Cash is king, but tax avoidance is Queen
I’ve busted a dubious trade in Peter Crouches in our household.
The beanpole Stoke City forward is part of a lucrative points for cash scheme being run by our 16-year-old son from his bedroom.
While I don’t understand the complex player trade system he’s devised as part of his PlayStation4 video game Fifa 18, I do know his bank balance has swelled considerably.
Which is proving a bit of a problem for my wife who has always insisted that our children are brought up to value and respect money.
I’m not sure where she stands on the value and respect for computer-generated former England strikers.
It’s difficult to imbue our boys with a sense of fair play when it comes to money when the TV and newspapers are full of eyebrow raising accounting from the supposed great and the good in our society.
The Paradise Papers expose is the latest to shed our wealthy citizens in a less than favourable light. Even the Queen is accused of investing millions offshore to protect her cash from higher taxes.
To be fair, it’s not really cash to the Queen. She can argue those notes and coins are portraits. And why would she want to have fewer portraits of herself? Particularly when they are so flattering.
She should use the one on the £10 note for her Facebook profile picture. She may of course prefer her profile on the 2p piece. At least on that one she has a little more colour in her cheeks.
As an aside, do you think when spinning a coin to decide who does the dishes, the Queen calls ‘me’ instead of ‘heads’?
The Paradise Papers expose has revealed a number of celebrities employing ‘interesting’ accountancy to shield their cash from high taxes.
All very unsavoury, but my biggest gripe is the name the investigating journalists have given to their expose. The Paradise Papers has a warm glow to it. It conjures up images of white beaches, hammocks slung between palm trees and large strawberry daiquiris with half a pineapple and paper umbrella wedged onto the side of the glass. The Shameless Git Papers would have been more damning, and some might say, a more appropriate name. Or how about the Odious Nest-Featherers’ Dossier?
As well as the Queen, other celebs implicated are wealthy individuals like motor racing driver Lewis Hamilton, singer Bono, and even President Trump. More astonishingly, however, was the revelation that three actors from the sit-com Mrs Brown’s Boys had diverted £2million into an offshore tax avoidance scheme. The startling thing is not the clever accountancy, but that they have managed to generate £2million from such a lame show. Turning mild guffaws into mounds of cash knocks our boy’s Crouch to cash scheme in to a cocked hat.
They should get an award. The Queen’s Award for Enterprise would seem the most appropriate.