Gordon Barlow

It's quite likely that there are Cayman companies involved in the purchase of all the bombs used to ravage the Middle East and everywhere else where the civilian populations are deemed to be expendable, but our government doesn't actually keep any of them in their local warehouses.

uk_grenada

I always think the whole armaments business is pretty strange. Outside Reading in the UK is the lovely village of burghfield, its where the UK has a discreet lab that makes its nuclear weapons, and in the pubs in the evening, machinists and physicists are seen but rarely converse about work.

In rural buckinghamshire is a small office of a company called URENCO the uranium enrichment company, its 10 or so employees are the sellers of uk weapons grade plutonium, but only to 'friends' , they are a private company but franchised at the highest level...

Watch the movie lord of war, and remember its based on a real person...


Read about the honeywell computer companies involvement in korea and vietnam, they did much of the basic research into 'improving' napalm so it burned under water, and couldnt be so easily wiped off skin, and for example the surveys to establish the height of the north vietnamese male, so that claymore mines and jumping mines went off at the correct angle/height. There are many examples of this stuff.

Gordon Barlow

Just to bring this thread up to date... I'm not in the business any more, so don't have any first-hand information, but second-hand info is that the "Offshore" sector is booming. With tourism dead, and our government borrowing money to keep people in food, that's just as well! New Work Permits are being granted at a respectable rate for young accountants and bankers, mainly from Britain. Construction is booming, and apartments are being sold as soon as they're finished.

On the other side... there is uncertainty as to how long our hotels can last, with rooms being occupied by only local "staycationers" and people in quarantine. The Manager of the Ritz has just been elected as President of the local Tourism Association, and of course he's pushing for our borders to be re-opened. The absence of tourists is of course the major factor there, but the absence of tax-haven-related conferences is also hurting.

The local politicians would dearly love to introduce an Income Tax, and are plucking up the courage to take the risk of introducing one. It won't happen before the election in May, but after that, who knows?

uk_grenada

Must admit, im a little unsure who is making the money right now that would lead to increased offshore?

I have heard that online sales and delivery businesses are booming, i have interests in a vast online global ecommerce platform and last year some sectors doubled turnover. They power websites like toyota, walmart and lowes, total platform turnover is well over a trillion now.

Amazon has recently ordered approaching 200 cargo planes and is building a vast airport near cincinatti.

Clearly there are winners...

Gordon Barlow

Well... If they're making money onshore, you can be 100% sure their tax-lawyers are showing them how to park some of it offshore!

Jamesy5008

It's expensive enough to live here. If they start chopping off part of my wage then I would genuinely have to think about leaving. Blighty may be no fun just now but it's a damn sight cheaper to live. I wonder if the big finance companies would do the same?

Gordon Barlow

It's a complex matter, Jamesy. Back when I was writing my columns in one of the local newspapers I went into all this and explained the whys and wherefores. They're not online so I can't access them now (and BE rules wouldn't allow me to link to them anyway), but in short... Some kind of income-related tax will almost certainly come, after the election - probably in the form of a hefty contribution to a state-pension scheme that won't ever be paid out to non-residents. As Manager of the Chamber of Commerce back in the late '80s I was heavily involved in beating back a similar scheme, so I know exactly what the politicians have in mind.

There's nothing you can do about it - or me either, now! Whether you stay or leave will depend on your employer's reaction to a move of that sort, plus of course what wage you could command back in England. I don't foresee a tax on company profits any time soon, but later, who knows? The OECD is always pressuring the offshore havens to tax companies at the same rates as the high-tax countries do, although I don't underestimate the ability of offshore tax-lawyers to come out on top in any tax-war. There will always be tax-havens.

uk_grenada

Something you experts can probably answer, here, your off island income is not taxed if you are domiciled here. How is that different to the financial benefits of cayman? We used to do some of what cayman did i think, but mainly for the [illegal] drug industry, so when we made the front of the WSJ for the quality of our laundries the US govt put a stop to that...

uk_grenada

It was never publicised but i believe this is why Barclays were asked to leave. I had a uk limited company, and was offered 20% interest if i opened a savings account myself.

Jamesy5008

So I'll be paying into something that will never benefit me? What about no taxation without representation? Luckily I know how 'efficient' the civil service can be so I wouldn't be expecting anything in place any time soon. Secondly, my employer would be expected to go along with any scheme so I would have no choice but to pay into it. To me it sounds like an administrative nightmare as the workforce here can be so transient.

uk_grenada

Here they just make tax collection the job of the employer and fine them if they dont pay on time, civil servants just sit back and collect... You can be self employed but not for more than 1 client, which loses the majority of gardeners and cleaners for example. Also the benefits agency appears somewhat poor itself, no idea what happens to its income?

uk_grenada

National insurance schemes are a non starter on small islands if they rely on the dodgy insurance companies and rip off investment houses for real growth. I guess in Caymen there is more respectability in local investment management? Of course the UK government schemes are financed from immediate taxation, there is no pool of funds to raid.

Gordon Barlow

The answers to your two questions are: 1) Yes. 2) Transient Work Permit residents don't get the vote, but everybody else does. As you know, our representatives levy dozens of taxes - just not income tax and company-profits tax - and because we all vote it's presumed that we agree to all those dozens of taxes!

I don't think it would be an administrative nightmare, at all. They'd simply steal the contributions of everybody not on the voters list. Easy peasy.

Gordon Barlow

Not different at all - depending on how you define "domiciled". We have no tax on incomes at all, including locally earned income. "Domiciled" normally has a special meaning in taxation matters. One can be a Permanent Resident of somewhere, or even a citizen, yet not be domiciled there.

Gordon Barlow

I don't think our local investment pensions management is especially respectable. There's always plenty of bitching and moaning about the fees taken by Pension Funds' managers and directors. To date, all the contributions have been invested in US bonds and stocks. The accumulated money in people's pensions has never been enough to retire on; it was never intended to be more than a top-up of personal savings.

To allow people to cope with the coronavirus panic, our politicians ordered the Pension Funds to release millions of dollars to the beneficiaries, which of course depleted the capital amounts, leaving the accumulations even less able to finance retirements. That's why I now expect our politicians to revive their predecessors' 1988 plan for a government monopoly Fund - an Income Tax in disguise.