Well, well, well. It appears from recent revelations that the rich hide their money to avoid paying tax. My oh my! My flabber is gasted. Whoever would have thought it?
The leaks from Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca astonished me as much as reports that the sun rose from the east this morning, or that the majority of tripods have approximately three legs. Of course the rich fiddle money! How do you think they got rich?
To be fair to them, the opulent need somewhere to hide their money. What else can they do with it? They’ve got far too much to spend. I mean, even if they’ve got a billion quid in the bank, they can still only get eight pints of Guinness down them in an evening. And even at West End prices, that is a pretty small hole to make in a shed-full of crisp tenners.
And how many cars can they reasonably purchase? Or houses? Even if they are of extravagant demeanour, two of each is pushing it. One for the town and one for the country, I suppose. But even if they go for the top end of the market, they’re not going to be able to spend a billion. Hiding the swag is the only alternative.
They are an odd crew, the rich. I don’t understand them. If I have a couple of bob to spare, I like to have a good time, celebrate. Maybe share it out. Enjoy my good fortune. Chuckle.
Not them. They see a wad of banknotes and instantly think: “Where can I put this so that no one knows I’ve got it?” Isn’t that rather sad? The other week I bought myself a new jacket. I didn’t conceal it in the back of the wardrobe. Au contraire. I pulled it on and luxuriated in the view of the cool dude in the mirror. At least, I did this until my daughter arrived home and said it was gross.
A rich person would have instantly ordered another coat. But it wouldn’t have helped. There would still be stacks of idle money demanding to be concealed. It’s not easy being stinking.
For one thing, they have to knock about with other affluent, effluent, types: dull folk who have missed seeing the world owing to their heads being in the trough. The UK has 1,000 residents who have a combined fortune of £547 billion. But can you imagine how tedious these people are? They’re hedge-fund managers, mobile phone shop owners and estate agents. Life’s vermin.
Sadly, the rich are stuck in this ghetto, because having money makes them terribly suspicious of anyone with less. The assumption, based on their own standards, is that anyone poorer than them wants to rob them. It is a central maxim for a billionaire that a friend in need is a pain in the bum.
These considerations mean that, like my chum Lord Mandelson, I have a great deal of sympathy for the rich. Unlike Mandy, however, I also harbour some empathy for the poor. They are treated badly at times.
For example, if the desperately poor submit false benefit claims, we have a fit; the Daily Mail proposes hanging by the toenails, and even liberal opinion veers towards public garrotting. But when the rich fiddle the system, we understand. We’re sympathetic.
In fact, we’re sympathetic enough to turn blind eyes towards the 13 tax havens where we have sovereign status, like the Caymans or the Virgin Islands. These off-shore tax avoidance centres are pretty big business. It’s estimated that globally some £13.5 trillion is hidden in this type of low-tax, low-regulation financial centre – the same as the annual economic output of the United States and Japan combined. That’s fiddling well beyond Stradivarius.
I want to end this pro-rich bias. How? By equipping other Crown Dependent Territories to help poor folk to make bogus welfare claims. Something along the lines of: “Benefit cheats! Come to Guernsey where we can provide a package allowing you to claim disability, jobseeker and child allowances even if you’re fully fit, have no intention of working and have recently enjoyed an NHS vasectomy!”
I’m sure the Mossack Fonseca people would help out. After all, if they can keep thousands of millions of pounds out of sight, they can surely conceal a functioning back for an aspiring claimant? If they can launder millions, they must be able to provide forged documents to enable claims for a phantom child, thus boosting the allowance. And surely they can come up with fraudulent rent-books?
It’s not right that the rich keep all the good ideas to themselves. It’s time we all shared the benefits of offshore finance. If it’s good enough for David Cameron’s dad, it’s good enough for me.