Tesco bonus cuts: Profit fall dents rewards for supermarket workers

That's the way it should be: workers get some bonus, execs get none with falling profit.

From - http://www.mirror.co.uk/money/city-news/tesco-bonus-cuts-profit-fall-1907685

Tesco workers paid the price for the biggest profit slump in its history after their bonus pot was halved.

The supermarket giant’s 280,000 UK staff will share a payout worth £56million, down from £110m a year earlier, and worth a maximum of £1,625 per employee.

Tesco’s 5,000 top managers and its board will also lose out after their annual bonus and long-term share awards were axed.

The clampdown came after annual profits crashed 51% to £1.96billion.

It was left facing a £1.2bn hit from pulling out of the US by axing its Fresh & Easy business.

Philip Clarke, who has begun a £1bn ­fightback in the UK, missed out on an annual bonus for the second year running after waiving last year’s award. But he has just got £830,000 worth of shares, granted in 2010, on top of his £1.1m salary.

Tesco’s top execs still shared nearly £9m in pay and perks. Finance director Laurie McIlwee saw his total pay fall almost 20% to £917,000.

Tesco’s annual report also showed the firm paid two ousted directors £3m.

Tim Mason, who ran the troubled US arm, got £1.6m, while former UK chief Richard Brasher received a £1.3m pay-off.

Senior managers will only get an annual bonus if they manage to turn things around, the report said.

Under a new plan, annual payouts will be “less heavily weighted towards short-term profits”.

If maximum targets are met, Clarke could earn as much as £7m.

The £56m staff shares award is equivalent to 1.5% of an employee’s earnings, and is payable to workers who joined the group before February 25.

Shares are held in trust and can be sold after three years. A company spokeswoman said: “It’s not been a secret it’s been a challenging year for the business.”

The retailer also unveiled a new campaign to cut food waste from both its ­operations and supply chain, and among customers as part of its Tesco and Society report.

It aims to tackle the £680 worth of food that is thrown away by ­households every year, and includes selling food in smaller sizes at its convenience stores and tailoring ­promotions away from goods with shorter shelf lives.

Apple 'among largest tax avoiders in US' - Senate committee

A few days ago Google claimed that the reason it seems to be paying low taxes outside of its home country is because the buklk of its taxes are paid in the US.  Apple obviously does not have the same excuse.

From - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-22600984

Apple has been accused of being "among America's largest tax avoiders".

A Senate committee said Apple had used "a complex web of offshore entities" to avoid paying billions of dollars in US income taxes. But it said there was no indication the firm acted illegally.

Apple chief Tim Cook will go before the panel on Tuesday. In prepared testimony Apple said it did not use tax gimmicks.

The Irish Republic, home to three Apple subsidiaries, says it is not to blame for the firm's low tax payments.

The US Senate had said that Apple paid little or nothing on billions of dollars in profits placed in Irish subsidiaries.

"They are not issues that arise from the Irish taxation system," Deputy Prime Minister Eamon Gilmore told national broadcaster RTE when asked about the Senate committee report.

"They are issues that arise from the taxation systems in other jurisdictions and that is an issue that has to be addressed first of all in those jurisdictions."

Apple has a cash stockpile of $145bn (£95bn), but the Senate committee said $102bn of this was held offshore.

The company says it is one of the largest taxpayers in the US, having paid $6bn in federal corporate income tax in the 2012 fiscal year.

The Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations has been examining "methods employed by multinational corporations to shift profits offshore".

Some large firms in the US have come under fire for their reluctance to repatriate their foreign earnings as they could face a top tax rate of 35%.

US corporation tax is one of the highest in the world at 35%. However, companies typically pay far less, thanks to numerous deductions and exemptions.

Continue reading the main storle has been accused of being "among America's largest tax avoiders".

