The Heiress, the Queen, and the Trillion-Dollar Tax Shelter

[soothsayer]

Link to tweet

?s=21


Leah McGrath Goodman
@truth_eater
JERSEY: The extraordinary story of a couple who found a cache of secret documents buried in a squash court on the island of Jersey, exposing the staggering inaction of its authorities in the face of a widening global fraud scandal. My story via @iimag:

The Heiress, the Queen, and the Trillion-Dollar Tax Shelter
https://t.co/h1lmJtDVX5?amp=1

Snip
In 2012, American heiress Tanya Dick-Stock and her husband discovered an enormous trove of documents while clearing out space ahead of their lavish wedding.

In a locked, indoor squash court of the bride’s palatial, 58-acre manor house on the island of Jersey, off the coast of France, they stumbled upon hundreds of bank boxes haphazardly stuffed with more than 350,000 confidential papers from her father’s offshore trust business....

Filled with the private information of hundreds of people, the boxes also contain secrets about Dick-Stock’s life, including how various strategies were allegedly used by La Hougue to drain her family’s trusts. Reached by Institutional Investor, her father declined to comment for this story, but his spokesman, Julian Pike, characterized Dick as a victim of fraud, stating that Dick “had no oversight or involvement in the day-to-day operations of La Hougue” and is seeking legal remedy.

The La Hougue documents expose an intricate network of dubious characters, many of them associates of Dick, including American porn king Eddie Wedelstedt, convicted of tax fraud and obscenity charges in 2006; Israeli art dealer Ronald Fuhrer, who is linked to a Sandro Botticelli masterpiece thought to be the missing 1485 Madonna and Child painting, which hasn’t been seen for the past six years; and, notably, individuals thought to be behind the offshore smuggling of more than $100 million during the U.S. savings-and-loan crisis of the 1980s. Other big names appearing on La Hougue’s client list include the former head of Glencore in Russia, Igor Vishnevskiy; British millionaire property tycoon Elliott Bernerd; and Alexander Zhukov, former father-in-law of Russian-Israeli billionaire Roman Abramovich. “Names on the client lists are coded,” says Dick-Stock, “and we are still learning who’s on them as we go through the process of decoding them.”

[dhol82]

1. Wow, what an interesting family mess

Thought this sounded too preposterous to be real. Silly me.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/15/jersey-dick-family-trouble-in-paradise-offshore-trusts-court-battle?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

Wonder how much will come out in the cat fight?

[soothsayer]

2. Seriously, it sounds wild. Can you imagine finding that?

Yikes

[secondwind]

3. This is very intriguing ......

I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a book in the future.

[liberalla]

4. Got to read later!

Looks interesting...

[bucolic_frolic]

5. Yup, money is more important than patriotism to the wealthy, that's why there is capital flight

tax cheating, trusts, and all the other strategies. Amazing it's taken the world this long to figure it out because it's been happening ever since there were taxes, which is to say forever. Taxes are for little people.

[2naSalit]

6. +1

[Kid Berwyn]

9. Leona Helmsley loathed Dumpy

Regarding the tax dodging, from about five years back...

Massive leak exposes how the wealthy and powerful hide their money

https://upload.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=7736046

And from 2013...

The $32 Trillion Hidden Offshore Needs IRS Attention.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/10023378455

From 2008...

Know your BFEE: Phil Gramm, the Meyer Lansky of the War Party, Set-Up the Biggest Bank Heist Ever.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x4055207

Lucy Komisar did pioneering research.

https://www.thekomisarscoop.com/about/

Once they were easy to find. Seems the algorithm’s changed...

[UpInArms]

7. Fascinating!

Nearly two decades ago, Jersey reduced its corporate tax rate from 20 percent to zero, with the exception of finance, which pays 10 percent. In doing so, it became a lightning rod for discerning clients in search of lower tax rates. Among some of the major firms on the island are Swiss trading firm Glencore, founded by the late Marc Rich; Brevan Howard Asset Management, one of Europe’s most successful hedge funds; Swiss energy and commodities trading company Vitol; and Goldman Sachs, which arranged the Abacus deal that made hedge-fund manager John Paulson billions in Jersey (and led to the bank paying half a billion dollars in a settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission). With the release of the Paradise Papers in 2017, Apple also found itself in the Jersey spotlight for quietly shifting a large swath of its hundreds of billions of offshore untaxed dollars to the island.

[superpatriotman]

8. What a story!

International banking
Fraud
Tax shelters
Ultra-rich cheaters
Child trafficking
The Queen
Conflicted judiciary
Lies

The Queen, who is sovereign though the island is not part of Britain or the EU was implored to clean up the myriad problems:

“These places are undermining the global economy, so she cannot wash her hands of this role as monarch of all these tax shelters and head of state,” he says.

It doesn’t help, he adds, that she’s also directly reaping the benefits of her tax shelters.

“When the head of state is doing nothing and has offshore structures hiding her own money from tax, it does not pass the smell test,” he says. “A fish rots from the head.”

Highly recommend reading even if it skews towards conspiracy (sometimes they’re true)

How to cheat on your taxes for the one percent:
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2021/01/memo-how-to-hide-money-offshore/