Why are the Tories ambivalent towards tax havens?

One of the side effects of austerity is that it does concentrate the mind as to alternative sources of income. Thus, since the 2010, there has been a lot of noise about the extra revenue that could be raised from clamping down on tax avoidance, non-Doms and multi-national companies who base their business in low tax countries.

The reason why so little has been done to pursue this agenda since that election is open to speculation. It may be that it is just too difficult, it may need international agreements to be negotiated and agreed or it could just be that successive chancellors do not want to upset key players in the country's economy.

This article in today's Times suggests yet another reason, that the ruling Tory Party do not want to upset some of their biggest donors.

The paper says that more than £1 million was raised by the Tories from Britons based in tax havens and their UK companies before the 2017 general election. They add that this money was accepted even though a law was passed in 2009 that was meant to clamp down on donations from offshore.

The bill banned large personal donations from anyone not resident or domiciled in the UK for tax purposes but coincidentally, successive governments have failed to enact it with a commencement order.

Section 10 of the Political Parties and Elections Act 2009 would have banned donations of more than £7,500 from anyone not resident in the UK for tax purposes, as well as those not domiciled in the UK. “Non-dom” is a separate status that applies to people who live in Britain but view another country as their permanent home. A person’s domicile is usually determined by their father’s domicile but can be changed.:

At least £500,000 of the money raised by the Tories before the 2017 election was from Lord Ashcroft, who is based in Belize. MPs have also criticised the Conservatives for accepting donations before the election from UK companies whose owners live in tax havens, a practice that was not covered by the law.

Yesterday The Times revealed that a third of British billionaires had moved to tax havens. As the second part of the tax haven rich list is published today, it can be disclosed that:

• Andrea Leadsom’s Jersey-based brother-in-law, Peter de Putron, owns a UK company that gave more than £100,000 to the Tories before the 2017 general election.

• UK companies owned by Mr De Putron and the financiers Jim Mellon and Harvey Boulter donated to groups linked to Brexit while they were living in tax havens.

• The Ukip donor Paul Sykes, who gave the party more than £2.8 million while living in the UK, has moved to the Channel Islands.

The Times identified £5.5 million in political donations from people living in tax havens and their UK companies since July 2009, including £1,053,400 raised by the Conservatives before the 2017 election.

People who are not on the UK electoral roll are banned from donating to a political party but it is possible to register as an overseas voter for up to 15 years after leaving Britain.

In addition to the failure to commence the clause forbidding overseas donations, ministers were criticised on Monday for pulling a bill that would have compelled Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man to publish registers of beneficial ownership.

All of these donations are legal and properly declared but the intention of the 2009 law was that they should be stamped out. Why has the government not enacted that law? We can only speculate.