'Google is cheating British taxpayers out of millions... what they are doing is just immoral': Web giant accused of running 'scandalous' tax avoidance scheme by whistleblower Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2326897/Google-tax-avoidance-row-Internet-giant-accused-scandalous-tax-avoidance-scheme-whistleblower.html#ixzz2TkN0odzA Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

From - http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2326897/Google-tax-avoidance-row-Internet-giant-accused-scandalous-tax-avoidance-scheme-whistleblower.html

* Barney Jones said Google diverts British profits through Ireland to Bermuda 
* Former executive said company 'pulled the wool over the eyes' of HMRC
* Adds to mounting pressure on Google over its tax affairs 
* Company says all sales contracts go through its low-tax Ireland office 
* Last year, paid just £7.3million in corporation tax on UK turnover of £3billion

A former Google executive turned whistleblower says he has 100,000 emails that expose the 'immoral' tax avoidance scheme used by his former employer.

Barney Jones, who worked for Google from 2002 until 2006, said the company has 'pulled the wool over the eyes of HMRC and the British population'.

He claims Google has a system in place which diverts British profits through Ireland to the Bermuda tax haven and accused the company of 'cheating' the British taxpayer. 

The internet giant has been under increasing pressure about allegations of tax avoidance.

Prime Minister David Cameron will lead efforts at next month's G8 summit of world leaders to find ways of preventing multinational firms from exploiting tax loopholes.

He is due to meet Google's executive chairman Eric Schmidt tomorrow at the quarterly meeting of the prime minister's Business Advisory Group. 

Last week, Matt Brittin, a vice-president of Google, was aggressively questioned by MPs, who accused the company of 'doing evil' by using 'devious, calculated and unethical' tricks to minimise its liabilities.

It paid just £7.3million in corporation tax last year despite having a UK turnover of £3billion.

Yet, Google assert that all its sales are made in low-tax Ireland, rather than the UK, where corporation tax is just 12.5 per cent compared to 23 per cent in Britain. 

Mr Jones's earlier testimony to the PAC gave MPs such as chair Margaret Hodge further ammunition for the questioning of Mr Brittin last week.

Fury at corporate tax avoidance leads to call for a global response

From - http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2013/may/18/corporate-tax-avoidance

Anger over the financial affairs of multinationals such as Google, Amazon and Starbucks is gathering momentum in Westminster. Now the UK is poised to lead the debate about international tax reform at next month's G8 summit.i

Google's approach to its taxes has been branded as evil by Margaret Hodge, chair of the public accounts committee. Photograph: John G Mabanglo/EPA

Huge orange and green cranes hover over a vast building site at King's Cross, London. Over the next three years, 2.4 acres of this site will be transformed into a million square feet of an 11-storey headquarters for the internet giant Google, no doubt chock-a-block with colourful Big Brother-house-style sofas and surreal chill-out zones that mark out its other 70 offices in 40 countries.

The property deal is estimated to have cost around £1bn and was heralded by the site's development consortium as the "most significant property transaction of recent years".

"This is a big investment by Google, we're committing further to the UK where computing and the web were invented. It's good news for Google, for London and for the UK," said Matt Brittin, vice-president for northern and central Europe, when the purchase was announced in January.

Like Amazon, Google is seeing increasing success in the UK where one in every $10 of sales is now generated. Yet both firms claim they are merely touching down on UK soil, without a "permanent establishment" and therefore are not paying tax on profits from billions of pounds worth of sales made here.

On Wednesday, Google won the advertiser of the year trophy at the 54th annual Clio Awards – the Oscars for advertising professionals. Accepting the award in New York, Robert Wong, chief creative officer of Google Creative Lab, said: "At the highest order, our job is to remind the world what it is they love about Google."

That popularity has hit a serious snag. The next day the company was branded "evil" by Margaret Hodge, chair of the public accounts committee, while this weekend Ed Miliband called it "irresponsible". "If everyone approached their tax affairs as some of these companies have approached theirs we wouldn't have a health service, we wouldn't have an education system," he said.

Along with Amazon and, before that, Starbucks, Topshop, Boots, Vodafone, Goldman Sachs and Greene King, Google is the latest to have become the target of grassroots hostility towards their aggressivetax avoidance policies. The actions of these corporations are not illegal, nor underhand, but especially when we're all supposed to be in austerity together, jarring horribly with public opinion.

