News

I don't normally do politics but…

Alistair Darling, the UK’s Chancellor of the Exchequer called us a bad word. He did it in a Treasury Select Committee’s meeting and lit the fuse of the firework left smoldering between Parliament and Tynwald. Not fair really, the Isle of Man has worked hard to improve its reputation for transparency and compliance. It led the way in developing and signing Tax Information Exchange Agreements (TIEAs) — the OECD’s favorite means of tax transparency – although it’s a hard message to spread and quickly undone by ill-informed press and politicians. And of course I feel sorry for those people who have appear to have lost their life-savings — let’s hope the IOM delgation to visit Jack Straw will have a positive outcome for them — but I understand that the Manx depositors’ money was frozen by the UK government not by the Manx.

Evidence dealing with savers in the Isle of Man begins at 2h 05m 45s but the comments about the UK needing to take ‘a long hard look at the relationship with the Isle of Man, a tax haven sitting in the Irish Sea’ can be seen at 2h 16m 50s — or so I am told, I can’t get it to fast forward.
http://www.parliamentlive.tv