Panorama and leaks on tax dodging havens: Probe set to focus on property deals

Inquiries into tax evasion by offshore companies created in Panama will include ownership of UK property, following last night’s Panorama programme on the BBC.

Yesterday, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists said that it had been leaked details of thousands of tax-dodging cases linked to Panama.

The Panama law firm named, Mossack Fonseca, says it is completely innocent.

One case is said to involve money laundering after the notorious Brink’s Max robbery in Britain in 1983, where bullion then worth £26m vanished offshore.

One of Mossack Fonesca’s founders, Jurge Mossac, said in an internal memo that the stolen money could have been invested in property.

HMRC yesterday issued a statement asking for the consortium to share details of the leaks, so that it could cross-reference them to the 700 leads it already has linked with Panama.

HMRC said it hoped to achieve 100 tax-evasion prosecutions a year by the end of the current Parliament.

It added: “We have also ended permanent non-dom status from April 2017, and ensured that inheritance tax will be levied on all UK residential property, regardless of its holding structure.”

There have still been no updates on the inquiries into money laundering via property by either the RICS and NAEA.

Both bodies launched their inquiries as a matter of urgency after last July’s From Russia With Cash C4 programme.

The programme appeared to show agents including their members complicit in helping a clearly dodgy Russian buyer using bent money to buy properties in London.

 

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