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“The Power of Love (Infinite Oneness) neutralizes all fear. When we choose to give our energetic attention to F.E.A.R. (False Expectations Appearing Real), we are unable to trust our divine origin.”  -Anon I mus (Spiritually Anonymous)

Tax avoidance may be legal but it’s bankrupting our social order | Owen Jones

Tax avoiders rely on legal loopholes, at the expense of a state they refuse to contribute to, says the Guardian columnist Owen Jones

In the coming days, you will hear this response from the defenders of our rotten status quo. “What the Paradise Papers has exposed is legal, so what is the problem?” They have an agenda, of course. They want to demonise the very concept of taxation because they want to roll back the state and construct a free-market “utopia” which, in practical terms, would be dystopian for the vast majority.

Owen Jones highlights what the Paradise Papers reveal in how elites are refusing to help the populace and how the loopholes are hurting society. As Jones goes on to note on Britain:

The state is punitive when it comes to, say, benefitfraudsters or thousands of young people criminalised for arbitrarily banned drugs, but uses kid gloves when it comes to our shameless uber-wealthy elite. The colossally destructive behaviour of the rich is permitted; the infractions of the poor are deemed intolerable.

As Owen Jones illuminates current society has been set as following:

One rule for those at the top, another for everyone else. 

In this age of austerity, in which public services are being axed, the Pararise Papers highlights a greater ill in the practice of austerity as tax avoidance is set as such. As Owen Jones end his article:

A democratic revolution is surely coming in the western world, and this shameless, decadent elite only have themselves to blame.

Key revelations from the Paradise Papers

1) Millions of pounds from the Queen’s private estate has been invested in a Cayman Islands fund – and some of her money went to a retailer accused of exploiting poor families.

2) Prince Charles’s estate made a big profit on a stake in his friend’s offshore firm.

3) Extensive offshore dealings by Donald Trump’s cabinet members, advisers and donors, including substantial payments from a firm co-owned by Vladimir Putin’s son-in-law to the shipping group of the US commerce secretary, Wilbur Ross.

4) Twitter and Facebook received hundreds of millions of dollars in investments that can be traced back to Russian state financial institutions.

5) The tax-avoiding Cayman Islands trust managed by the Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau’s chief moneyman.

6) The Formula One champion Lewis Hamilton avoided taxes on a £17m jet using an Isle of Man scheme.

7) A previously unknown $450m offshore trust that has sheltered the wealth of Lord Ashcroft.

8) Oxford and Cambridge and top US universities invested offshore, with some of the money going into fossil fuel industries.

9) The man managing Angola’s sovereign wealth fund invested it in projects he stood to profit from.

10) Apple secretly moved parts of its empire to Jersey after a row over its tax affairs.

11) How the sportswear giant Nike stays one step ahead of the taxman.

12) The billions in tax refunds by the Isle of Man and Malta to the owners of private jets and luxury yachts.

13) Offshore cash helped fund Steve Bannon’s attacks on Hillary Clinton.

14) The secret loan and alliance used by the London-listed multinational Glencore in its efforts to secure lucrative mining rights in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

15) The complex offshore webs used by two Russian billionaires to buy stakes in Arsenal and Everton football clubs.

16) Stars of the BBC hit sitcom Mrs Brown’s Boys used a web of offshore companies to avoid tax.

17) British celebrities including Gary Lineker used an arrangement that let them avoid tax when selling homes in Barbados.

18) Prominent Brexit campaigners have put money offshore.

19) An ex-minister who defended tax avoidance has a Bahamas trust fund.

20) The Dukes of Westminster pumped millions into secretive offshore firms.

21) A tax haven lobby group boasted of ‘superb penetration’ at the top of the UK government before a G8 summit that was expected to bring in greater offshore transparency.

22) The law firm at the centre of the Paradise Papers leak was criticised for 'persistent failures’ on terrorist financing and money laundering rules.

23) Seven Republican super-donors keep money in tax havens.

24) A top Democratic donor built up a vast $8bn private wealth fund in Bermuda.

25) The schemes used to avoid tax on UK property deals.

26) The celebrities, from Harvey Weinstein to Shakira, with offshore interests.

27) How a private equity firm tried to extract £890m from a struggling care home operator by making it take out a costly loan.

28) Trump’s close ally Robert Kraft, the New England Patriots owner, is the longtime owner of an offshore firm.

29) One of the world’s biggest touts used an offshore firm to avoid tax on profits from reselling Adele and Ed Sheeran tickets.

“You do not become who you really are, it is simply the discovery that you are Consciousness prior to any image, thought, label or belief.”   ~Anon I mus (Spiritually Anonymous)

Artwork by Glenn Marshall, Motion Effects by George RedHawk