Something "doesn't smell right", as the Guardian's editorial said this weekend, after it ran an account of the extent of Amazon's dealings in the UK, far wider than what its tax lawyers are implying.

The debate is now raging over whether these companies are the happy beneficiaries of a tax system knitted with loopholes, or the malicious purveyors of smoke-and-mirror accounting. HM Revenue and Customs claims the former – public opinion is rolling towards the latter. Lin Homer, chief executive of HMRC, claimed the public don't understand. Asked why she was not taking a tougher line with internet giants, she told the public accounts committee: "We see, but understand more fully, some of the information that might seem to the general public to be surprising."

But campaigners say tax collectors and leading politicians have been caught out; too engrossed in austerity plans, they are scrabbling to keep up with people who point out that there are other ways to balance the books.

"Without a doubt, they are behind the curve," said Richard Murphy, a chartered accountant, economist and founder of Tax Justice Network. "They have all been caught by surprise because this has come from civil society, a campaign that has been going on for almost a decade but has only been picked up by politicians after the banking crisis when they suddenly realised they were desperately short of cash."

He said HMRC had been ducking tax avoidance completely. He said it had powers to tackle any suspect tax returns of foreign-based companies. "If the breach is blatant, then they can act. What we haven't got is politicians who will stand up to this. It's a critical point. If the state will not stand up for its right to tax big corporations then we are in deep trouble."

UK Uncut began campaigning on the issue in 2010 and it was its legal challenge that revealed how HMRC waived a £20m bill for Goldman Sachs, as well as a £6bn bill to Vodafone. Journalists, tax experts and campaigners have been investigating and exposing the tax scams being perpetrated by big businesses for far longer – pointing out glaring loopholes in Britain's tax system.

When Matt Brittin of Google told the public accounts committee in November 2012 that Google did not have a sales presence in the UK, it was the news agency Reuters that quickly uncovered evidence to the contrary, resulting in Brittin being recalled in front of the committee on Thursday, where his company's behaviour was described as "devious, calculated and, in my view, unethical" by Margaret Hodge.

"You are a company that says you 'do no evil'. And I think that you do do evil," said Hodge, referring to Google's motto, "Don't be evil".

Amazon may also be recalled, after numerous whistleblowers from among its employees approached journalists to contest official accounts of its trading practices within Britain.

For the moment the government's line is that this is a global problem that cannot be solved unilaterally. On Monday, Google's executive chairman, Eric Schmidt, will meet David Cameron, a meeting No 10 insists is not about tax, but to do with Schmidt's role on the prime minister's business advisory group.

Labour leader Ed Miliband, who is due to give a speech to Google employees on Wednesday, has backed a "country by country" international scheme on tax declaration but says that he is concerned that no firm proposals have so far been put forward for the G8. "You have to have much greater transparency. Tax offices have to know country by country how much profit people are making, how much tax they are paying. Unless you know that you won't get to the bottom of what is happening. You have to deal with tax avoidance schemes. You have to deal with tax havens.

"We are saying there has to be a big, big push on this. It has to be done internationally and if it is not done internationally, Britain should act on its own."

All eyes will be on what, if anything, can be agreed at next month's G8 meeting in Scotland, where, as host of the event, David Cameron has pledged to put tax avoidance at the top of the agenda as he insists it is an issue for international co-operation rather than unilateral action.

And it would not be just the wealthy who would be watching the progress of the talks, said Melanie Ward, head of advocacy at ActionAid UK.

The art of hiding the loot

From - http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/sunday/2013-05/19/content_16509693.htm

According to the air bill on the crate that arrived at New York's Kennedy International Airportfrom London, an unnamed painting worth $100 was inside. Only later did investigators discoverthat it was by the American artist Jean-Michel Basquiat and worth $8 million.

This painting, known as "Hannibal," was brought into the United States in 2007 as part of aBrazilian embezzler's elaborate effort to launder money, the authorities say.

