"Do they know its Christmas time at all..." Bob Geldorf and others scam Africa to evade taxes

[mastermind]

Tax evaders are crippling the world. There is a process of wealthy nations, especially corporations and wealthy people, exploiting the Global South through these measures and funneling their monies into their own pockets.

The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists released another expose on how Mauritus is being used as a haven for the wealthy to evade taxes. Mr. Live Aid himself, Bob Geldolf, is prominently featured in this:

Bob Geldof’s firm wanted to buy a chicken farm in Uganda, one of the poorest countries on earth. But first, an errand.

After soaring to fame in the 1980s for organizing Live Aid and other anti-famine efforts, the former Boomtown Rats rocker had shifted to the high-powered world of international finance. He founded a U.K.-based private equity firm that aimed to generate a 20% return by buying stakes in African businesses, according to a memorandum from an investor.

The fund’s investments would all be on the African continent. Yet its London-based legal advisers asked that one of its headquarters be set up more than 2,000 miles away on Mauritius, according to a new trove of leaked documents.

The tiny Indian Ocean island has become a destination for the rich and powerful to avoid taxes with discretion and a financial powerhouse in its own right.

One of the discussion points in the firm’s decision: “tax reasons,” according to the email sent from London lawyers to Mauritius.

Geldof’s investment firm won Mauritius government approval to take advantage of obscure international agreements that allow companies to pay rock-bottom tax rates on the island tax haven and less to the desperately poor African nations where the companies do business.



“One little wad of cash can be the difference between a poor country building big infrastructure or not,” a Ugandan tax official told ICIJ.

Another benefit of a headquarters on Mauritius: opacity. Transactions to and from Mauritius to local units – that can have huge impacts on tax liability – are tucked away in confidential financial reports filed on the island.

A spokesman for Geldof’s firm, 8 Miles LLP, said its investors include international development finance institutions that “request that we consolidate their funds in a safe African financial jurisdiction for onward investment into the various target African countries. Because of its reputation, Mauritius is used by many private equity investors for this purpose.”

The spokesman said the firm’s African investments follow high standards “to create jobs, improve communities…and by generating increasing tax revenues which support the governments where we operate.” The spokesman said, “Only when we sell a company will the sale proceeds be paid back into the fund in Mauritius.”

Geldof declined to comment.

Mauritius Leaks, a new investigation by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and 54 journalists from 18 countries, provides an inside look at how the former French colony has transformed itself into a thriving financial center, at least partly at the expense of its African neighbors and other less-developed countries. In Uganda, more than 40% of the population lives on less than $2 a day.

Based on a cache of 200,000 confidential records from the Mauritius office of the Bermuda-based offshore law firm Conyers Dill & Pearman, the investigation reveals how a sophisticated financial system based on the island is designed to divert tax revenue from poor nations back to the coffers of Western corporations and African oligarchs, with Mauritius getting a share. The files date from the early 1990s to 2017.

The island, which sells itself as a “gateway” for corporations to the developing world, has two main selling points: bargain-basement tax rates and, crucially, a battery of “tax treaties” with 46 mostly poorer countries. Pushed by Western financial institutions in the 1990s, the treaties have proved a boon for Western corporations, their legal and financial advisers, and Mauritius itself — and a disaster for most of the countries that are its treaty partners.

Rest of the article here

 

[DEAD7]

Tax evaders are crippling the world.

 

[tru_m.a.c]

I read this earlier! Of course this issue gets ignored because it implicates liberals and conservatives.

Citations Needed had a great episode on the loss of wealth from the global south. Essentially there argument was that everyone blames corrupt African governments for causing their governments to go into financial crisis instead of looking at the enormous wealth loss by tax evasion.

 

[mastermind]

I read this earlier! Of course this issue gets ignored because it implicates liberals and conservatives.

Citations Needed had a great episode on the loss of wealth from the global south. Essentially there argument was that everyone blames corrupt African governments for causing their governments to go into financial crisis instead of looking at the enormous wealth loss by tax evasion.

That was a great episode. Highly recommend.

 

[analog]

I read this earlier! Of course this issue gets ignored because it implicates liberals and conservatives.

Citations Needed had a great episode on the loss of wealth from the global south. Essentially there argument was that everyone blames corrupt African governments for causing their governments to go into financial crisis instead of looking at the enormous wealth loss by tax evasion.

But isn't it these same corrupt gov't officials signing off on the policies that enable tax evasion?

From the article above:

The island, which sells itself as a “gateway” for corporations to the developing world, has two main selling points: bargain-basement tax rates and, crucially, a battery of “tax treaties” with 46 mostly poorer countries

Who should the blame be falling on?

 

[mastermind]

But isn't it these same corrupt gov't officials signing off on the policies that enable tax evasion?

From the article above:


Who should the blame be falling on?

I won't speak for @tru_m.a.c, but I don't absolve those governments from blame for agreeing to those deals. The ep of Citations Needed wasn't absolving them either. It instead was pointing out corruption from Transnational companies and western governments and how the media doesn't call it that. You should listen to that episode to better understand the convo here.

 

[analog]

I won't speak for @tru_m.a.c, but I don't absolve those governments from blame for agreeing to those deals. The ep of Citations Needed wasn't absolving them either. It instead was pointing out corruption from Transnational companies and western governments and how the media doesn't call it that. You should listen to that episode to better understand the convo here.

Oh for sure. I should've mentioned it in my earlier post but I got that episode queued up for later. Topics such as these always pique my interest.

 

[tru_m.a.c]

But isn't it these same corrupt gov't officials signing off on the policies that enable tax evasion?

From the article above:


Who should the blame be falling on?

The point was that "the west" loves to laugh at corrupt global south governments, as if part of the corruption doesn't involve THEIR transnational corporations and predatory lending practices (i.e IMF). The blame goes both ways but for some reason it dies with the authoritarian regime.

 

[Joe Sixpack]

I knew these sacks a shyt weren’t just doin these things from “the kindness of their hearts”