is a Chinese Company with really
close ties to the National Party and its hanger-on’s
A massive leak of confidential documents
yesterday revealed
how hundreds of the world's wealthy and political elite used Panamanian law
firm Mossack Fonseca to set up tax havens, some of them in New Zealand.
Opposition MPs and tax experts have criticised the fact New Zealand
was being used as a tax haven, compromising its international reputation.
But Mr
Woodhouse said that was wrong.
"Well,
there are two features of a tax haven as far as I'm aware.
"One is
a very low, or no, tax base and the other is secrecy. We have neither of those
things, we have a requirement for all people who earn income in New Zealand to
pay tax and we share with other jurisdictions."
Mr Woodhouse
said as these were overseas trusts, they had overseas settlors, assets and
income and the New Zealand Inland Revenue (IRD) had no interest in their
obligations to pay tax overseas.
The fact that
these trusts could be used by other countries to conceal, launder or hide money
was a matter for those countries as was any tax owed in those countries, he
said.
Mr Woodhouse
said he did not have information about what activities were being carried out
by these trusts.
"I
really don't have the insight into what's going on at this stage. I'm aware of
the existence of a number of foreign trusts, I'm satisfied that tax obligations
here in New Zealand are being met and that IRD is contributing to an
information-sharing arrangement to the degree that they can."
The IRD was
living up to its legal obligations and was satisfied agreements and treaties
New Zealand had with other countries were being upheld.
The minister
said there were a very large number of countries implicated in the release of
documents about Mossack Fonseca's clients.
"And to
the degree that we are concerned that everybody pays the right amount of tax,
this is a global issue.
"I think
the best way to deal with those information-sharing requirements is through the
OECD."
Mr Woodhouse
rejected suggestions it was disingenuous to talk about New Zealanders' tax
obligations when the revelations from Panama related to the role of overseas
trusts.
"Well,
no, it's not, but what you're asking is should the IRD be more proactive in
sharing information - what I'm saying is they are doing that when they're asked
for it," he said.
Some references
on the subject:
- Mossack Fonseca tax haven claims - why NZ and why now?, Stuff.co.nz, Monday Apr 4, 2016
- Panama papers: NZ trusts at the centre of Malta money scandal, Mossack Fonseca papers show, Stuff.co.nz, Stuff.co.nz, Monday Apr 4, 2016
- Calls mount for tighter rules on foreign trusts as Key denies NZ a 'tax haven', Stuff.co.nz, Stuff.co.nz, Tuesday Apr 5, 2016
- Panama Papers: New Zealand is 'complicit' in tax avoidance schemes - expert, NZ Herald, Monday Apr 4, 2016
- Tax policy report: Taxation of multinationals, Inland Revenue, 15 August 2013
- Calls mount for tighter rules on foreign trusts as Key denies NZ a 'tax haven',
- Stuff.co.nz, April 4 2016
1 comment:
If you would like to go back a few years and have a little look at Wishart’s Book; ‘The Paradise Conspiracy’ You would see the legalised Rip Off Merchants were alive and well in those times and all. What has happened in the intervening years has been the scams have grown bigger, more sophisticated and more secretive. Reading the book seemed like a who’s who of the big money artists of NZ at that time.
There was a major financial crash shortly after the story was exposed. I was pleased to see the number of big money boys,
Frank Renouf (First mate on an Aussie Tramp) was one caught up in it with quite a few more, which for me was a real helping of Poetic Justice! Sure I had a few shares in NZ Forest Products and a couple of their offshoot property enterprises that simply disappeared. I didn’t feel so bad when I found the big time Wheelers and Dealers went down at the same time. I accepted that those guys knew about as much about risk as I did. Otherwise how was it so many of them were taken to the cleaners?
To hand today, I received a report issued by; forager funds.com about the Dick Smith business.
See http://foragerfunds.com/bristlemouth/dick-smith-is-the-greatest-private-equity-heist-of-all-times
This is quite unbelievable. Read the full story and then try to get your eyebrows back to their normal positions above you eyes from half way down your back! Supporting figures are included which for me, as a simple chippie, were way over my head!
Not a bad deal, making half a billion out of a shonky deal like that evidently was!
Peter G.
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