The Spider's Web: Britain's Second Empire - tax justice and financial secrecy

[Rawhide68]

Here is a brilliant documentary about how Great Britain has adopted and transformed itself from being a colonial superpower to still stay strong not losing its grip over global economy.

But only for the "elite" individuals, corporations, bankers, politicians of course.

Its about about 1h & 20 mins long.
Created by Michael Oswald & self-funded at a budget of £4000.

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[Rawhide68]

I have to admit, it was in early mornig ours I watched it and put out this post.
What I would have liked to had time to include are the statements made in the end of the film

Here they are:

We can end tax havens and financial secrecy jurisdictions.
Here are 5 steps to put and end to them.
1.Stop public councils from issuing public contracts to companies operating out of tax havens.

2.Create public registries of beneficial owners of companies, trusts and foundations.

3. Introduce full transparency of deals and secretagreements between companies and government

4. Introduce public coutry by coutry reporting by multinatipnal companies.

5. Introduce automatic exchange between all countries.


thoughts?

[Baby Steps]

there are a couple of things that should be considered as counter measures.

1. Transfer pricing. If a company sells a product from a tax haven at a high price, that has been transferred to that offshore company at a much lower price, they are falsely domiciling the profit off shore when in reality the original lower price should be considered in the final destination market. See article below, where surprisingly, the Sackler family was criticised by a uk newspaper.

2. Intellectual property charges. If the brand or IP is artificially domiciled in a tax haven, then charges are made to a company subsidiary in a large market, this again shifts profits, arguably artificially. This happens with Trade Marks and franchises. The solution might be to legislate to disallow such charges for tax in the large market, if the charges are coming from the tax haven.


"For over 25 years a small, nondescript office block in Bermuda — Mundipharma House — has played a critical role in building the £10 billion Sackler fortune. You will find no mention of it in the company accounts, yet it has been deployed by the Sackler family to allegedly divert over a billion pounds of profit to the island tax haven so as to avoid paying tax running into hundreds of millions that would otherwise be due in the UK or Europe.

The Sackler empire comprises Purdue in America, Napp in Britain and Mundipharma in Europe and Australasia.

Today’s revelations relate to the arrangements between Napp, Mundipharma and their Bermuda operation. Napp and Mundipharma are leaders in the UK and European oxycodone markets: Sackler drugs make up 68 per cent of the volume of the oxycodone market in England, and 29 per cent of the value of the entire £263 million opioid market, according to NHS Digital.

In our investigation we have been assisted by former high-ranking Sackler company staff.


How did the scheme work?

Drugs are manufactured at Napp’s headquarters in Cambridge known, due to their distinctive shape, as “the toast racks”. When the drugs are sold to the NHS, one source said, it is done transparently and correctly and UK taxes are paid in full. But when drugs were sold to Sackler-controlled Mundipharma companies worldwide, sales were allegedly routed via Bermuda.

This would have allowed profit to be taken on the island nation, where no tax is payable. According to our sources, Mundipharma in Bermuda bought the drugs from the UK at one price, and sold them to Mundipharma entities for a lot more — keeping the profit made in Bermuda. However, the products were shipped direct from the UK to the country where they were sold, and did not go anywhere near Bermuda."

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/the-sackler-files-how-the-tax-haven-of-bermuda-played-key-role-in-10-billion-family-fortune-a3836421.html

[Tintin]

Thanks for posting this up.

I've seen the film and it is very good and will submit it to the Avalon Library very soon.

Again, thank you :thumbsup:

[Rawhide68]

Thanks baby steps for putng all time an effort to engage !

[Tintin]

Thanks baby steps for putng all time an effort to engage , Ill spend the next half year trying to reach you insight, fighting my way to find truth.

You're doing just fine brother :) Being a part of the community here is a gigantic few leaps towards finding your truth, and thank you for being aboard :thumbsup:

[Rawhide68]

I DO feel love in this forum, and for me it´s the only way to be right now.