The painting's seizure was a victory in the economy-rattling, billion-dollar fraud and money-laundering case of Edemar Cid Ferreira, a former Brazilian banker who converted some of hisloot into a 12,000-piece art collection.

Law enforcement officials in the United States and elsewhere say "Hannibal" is just one ofthousands of valuable works of art being used by criminals to hide illicit profits and illegallytransfer assets around the globe. As other traditional money-laundering techniques have comeunder scrutiny, smugglers, drug traffickers, arms dealers and the like have increasingly turnedto the opaque art market, officials say.

The Basel Institute on Governance, a nonprofit research organization in Switzerland, warnedlast year of the high volume of illegal and suspicious transactions involving art.

It is hard to imagine a business more custom-made for money laundering, with million-dollarsales conducted in secrecy and with virtually no oversight. What this means in practical terms isthat "you can have a transaction where the seller is listed as 'private collection' and the buyer islisted as 'private collection,'" said Sharon Cohen Levin, chief of the asset forfeiture unit of theUnited States attorney's office in Manhattan. "In any other business, no one would be able toget away with this."

Governments around the world have taken steps to bring illegal activity to light. In February, forinstance, the European Commission passed rules requiring galleries to report anyone whopays for a work with more than 7,500 euros in cash, and to file suspicious-transaction reports.

The United States similarly requires all cashtransactions of $10,000 or more to be reported.

In a forthcoming book, "Money Laundering ThroughArt," the Brazilian judge who presided over theFerreira case, Fausto Martin De Sanctis, argues formore regulation, saying if businesses like casinos andgem dealers must report suspicious financial activity,so should art dealers and auction houses.

But to dealers and their clients, secrecy is crucial tothe art market's mystique and practice. The ArtDealers Association of America dismissed the ideathat using art to launder money was even a problem.

In Newark, New Jersey, federal prosecutors in a civilcase recently announced the seizure of nearly $16million in fine art photographs as part of a fraud andmoney laundering scheme that prosecutors say wasengineered by Philip Rivkin, a Texas businessman.

Mr. Rivkin, who has not been charged with any crimes,was last thought to be in Spain and had arranged to have the photos shipped there.

In New York, victims of the scams of the disbarred lawyer Marc Dreier are still in court fightingover art he bought with some of the $700 million stolen from hedge funds and investors. At themoment 28 works by artists like Matisse, Warhol, Rothko and Damien Hirst are being held bythe federal government.

"Hannibal" also sits in storage. That 1982 Basquiat work was part of a spectacular collectionthat Mr. Ferreira assembled while he controlled Banco Santos in Brazil.

In 2004 Mr. Ferreira's financial empire, built partly on embezzled funds, collapsed, leaving $1billion in debts. A court in Sao Paulo sentenced him in 2006 to 21 years in prison for bankfraud, tax evasion and money laundering, a conviction he is appealing. Before his arrest,however, art worth more than $30 million, owned by Mr. Ferreira and his wife, Marcia, wassmuggled out of Brazil, Judge De Sanctis said.

According to court papers, "Hannibal" was bought for $1 million in 2004 by a Panamaniancompany called Broadening-Info Enterprises, which later tried to sell the painting for $5 million.It was sent to New York in 2007, passing through the hands of four shipping agents in twocountries before landing at Kennedy International.

Since merchandise valued at less than $200 may enter the United States without customsdocumentation, duty or tax, "Hannibal," labeled as worth $100, was cleared for entry before theplane landed.

Philip Byler, Broadening's lawyer in New York, said the inaccurate invoices were just ashortsighted attempt by the art dealer that Broadening hired to save importation fees. "It wasnot done with the intention of smuggling," he said. He also challenged the Brazilian authorities'claim, saying that "Hannibal" was legally purchased from a company owned by Mr. Ferreira'swife.

Mr. Byler said that Broadening intends to appeal the forfeiture.

