
Bloomberg
U.K. opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn called on PM David Cameron to crack down on tax evasion and avoidance in British overseas territories following the release of documents detailing offshore accounts held by some of the world’s wealthiest people.
Reports on Sunday based on 11.5 million leaked documents from a Panama law firm, Mossack Fonseca, suggested politicians and business figures had channeled billions through offshore accounts. In Britain, attention focused on an offshore investment fund of which Cameron’s late father, Ian, was a director. The Guardian newspaper reported the fund had never paid U.K. tax on its profits.
“We’ve got revelations of tax avoidance on an industrial scale, of companies being set up in the British Virgin Islands and then moving themselves across to Panama, not paying any tax anywhere,†Corbyn told BBC Television on Tuesday. “The more the revelations come out,†he said, “the more murky the whole thing becomes.†Corbyn called on the U.K. authorities to carry out “an examination of those that have placed money there that appear to have done it to avoid tax and come after them to collect that tax back.â€