Thought Id start this one going because its rather dead on this board at the moment and I suppose all my usual muckers are either at the Stella tennis event watching Dim Tim (lose again) or at Henly Regatta eating cucumber sandwiches (they wish,...NOT).

Anyway please feel free to just talk to yourself blast away and let it go on any company or subject you wish. Just wish Id thought of this one before.

cheers GF.

Populus – CON 33%, LAB 36%, LDEM 8%, UKIP 15%, GRN 4% (tabs)
Ashcroft – CON 30%, LAB 31%, LDEM 8%, UKIP 19%, GRN 5% (tabs)
YouGov/Sun – CON 34%, LAB 33%, LDEM 6%, UKIP 15%, GRN 6%

Haze and Mauel's morning ritual!

Xmas party at No 10.

Ukip to snatch two million Conservative voters in next election

http://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/545335/Ukip-take-two-million-votes-from-Conservative-Party-next-election

hmmmmmmmm and when the Express gets bearish on the Tories you have to take note.

You never know what to make of the Express, they make it up as they go along.

But they are right about snatching votes from the big boys, they just don't know how many and from where.

Cyners, Max,

It's easy to set up an offshore IBC, and the Seychelles and BVI are popular locations as neither jurisdiction requires their companies to pay tax on earnings, nor to even provide financial accounts. Further, they do not disclose ownership details. Contrary to what you may have heard, it's also very easy to set up an offshore bank account, albeit, since earlier this year, places like the Isle of Man have started reporting account details to HMRC where UK residents are involved.

But, before the lefties start jumping up and down about non-payment of tax, it's important to realise that having money owned by an offshore corporation in an offshore bank account doesn't immediately help the individual. If the corporation sends money to that individual at any stage, there's a potential tax liability for that individual. To avoid that liability, you'll need an avoidance scheme, and that's where loan schemes like K2 come in.

Alternatively, to avoid that liability and as Haystack alluded to, you could get your offshore IBC to own property and other assets, although, strictly speaking, that then introduces a taxable benefit in kind on the asset's usage. But, if those properties are in somewhere like France, where there are wealth tax laws in place, and they also have some mighty strange inheritance tax laws, it means that the assets do not need to physically change hands in the event of the beneficial owner's death, because it won't be the IBC that's died.

In addition, benefits are found in other ways. For instance, there's no financial regulation in the BVI or the Seychelles, so both domains have become popular amongst brokers and fund managers looking to set up a business. That's not to say that those brokers and/or fund managers are crooks - they just might not want to (or be in a position to) stump up the security, and have auditors crawling all over their books which would happen if they were domiciled in, say, London and regulated by the FCA.

Also, if you underwrite at Lloyd's, an offshore nameco is a good way of protecting the individual in the event of a catastrophic disaster.

The other thing to say is that you also mentioned trust funds. Well, you get offshore trust funds as well. :o)

Wow do Hils, did you have a good holiday skiing?.

Hilary, sounds like you just summed up Bob Geldofs finances in one hit there..

Fishfinger,

Thanks for asking, but I'll be here till April.

The snow's not really arrived yet - it's still a bit thin, although there's been a dusting overnight, and there's a big dump forecast for Saturday. Unfortunately, we have logs to get inside and icicles to break in the meantime.

Bit like being Im a Celebrity in the Jungle then Hils, other extreme though.

Get plenty of hot wine down you.

This is more like it

Conservatives lead at 1

Latest YouGov / The Sun results 8th December -

Con 34%, Lab 33%, LD 6%, UKIP 15%;

"Get plenty of hot wine down you.", Yeah... all down it's front I expect -):

Ed Insists on Privacy for Pre-Xmas Turkey Eating Rehearsal

Strange that the actual visitors to food banks are often the fattest

You been in the queue again then H/S?

Liberal Democrats facing even bigger wipeout than expected

Junior coalition partners could have fewer than 20 MPs after 2015 general election – compared with the 57 elected in 2010



Rowena Mason, political correspondent


The Guardian, Tuesday 9 December 2014






The Liberal Democrats may be facing a greater wipeout than previously predicted, leaving them with fewer than 20 MPs after the next election, research based on the British Election Study has suggested.

A conference in London on Tuesday will feature an analysis from Dr Steve Fisher of Oxford University, which concludes that Nick Clegg’s party appears to be losing votes more heavily in seats it currently holds than it is nationally.

The study casts doubt on the party’s argument that its incumbent MPs will buck the national trend because of local popularity. The data suggests its parliamentary representation could more than halve from the 57 MPs who won seats at the last election.

The performance of the Lib Dems is crucial to the outcome of the next election because the party has so many marginal seats that could fall to either Labour or the Conservatives, potentially making the difference between which is the largest party or has a majority.

“The result is very strong, so if the pattern in the British Election Survey were replicated at the election then it would not be a surprise if the Liberal Democrats were below 20 seats after the election,” Fisher said.

In a blog, Fisher wrote: “If they are indeed losing most heavily in the seats they are defending, they are set to lose several more seats than national polls with uniform swing would predict … for many Liberal Democrat MPs to hold on to their seats they will need to become even more personally popular than they were in 2010: a tough task under the circumstances.”

The academic said Labour were the clear beneficiaries of this pattern of decline in support for the Lib Dems. However, he said, this particular constituency pattern was not hugely advantageous for Ed Miliband’s party because “most Liberal Democrat seats have the Conservatives in second place and it will be tough for Labour to come from third to win”.

Separate research from Prof Geoff Evans and Jon Mellon of Oxford University suggests Ukip will pose twice as much of a threat to the Conservatives as it will to Labour in terms of the number of seats potentially lost.




More + graphics here:http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/dec/09/liberal-democrats-face-bigger-wipeout-than-expected

mansion tax
there's always loopholes - and arrow-slits :-)


off-shore bank accounts
from experience, i can tell you BVI is almost impossible and though Bahrain used to be easy, it most assuredly no longer is
they also tend to be quite expensive to maintain and use

Germany has announced that they will take 30,000 asylum seekers from Syria. They take more refugees and asylum seekers than any of the other EU countries. In fact they take 40% of all asylumn seekers in Europe.