[ramus]

Here is an old post on the .. Sackler's .. to give a bigger picture of these people ;

1st November 2017 10:17

“Drug company founder John Kapoor arrested for alleged opioid scheme”

NOW THEY NEED TO GO AFTER THE ..SACKLERS...WHO INVENTED OXYCONTIN TIME RELEASE .. AND THEN CONVINCED DOCTORS THAT THEY COULD PRESCRIBE IT WITH NO PROBLEMS OF ADDICTION. SINGLE HANDILY CREAKING THE BIGGEST ADDICTION PROBLEM IN THE WORLD.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2...empire-of-pain

HERE IS JUST A PIECE OF AN ARTICLE BY THE NEW YORKER:

Over time, the origins of a clan’s largesse are largely forgotten, and we recall only the philanthropic legacy, prompted by the name on the building. According to Forbes, the Sacklers are now one of America’s richest families, with a collective net worth of thirteen billion dollars—more than the Rockefellers or the Mellons. The bulk of the Sacklers’ fortune has been accumulated only in recent decades, yet the source of their wealth is to most people as obscure as that of the robber barons. While the Sacklers are interviewed regularly on the subject of their generosity, they almost never speak publicly about the family business, Purdue Pharma—a privately held company, based in Stamford, Connecticut, that developed the prescription painkiller OxyContin. Upon its release, in 1995, OxyContin was hailed as a medical breakthrough, a long-lasting narcotic that could help patients suffering from moderate to severe pain. The drug became a blockbuster, and has reportedly generated some thirty-five billion dollars in revenue for Purdue.

But OxyContin is a controversial drug. Its sole active ingredient is oxycodone, a chemical cousin of heroin which is up to twice as powerful as morphine. In the past, doctors had been reluctant to prescribe strong opioids—as synthetic drugs derived from opium are known—except for acute cancer pain and end-of-life palliative care, because of a long-standing, and well-founded, fear about the addictive properties of these drugs. “Few drugs are as dangerous as the opioids,” David Kessler, the former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, told me.

Since 1999, two hundred thousand Americans have died from overdoses related to OxyContin and other prescription opioids. Many addicts, finding prescription painkillers too expensive or too difficult to obtain, have turned to heroin. According to the American Society of Addiction Medicine, four out of five people who try heroin today started with prescription painkillers. The most recent figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggest that a hundred and forty-five Americans now die every day from opioid overdoses.

Although the Sackler name can be found on dozens of buildings, Purdue’s Web site scarcely mentions the family, and a list of the company’s board of directors fails to include eight family members, from three generations, who serve in that capacity. “I don’t know how many rooms in different parts of the world I’ve given talks in that were named after the Sacklers,” Allen Frances, the former chair of psychiatry at Duke University School of Medicine, told me. “Their name has been pushed forward as the epitome of good works and of the fruits of the capitalist system. But, when it comes down to it, they’ve earned this fortune at the expense of millions of people who are addicted. It’s shocking how they have gotten away with it.”

[CurEus]

fascinating!! thanks for posting

[chris_walker]

I have to admit, it was in early mornig ours I watched it and put out this post.
What I would have liked to had time to include are the statements made in the end of the film

Here they are:

We can end tax havens and financial secrecy jurisdictions.
Here are 5 steps to put and end to them.
1.Stop public councils from issuing public contracts to companies operating out of tax havens.

2.Create public registries of beneficial owners of companies, trusts and foundations.

3. Introduce full transparency of deals and secretagreements between companies and government

4. Introduce public coutry by coutry reporting by multinatipnal companies.

5. Introduce automatic exchange between all countries.

thoughts?My thoughts are; I am vehemently opposed to taxation, which is just a form of extortion. It always seems to go up in spite of the fact that the population generally increases, which you'd think would make tax go down as the burden is shared.

I do not want to give my hard earned money to criminal enterprises and that means all world governments.

Please don't ask me, "who'll pay for the roads?" as that's the question I am invariably asked when I talk about this topic.

I shall now watch your documentary.