Cameron

Taxman faces grilling over Quoted Eurobond Exemption scandal

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http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/taxman-faces-grilling-over-quoted-eurobond-exemption-scandal-8907688.html

Britain’s most senior tax inspectors will be grilled by MPs today over HMRC’s failure to stop a legal tax avoidance scheme that loses them more than half a billion pounds in tax every year.

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Last week a joint investigation by this newspaper and Corporate Watch revealed more than 30 companies, including the Channel Tunnel rail link, Camelot and major High Street chains, are using a tax avoidance scheme that sees UK companies load up on debt from their overseas owners and use the interest to slash their taxable UK income. The payments are sent to the owners tax-free because the loans are made through offshore stock exchanges such as the Channel Islands that qualify, under HMRC regulations, for the Quoted Eurobond Exemption.

Without the exemption, the owners would have to pay a 20 per cent “withholding” tax and most of the tax savings from the interest deductions would be cancelled out.

Last year, HMRC considered restricting the exemption to stop it being used for such “intra-group” lending, but decided to keep it open after lobbying by financial and accountancy firms.

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27/11/13 Having received a takedown notice from the Independent newspaper for a different posting, I have reviewed this article which links to an article at the Independent’s website in order to attempt to ensure conformance with copyright laws.

I consider this posting to comply with copyright laws since
a. Only a small portion of the original article has been quoted satisfying the fair use criteria, and / or
b. This posting satisfies the requirements of a derivative work.

Please be assured that this blog is a non-commercial blog (weblog) which does not feature advertising and has not ever produced any income.

dizzy

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Leaked memos reveal GCHQ efforts to keep mass surveillance secret

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http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2013/oct/25/leaked-memos-gchq-mass-surveillance-secret-snowden

[Guardian] Exclusive: Edward Snowden papers show UK spy agency fears legal challenge if scale of surveillance is made public

Image of GCHQ donught buildingThe UK intelligence agency GCHQ has repeatedly warned it fears a “damaging public debate” on the scale of its activities because it could lead to legal challenges against its mass-surveillance programmes, classified internal documents reveal.

Memos contained in the cache disclosed by the US whistleblower Edward Snowden detail the agency’s long fight against making intercept evidence admissible as evidence in criminal trials – a policy supported by all three major political parties, but ultimately defeated by the UK’s intelligence community.

Foremost among the reasons was a desire to minimise the potential for challenges against the agency’s large-scale interception programmes, rather than any intrinsic threat to security, the documents show.

The papers also reveal that:

• GCHQ lobbied furiously to keep secret the fact that telecoms firms had gone “well beyond” what they were legally required to do to help intelligence agencies’ mass interception of communications, both in the UK and overseas.

• GCHQ feared a legal challenge under the right to privacy in the Human Rights Act if evidence of its surveillance methods became admissable in court.

• GCHQ assisted the Home Office in lining up sympathetic people to help with “press handling”, including the Liberal Democrat peer and former intelligence services commissioner Lord Carlile, who this week criticised the Guardian for its coverage of mass surveillance by GCHQ and the US National Security Agency.

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Special advisers to ministers: Salary bill up £1m

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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-24674247

number-10-downing-streetThe salary bill for ministers’ special advisers has risen by £1m in the last year, according to official figures.

So-called “Spads” are appointed by ministers to provide political advice over and above the impartial work carried out by civil servants.

The Cabinet Office put the increase down to the “unusual” pressures caused by coalition government.

But Labour said David Cameron’s pre-election promise to limit the number of special advisers was in “tatters”.

A leap from 85 to 98 in the number of special advisers – who work directly to ministers and often speak for them – contributed to a 16% rise in the total wage bill in 2012-13.

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Cameron tries to be scary and Fascist like blind old Fascist cnut Blunkett

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Cameron today lied about losing count of terrorist plots foiled by UK intelligence agencies spying on us and that Snowden and the Guardian had put so many lives in danger and made it so much harder to prevent terrrorists blowing up our familes. What bullshit, eh?

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/10/25/david-cameron-angela-merkel_n_4162948.html?utm_hp_ref=uk-politics&ir=UK+Politics

Speaking at a press conference in Brussels on Friday afternoon, the prime minister said the information leaked by Edward Snowden and published by The Guardian and other newspapers had damaged national security and endangered the lives of the public.

He said the leaks had made it “a lot more difficult to keep our countries and our people safe” from terrorists who “want to blow up our families”.

Cameron said as prime minister he could not afford to have a “la-di-da, airy-fairy” view of the work of the intelligence agencies and had “lost count of the plots” that MI5, MI6 and GCHQ had foiled.

However the prime minister repeatedly dodged questions about what Britain did or did not know about the intelligence activities of the United States, including accusations that the Americans had tapped German chancellor Angela Merkel’s mobile phone.

The airy-fairy is a reference to blind old Fascist cnut Blunkett’s shortsighted Fascist ranting here when he wanted to lock people up indefinitely without that little formality of an airy-fairy trial.

As far as I can tell the “la-di-da” is original Cameron. He may have been inspired by television for infants. La-la Da-da.

I’ll have to see if I can dig something out about the UK government spying on anti-war protesters [later correction: protesters should read activists] and inciting their murder, etc. I’ve been meaning to look for it for a while.

La-la Cameron. La-la

Continue ReadingCameron tries to be scary and Fascist like blind old Fascist cnut Blunkett

East Coast Line: Ministers launch search for buyer

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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-24668852

trainReturning the East Coast Main line to the private sector will “revitalise” it, ministers have said as they kick-started the franchising process.

The line has been publicly run since 2009 when National Express handed back the franchise amid financial problems.

Ministers say the line has since been “stabilised” but they now want to “rekindle the spirit of competition”.

Labour and the unions say the move is “ideological” and the line should remain in public ownership.

They say the failure of two successive operators to make the line – which runs from London to Edinburgh, with connected services to Inverness and Aberdeen – commercially viable and its improved performance in recent years show it can succeed under public ownership.

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