offshore country with feeder islands like the Caymans
is in need of more illicit money now that its middle
class has been destroyed.
It's part of the housing bubble that the ConDem
government is using to keep the appearance of
happy days in the UK economy.
So, foreigners can buy anything with a locked
front door and almost no tax to pay- ever.
So, natch, they're all flocking like the golodrinas
to San Juan Capistrano. http://www.swallowsparade.com/
checkit: Tax
justice
NY
Times on London: a tax haven with great theater, free museums and formidable
dining
The
New York Times has an excellent, shortish article about the UK housing market,
entitled London’s Great Exodus. It's a piercing commentary on what it calls
"this frankly demented situation" where the world's wealthy have turned London property, and particularly central
London property, into "are a form of money . . . a global reserve
currency."
Quite
so. But there is commentary in there that is not only spot on, but close to our
hearts:
"In 2011, at the height of the euro
zone crisis, citizens of the two countries at the epicenter of the cataclysm — Greece and Italy — bought 400 million
pounds’ worth of London bricks and mortar. The Italian and Greek rich,
fearing the single currency would collapse, got their money out of euros and parked
it someplace where government was relatively stable, and the tax regime was gentle — very, very gentle.
An
astonishing £83 billion worth of
properties were purchased in 2012 with no financing — all cash purchases.
That’s $133 billion.
Considering that tax evasion in Italy and Greece was a significant contributory
factor to their debt problems, it just seems grotesquely cynical to
encourage this kind of behavior."
Absolutely.
Our emphasis added. We're delighted that this message we've been banging on
about for years is pushing its way steadily out into the mainstream. And the
article spells it out clearly:
"The city is essentially a tax haven with great theater, free
museums and formidable dining. If you
can demonstrate you have a residence in
another country, you are taxed only on your British earnings. And the savings on property taxes are phenomenal.
"
Quite
so. This Vanity Fair article spells it out in great detail. And the UK is a tax haven for other reasons,
beyond the ones spelled out here: see this, for instance.
There
are some interesting other aspects to London property prices. There is the UK
government's demented 'Help to Buy' programme…
