Monday 13 May 2013

British Virgin Islands? (BVI)


A really nice place for a holiday, so I am told. While you are there you can open up a company or two. As long as the government doesn’t shut down this tax loophole, the well heeled will stash their dosh into these companies.  But as ministers also probably “holiday” there it is not likely to happen sometime soon.

Anyway say you set up one of these BVI companies and then want to use it to do an odd development or two in the UK. Say a block of flats or maybe a hotel. In order to protect your identity you set up a UK front company with supposedly only one director and one shareholder. This company signs all the documents for your many projects and slowly but surely the BVI is airbrushed out of the picture.

My question is if you have sunk your hard earned cash into the BVI you would want to keep a tight rein on that director of the front company in case he turned out to be a crook. So how would you do that? Some-one around here must know. Answers on a postcard please.

17 comments:

  1. This relates to the duties of TDC under the Proceeds of Crime Act. This is a duty to raise a question not to make an accusation. As such this failure of duty is a measure of the lack of due diligence exercised by TDC.

    Money laundering and Misprision of Treason are the two offences that can be committed by doing nothing (IE Failing to perform a duty obligatory at law).

    Up until 1967 it was also an offence to fail to report knowledge of crime (Misprision of Felony). After 67 the offence became to conceal crime in exchange for reward. And a "Don't want to get involved society" was born. If we still had misprision of felony the Savile Inquiries would have taken a rather more severe route at BBC, Broadmoor, Sue Ryder Homes, Leeds Infirmary etc

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  2. With TDC a lack of due diligence may be better looked at as "Gaming the system". The sort of thing like making a complaint to Standards against a cllr. Then finding that the council monitoring officer has been advising the cllr from the outset.

    If such advice was to break Civil Procedure Rules pre-action protocol with a view to gaining jurisdiction for Standards TDC alone then it might be both gaming the system and abuse of process.

    For this reason I have suspended complaint against Cllr Moores and asked Cllr Hart to set up a determination by full council.

    This almost certainly won't happen. It is TDC.

    And do I want to take TDC to Judicial Review ?

    Not really TDC are hardy perennial recidivists and will remain that way until Thanet people get some backbone to change it. That ain't gonna happen.

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  3. was that deliberate not putting a space in postcard?

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  4. Richard, I have no evidence that any crime has been committed, I just need to know how an offshore company would keep control of a UK based front company.

    Solo, in most UK dictionaries it seems optional postcard, post-card or post card.

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  5. I was thinking more along the lines of an answer on a post by card....!

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  6. Solo, bit too subtle for me :-)

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  7. I have zero legal knowledge. I do recognise the smell of a freshly laid cow-pat. And there is such a strong whiff of country smells around this whole sorry mess that names should be named and heads should roll. Unless of course, there is a major corruption scandal to cover it up. Or perhaps all parties really are pure and innocent and there really IS a tooth-fairy and Santa Clause.

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  8. Readit That is the point. There were people particularly on Michael's blog calling for police to be called in. But the duties, in money laundering law, are not initially about identifying crime.

    EG Suppose a local authority, exercising a licensing function, becomes aware that only one pub operator in its area is making a viable profit. And suppose that pub chain has an in house building and development company. There is no basis for arbitrarily accusing the pub chain of money laundering. Perhaps they are just better at running pubs than their competitors. But the fact would remain that indicators of an alternative source of cash flow could place a duty on the council to report knowledge to police or Inland Revenue.

    I think I posted a long time ago a link to another council's Money Laundering Reporting guidelines I will have a look and see if I can find it.

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  9. That is a pretty good guideline and you will find a number of indicators there that you may feel should have triggered reporting action within TDC. And the initial failure to establish validity of a bank draft letter is not looking good is it ?

    Giovanni Di Stefano is now serving 14 years let me find the linkie re him and bogus bank draft letter

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  10. Best of luck by the way. If you check out Thanet history back to 1800 you will find a history of outsiders trying to fight for the area. All getting no backing from the locals.

    You may get to recognise the "Thanet sidle" and their habit of announcing one of their final consonants at great length after a sentence when expounding their wisdom of living on their knees.

    A mate of mine closed down the 6th Thanet Gun Range in 1995. He has been buying building materials in Thanet for 30 years.

    About a month ago a Thanet man at the builder merchant who has served him there 30 years did the "Thanet sidle"

    My cockney mate thought "Ere we go"

    Thanet "You know that gun range you was having twubble wiv ? I was a member there. You wouldn't believe the sh-t that went on dahn dat quarry arrrrgh"

    Cockney "Well that was 18 years ago and they shot at me on my JCB"

    Thanet "Yeah I know but I am talking serious sh-t down dat quarry arrrrh"

    Cockney "Like Arabs and machine guns ?"

    Thanet "Yeah and the old bill in wiv em so none of us was gonna say nuffink see don't want twubble"

    That is Thanet. When my mate told me I just laughed out loud. 18 years the cowardly Thanet turd has kept quiet just like his cowardly Thanet mates. And no surprises he ain't giving evidence now.

    And they will never learn that the more you "Don't want twubble" the more "Twubble the area gets. So best of luck Readit.

    See what happened on this thread ? Start off with the role of money laundering guidelines as a yardstcik of TDC lack of due diligence. And in comes some gobby gay Thanet waste of space with a comment about postcards. Tossers the lot of them. Lovely area sh-t locals.

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  11. The bit I don't understand is this. We are told that the government is cracking down onoffshore tax avoidance. Yet it remains legal for individuals who live in the UK and only work in the UK to set up an offshore company, the purpose of which is only to avoid tax. In what way is the government cracking down?

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  12. Oh Dear Mr Card, How to win friends and influence people!

    You want to be thankful Readit has not deleted your comments as is the practice it seems of most of the other bloggers where you are concerned.

    How do you know I'm gay anyhow?

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    1. Solo, You are right I did consider deleting that particular post, but it provides more of an insight into the person writing it. than censoring would have done. Please do not consider that I am in any way supporting such remarks.

      I believe in, live and let live.

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  13. Thanks Readit, I am also inclined to let hateful remarks stand for much the same reason. I think we are all on here to try to understand just why things are going so badly wrong, even if there is not much we can do at the present time.

    I wonder who coined the phrase "social" media?

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  14. answers on a post it note "ensure the sole shareholder is your father in law" innit

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