Amazon paid £3m tax on £4bn UK sales

From: http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2013/may/15/amazon-uk-tax-3m

Online retailer's tax charge brings to £6m the total corporation tax raised from Amazon.co.uk in a decade

Amazon.co.uk paid £3m in tax. Photograph: Chris Radburn/PA

Amazon's main UK subsidiary paid just £3.2m in tax last year, according to accounts filed on Wednesday, despite overall UK sales of £4.2bn.

Amazon's taxes for last year are only marginally higher than the £2.5m the company received in government grants during the year, according to the annual accounts published at Companies House.

The revelation comes amid public unrest over the minimal contribution of Amazon and fellow digital giants Apple and Google to the British public purse, despite the important contribution UK sales make to their international revenues.

The online retailer's tax charge brings to £6m the total corporation tax raised from Amazon.co.uk Limited in a decade. The company's tax bill was £1.9m in 2011, but these sums may not actually be paid to HM Revenue and Customs because of cumulative losses across the Amazon group.

Amazon employed 4,191 people at the end of 2012 in the UK, and thousands more in its warehouses via contracting agencies, but reduced payments to the British government by routing sales via a subsidiary in Luxembourg.

The UK company declared a turnover of £320m for 2012, up 50% on 2011. However, its income is largely raised from other Amazon companies in return for services such as warehousing and distribution and negotiating purchasing deals with book publishers.

Amazon gives a fuller picture of its UK revenues on regulatory filings to US investors, and this data showed a growth in UK turnover of 20% during 2012, to $6.5bn (£4.2bn).

The company's UK filing states: the company recorded a profit before taxation of £10.8m in the current year and "is expected to remain profitable for the foreseeable future".

Liberal Democrat MP John Hemming said the figures showed the inadequacy of existing rules to tackle the problem of profit shifting by major corporations.

"The government clearly needs to do a detailed study on how to handle the tax implications of e-commerce," he told Reuters.

Nick Smith, a Labour MP, said he wanted the tax authorities to take a close look at Amazon, describing its tax payment as "pathetic".

"HMRC should be going through this company's tax arrangements with a fine-tooth comb," he said.

Philanthropist finds giving is receiving

From: http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2013-05/12/content_16492961.htm

An American philanthropist's desire to shape the minds of the leaders of tomorrow means juniorstudents in China have an opportunity to join an all-inclusive 10-day private safari tour of SouthAfrica.

Students between grades 1 to 9 win a place on the safari by participating in the second annualGlobal Natural History Day competition.

Funded by Kenneth E. Behring, the chairman of the Global Health and Education Foundation,a nonprofit organization located in California, the GNHD competition aims to help develop thenext generation of world leaders.

Kenneth E. Behring (back row) founded the annual Global Natural History Day competition in 2012 toinspire children to tackle the world's problems. [Provided to China Daily]

"It (GNHD) can stimulate and excite kids about the natural world, so they can take the lessonsof nature and become well-educated, creative and imaginative leaders who can tackle theworld's problems," Behring tells China Daily at the 2013 GNHD competition Shandong LaunchCeremony held in April.

The 2013 GNHD competition, themed "Great Migrations: Animal, Botanical, Anthropological",covers China and the United States.

In addition to cash prizes, winners of their respective divisions will be eligible for the "KennethE. Behring Discovery Trip" in February 2014, which will take winning students and teachers toSouth Africa.

The GNHD competition is only part of Behring's philanthropy efforts, which began in 2000. Thatyear, Behring had an epiphany when he lifted a small Vietnamese girl from the ground andplaced her in a wheelchair. The incident turned the entrepreneur into a philanthropist.

"I saw this little girl envision a freedom she had never known. Her face opened into a smile,"Behring recalls.

"For the first time I could remember, I felt joy."

Behring was in business for nearly seven decades and was listed as one of the 400 wealthiestmen in America by Forbes Magazine.

But he wasn't happy.

"After a career filled with outward success, I did not even know where to look to find realhappiness," Behring says.

The very same year, he created the Wheelchair Foundation, marking the start of hisphilanthropic journey.

To date, Behring has given away nearly a million wheelchairs to more than 150 countries.

