Hollywood luvvies are dragged into tax row
CELEBRITIES including Nicole Kidman, Justin Timberlake and Madonna were named in the offshore tax row yesterday.
Their names appeared in the massive data leak, along with shamed Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein and American lifestyle guru Martha Stewart.
Documents from the so-called Paradise Papers detailed investments and companies linked to the celebrities in tax havens including Bermuda and the Bahamas. There is no suggestion those involved acted illegally. Moving money and investments offshore is legal.
Oscar-winning actress Miss Kidman and her country musician husband Keith Urban were shown to have registered their joint US-based limited liability company as a foreign entity in the Bahamas in 2015, The Guardian newspaper reported. Documents stated that they wanted to secure ‘ownership of interests in real property’ in the Caribbean tax haven.
A spokesman denied the couple received tax advantages through the arrangement and said the firm was registered in the Bahamas solely to comply with local laws and ‘to hold Bahamian property and protect their family’s privacy’.
Singer and actor Timberlake also set up a company to buy real estate in the Bahamas. He is a partner in an international business which owns an 18-hole golf course in the Bahamas. Madonna Ciccone – pop star Madonna – was listed as having bought 2,000 shares in the Bermuda-incorporated company, SafeGard Medical Ltd, in 1998.
The firm was dissolved in 2013. Her publicist did not respond to a request for comment.
Weinstein invested in a separate Bermuda medical company, Scientia Health Group Ltd, in 2001.
It was not known if he sold his shares before the firm went out of business and he did not comment.
Miss Stewart was also a Scientia investor and declined to comment.