The Panama Papers have shone a most welcome (and long overdue) light into the murky world of tax havens, offshore trusts and shell companies.
It is worth noting that two notorious tax havens – the British Virgin Island and the Cayman Islands – are among the top foreign owners of New Zealand companies. In both cases, they rank ahead of China, just to put it into perspective.
So who are the actual owners? They, of course, remain hidden or even “confidential”, because that is the purpose of tax havens.
Who knows what dirty money and ill gotten gains, and from whom and from where, might be coming into New Zealand via these tax havens.
But does the Government care? Of course not, because it is “foreign investment”, which must, by definition, be a good thing. Don’t ask, don’t tell.
Here is the relevant extract from CAFCA’s newly updated Key Facts.
Statistics NZ figures, as of March 2015, list the biggest foreign owners of New Zealand companies as being from, in decreasing order: Australia, US, Hong Kong, UK, Singapore, Japan, Canada, Netherlands, British Virgin Islands, Ireland, Cayman Islands, China, Switzerland, Norway and France. All had over $160m in foreign direct investment in New Zealand. These accounted for 96% of foreign direct investment in New Zealand and Australia alone accounts for 52%. British Virgin Islands and Cayman Islands are tax havens, and a Statistics New Zealand study showed that in 2010, large proportions of the foreign direct investment from the Netherlands, Singapore, Hong Kong and tax havens was in fact from other countries, led by the UK, US, Germany and Canada. In 2015, Other tax havens with investments in New Zealand companies include Vanuatu, Channel Islands, Liechtenstein, Bermuda and the Bahamas, but for all except Bermuda, the value of their holdings has been suppressed as “confidential”. Bermuda has shown a negative investment in New Zealand companies since 2009 (negative $1.8 billion in 2015). So has Germany since 2013. Negative investment suggests that the companies may have been loaded with debt to their parents or are technically insolvent.
The full Key Facts complete with sources (meticulously researched and compiled by CAFCA’s Bill Rosenberg), can be read at http://canterbury.cyberplace.co.nz/community/CAFCA/key-facts.html
Wow! Winston on RNZ at 7am news that the government selected “tax expert is actually already Key’s selection of John Shewan to look into the disclosure rules covering foreign trusts as “tax expert has already been giving his Government tax advice for years” Winston claims!
Also Andrew Little also weighed in saying conducting a review behind closed doors is laughable if it wasn’t ridiculously ludicrous and will further damage our reputation even further as another corrupted stickup.
http://www.radionz.co.nz/audio/player/201796643
Is that an independent expert!!!!! NoNoNo!.
Winston is right on the button, so if Shewan was giving key “expert tax advice” why did the NZ foreign trust mess wind up now giving NZ a bad review?????
it will be a whitewash again, so get rid of this despot that allowed us to become corrupted now.
Quote; RNZ news, “The government has ordered the review wanting to know if foreign trusts could be undermining the country’s reputation – amid claims that New Zealand is a tax haven.
It has appointed former PwC chairman John Shewan to look into the disclosure rules covering foreign trusts.
Mr Shewan said New Zealand’s reputation was at the heart of the review.
“Well look, I go into this review with a completely open mind, I absolutely agree that protection of New Zealand’s reputation is paramount and that’s at the core of the terms of reference, and that’s what I’ll be examining.
“But it’s very early days, I have to get myself up to speed on a number of surrounding facts and I’ll be doing that over the next few days.”
……………..and Key has his filthy fingers in everyones pie,bound to be financial benefit to him personally.
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