In 2001, Behring established a partnership with the China Disabled Persons' Federation to helpdistribute wheelchairs in China. Since then Behring has distributed more than 325,000wheelchairs in more than 40 cities and towns in China.

Behring is impressed by the tenacity of the physically challenged people in China.

"More often than not, I meet physically disabled people in China who are good singers, paintersand craftsman."

Behring understands the huge challenge China faces in terms of physically challenged people.

"Because of its size, China most likely has the largest population of physically disabled peopleof any country in the world. The government is very aware of their challenges."

But his philanthropic work in China goes beyond the GNHD project and wheelchairs. Behringhas started a safe drinking water project together with local governments and departments.

The water project aims to help eliminate waterborne diseases and impurities by carrying outfeasibility studies, purchasing water purification systems, overseeing water station constructionand sanitation quality control, as well as conducting public health and sanitation education inrural areas.

A pilot project has begun in Shanyin county, Shanxi province, where the water contains highlevels of fluoride and arsenic. According to Behring, the project serves 215 households of 830people within Yangzhuang village. They charge the villagers a small fee to keep the operationsustainable.

Behring plans to open water stations in five other villages and wants physically disabled peopleto run them.

Osborne: G7 agree to target tax evasion and avoidanc

From: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-22476233

The G7 group of industrialised nations have agreed that there must be collective action against tax evasion and avoidance, the UK's finance minister has said.

Chancellor George Osborne said after the talks that it was "incredibly important" that firms and individuals paid the tax they owed.

The members agreed on more policy issues than had been assumed, he added.

The G7 comprises the US, Germany, the UK, Japan, Italy, France and Canada.

In a news conference held jointly with Bank of England governor Sir Mervyn King, Mr Osborne said the finance ministers and central bank governors of the G7, meeting in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, had also agreed no bank should be "too big to fail".

Kofi Annan turns up heat on ENRC and Glencore in pursuit of Africa’s lost tax

From: http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/business/industries/naturalresources/article3760812.ece

Kofi Annan has called on Britain to use its presidency of the G8 to stamp out the “unconscionable” business practices of companies such as Glencore Xstrata and ENRC in Africa.

The Africa Progress Panel, chaired by the former Secretary-General of the United Nations, wants an international crackdown on tax avoidance with a particular push for transparency in the mining and oil sector, it said in a report.

ENRC and Glencore strongly deny any wrongdoing and said that they were not contacted by the Africa Progress Panel before the publication of its report. The panel estimates that Africa lost $63 billion (£40 billion) in tax revenues through illicit practices between 2008 and 2010 alone.

“It is unconscionable that some companies, often supported by dishonest officials, are using unethical tax avoidance, transfer pricing and anonymous company ownership to maximise their profits, while millions of Africans go without adequate nutrition, health and education,” the report said.

It highlights recent deals by ENRC, the miner being investigated by the Serious Fraud Office for “fraud, bribery and corruption”, and Glencore Xstrata in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The report claims that assets were undervalued, costing the country an estimated $1.4 billion, a figure close to 10 per cent of its GDP.

The panel counts prominent executives and policymakers among its members, including Tidjane Thiam, the chief executive of Prudential, Robert Rubin, the former US Treasury Secretary, and Michel Camdessus, the former managing director of the IMF. Its donors include the UK Department for International Development and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

The panel’s criticism could focus the spotlight on Britain’s regulatory regime. Kevin Watkins, author of the report, asked why it had taken British authorities so long to investigate ENRC’s dealings in the DRC.

“We call on the G8 and the G20 to step up to the mark to show leadership,” the report read.

The net closes in on super rich tax dodgers: Spies expose how hundreds of Britons are 'hiding billions' in foreign tax havens

From: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2322212/The-net-closes-super-rich-tax-dodgers-Spies-expose-hundreds-Britons-hiding-billions-foreign-tax-havens.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

Hundreds of ultra-wealthy Britons are being investigated for tax evasion following the exposure of their secret offshore accounts.

International spy agencies are thought to have helped obtain a 'goldmine' of data that names high-profile multi-millionaires and their financial advisers.

The files show how the rich have hidden billions in Singapore, the British Virgin Islands and the Caymans. 

Ultra-wealthy Britons are being investigated over claims they are hiding cash in secret offshore accounts in places like the Cayman Islands (pictured)

More than 100 individuals have been identified so far – and have already been sent warning letters by HM Revenue & Customs.

'You're talking about super-rich people,' said one source, who added that many of the names on the list were well known.

Offenders face paying the tax they have dodged along with massive fines.

More...

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• Debt crisis for over-60s: Number unable to cope rises by 40% in three years
• Almost HALF of parents admit to taking money from their children's savings - and 51per cent do not even feel guilty about it
• Labour plots 'Bridget Jones tax': Party accused of demanding an end to council tax discounts for singletons
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Officials are unsure what sums are at stake but pointed out that a crackdown on millionaires who hid money in Liechtenstein is expected to raise £3billion.

Last night George Osborne said: 'The message is simple: if you evade tax we're coming after you. This data is another weapon in HMRC's arsenal.'

The Chancellor has previously expressed shock at the extent to which the wealthy were exploiting tax loopholes.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2322212/The-net-closes-super-rich-tax-dodgers-Spies-expose-hundreds-Britons-hiding-billions-foreign-tax-havens.html#ixzz2SsdiSVhL
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Fake bomb detector salesman sentenced to 10 years

From: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/may/02/iraq-military

An Old Bailey judge sentenced Jim McCormick, 57, to 10 years in jail on Thursday for a fraud he described as the worst he could imagine and "a callous confidence trick".

The survivors of lethal Baghdad truck bombs driven through checkpoints equipped with fake bomb detectors are to lay claim to at least £7m of the assets of the Somerset fraudster who sold them.

Now a list of around 200 people either injured or related to the 95 killed in a double bombing on the Iraqi ministries of justice and foreign affairs in 2009 will be presented to the UK authorities.

McCormick sold 7,000 fake bomb detectors based on useless golf ball finders to the Iraqi government and other international agencies for prices ranging from £1,600 per unit to £19,000.

They cost McCormick less than $50 (£32) and police believe sales toIraq alone were worth more than £55m, buying McCormick a mansion in Bath, holiday homes abroad and a yacht.

Judge Richard Hone told McCormick: "Your fraudulent conduct in selling so many useless devices for simply enormous profit promoted a false sense of security and in all probability materially contributed to causing death and injury to innocent individuals."

An adviser to Nouri al-Maliki, the Iraqi prime minister, said he intends to make a claim on behalf of the victims of the 2009 attack which the Old Bailey heard on Thursday was an example of McCormick's fraud contributing to terrorists' success.

"A list of those who died and were injured and their kin is already available and I will bring that list to London and provide it to the British government," said Saad al-Muttalibi, a city councillor in Baghdad.

"This money should be paid to the people who can prove they were victims of terrorism. These bomb detectors became the main deterrent in Iraq."

Brigadier Simon Marriner, who served in Iraq from 2009-2011, had told the court in a statement that McCormick's ADE-brand machines were used at checkpoints across Baghdad through which truck bombs had to pass before blowing up the ministries of justice and foreign affairs.

"These checkpoints were equipped with the ADE," he said. "The truck bomb attacks were very successful in causing significant loss of life and considerable material damage which remains to this day."

Outside court Iraqi exiles called for compensation from at least £7m in assets that are expected to be confiscated from McCormick, from Langport, Somerset.

"He destroyed Iraqi lives," said Nidhal Ailshbib, an Iraqi activist based in London. "Thousands of Iraqi people are dead and handicapped."

DS Steve Mapp, of Avon and Somerset police, urged people who believe they were victims of the bomb detectors to make a claim for compensation from the confiscation hearing scheduled for May 2014.

"We can invite them to come forward to be considered to be compensated for their loss," he said. "That is something we are considering and it is only right."

Richard Whittam QC, defending, said: