Posts by Alfie
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Bomber Bradbury is pissed off at Key’s personal use of offshore trust/s and his protection of the tax avoidance industry.
Key has built a tax haven, was instrumental in personally intervening in 2010 to create it, had his lawyer lobby the Minister to stop any crackdown and then gets caught out benefiting from the very trusts he’s helped build.
If you are not incandescent with rage now, you are the problem!
Gordon Campbell tackles the OIO for approving two wealthy Argentinian “investors” named Grozoksky as being of “good character” when they have an appalling track record of releasing toxic chemicals into rivers. He sums up the situation.
This is really shabby, banana republic kind of stuff.
He’s right of course. At this stage we have no idea how many New Zealanders operate offshore trusts, neatly avoiding paying their fair share of NZ tax. But you can guarantee there are hundreds, perhaps thousands in this situation.
One story that caught my eye this morning concerns a couple of Te Kuiti sheep farmers, Gerald and Jocelyn Chamber. While this is a sad story about a US conman who just happens to be a rabbi, (straight out of Central Casting, no doubt) we learn that the Chambers invested $9m in non-existent Facebook stocks. They’re seeking the return of their capital plus a further $24m in damages. This isn’t small change.
The Chambers were described in court as "unsophisticated, naive farmers from the outskirts of New Zealand”. While they may well be nothing more than a couple of country hicks, this line stood out for me.
Their Cayman Islands company Saskatoon Financial is also listed as a plaintiff.
WTF? Even some self-confessed clueless kiwis are operating offshore tax shelters? I’d like to know just how widespread this practice is, and how much tax New Zealand is losing each year as a result.
Unfortunately Key and his mates are running the show and I’ll bet that most of them have a vested interest in making this issue go away. And quickly.
Gordon Campbell’s banana republic comment is right on the mark.
On Tuesday 10th May the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) will publish a searchable online database of the Mossack Fonseca papers. I imagine quite a few prominent New Zealanders may be embarrassed by the contents.
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Steve Braunias' Secret Diary of Auckland housing boom. I love his characterisation of John Key.
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As one of the few people who still records and watches 3 News most nights, I’d say that Hillary Barry’s departure will damage Mediaworks. My only surprise is that it’s taken so long for her to make the move.
I’ve mentioned before that I’ve worked for both TVNZ and TV3 news and current affairs over the years. While TVNZ had bigger budgets it always had a more top-heavy feel, it was more management-dominated. By comparison TV3 had a smaller, tighter group who enjoyed working as a team. That approach engenders a much greater sense of pride in your output and inspires loyalty.
For a team player like Hillary it must have been hard to sit by and watch as so many good people were sacked and the subsequent goodwill which had been built up over years was cruelly eroded by the new management, to be replaced by offensive intellectual lightweights like Glucina and Henry.
Equally difficult would have been the split shifts with stupidly early starts for breakfast tele followed by the 6pm news at night. I’ve read that Hillary and Henry had “chemistry”. I wouldn’t know as I refuse to watch the latter, but it’s possible that reviewers may have mistaken Hillary’s professionalism for harmony.
Will she go to TVNZ? That’s hard to imagine. They surrendered any pretense of being serious players in the news and current affairs field long before Weldon began his misguided mission to erode TV3’s credibility in that area.
I’d keep an eye on the Herald who have been quietly building a credible team, largely composed of TV3’s broadcast refugees. Any news team is only as good as the people it employs and at the moment, the Herald stands a better chance of taking over that mantle than any other NZ media organisation.
Haere rā, Hillary. You will be missed.
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Shame on Stuff for their plagiarism.
However I think Uber is wrong. You're still carrying passengers "for reward" which requires a P license, rightly in my opinion.
Uber's tactic is pretty straightforward... saturate the roads with Uber vehicles and outnumber the existing providers. The Guardian story pretty much shows that's what they did in London and in September last year, Uber vehicles finally outnumbered black cabs in London.
The Transport Agency has a minor problem because Uber cars are unbranded. So you can't easily pull them over and check licenses without prior knowledge of the vehicles involved... a list of Uber affiliates if you will. I'm guessing that Uber is hoping our free market at all cost politicians will side with them, and the government's obvious willingness to alter existing taxi laws (such as the requirement for onboard cameras) will give them a boost in that direction.
However at this stage it's not the company which is taking the risk, it's the individual drivers. I'd hope to hear the Taxi Federation making a lot of noise on this issue in the near future.
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Speaker: Confessions of an Uber driver, in reply to Katita,
I was listening to an item on RNZ the other week about the Air BnB experience in Barcelona, the net result of which was un-limited accommodation available in the city.
Barcelona has suffered more than most cities from the increasing popularity of AirBnB. Thousands of locals have been evicted from their flats to provide tourist accomodation, because owners can earn twice as much from short term lets. This in turn led to the rise of the left wing Podemos Party which won the 2015 mayoral election.
The new mayor has warned AirBnB that Barcelona is not a theme park and asked such rental websites to hand over information on the property owners who use their service.
Any city that sacrifices itself on the altar of mass tourism will be abandoned by its people when they can no longer afford the cost of housing, food and basic everyday needs.
An almost identical scenario is playing out in Queenstown these days.
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I’m agreeing with you Ben and I didn’t suggest the purchase of shares was a compliance cost. I was making the point that taxi drivers do have to front up with this sort of money to buy into their business, and if the NZTA turns a blind eye to Uber’s latest illegal antics, then you’d have to say that any traditional taxi business will be rooted.
And BTW, I commend you for going public with this.
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Speaker: Confessions of an Uber driver, in reply to BenWilson,
That $20-50k was not compliance costs, it was pure profit to the taxi empire they were buying into.
This may be different in Auckland where the company may own all of the cars and merely employ drivers, but it’s not correct for the taxi drivers of my acquaintance, Ben. In Dunedin and Queenstown the money goes straight to the former (usually retiring) driver who is selling his shares in the business, sometimes including a car, but not always.
Down this way the taxi company is jointly owned by the drivers who pay a weekly fee which covers the company overheads.
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You've certainly stirred things up Ben. The NZTA has just announced that it will prosecute individuals who do not hold a P licence.
While Uber drivers operating without a passenger endorsement could face a $10,000 fine, the spokesman said the NZTA wasn't currently taking legal action against the company itself.
Why not? It's the company that's encouraging its contractors to break the law, not the drivers themselves. It's time for the NZTA to grow some balls and challenge Uber over this issue.
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This discussion is slightly academic to me as I live in Dunedin and Uber doesn’t operate here, yet. But I was upset when I heard that the government appears to be effectively fucking over thousands of local taxi drivers in an effort to please an international business.
I must confess to having a slight connection to this story. My Dad was a taxi driver when I was a little guy, and my partner obtained her taxi license some years ago along with the requisite local area knowledge certificate, plus TSL and P-endorsements. Even though she has a clean record, it was the Police check which took forever, around 8 weeks from memory. In total she spend around 12 weeks and $1,500 to become certified.
The vehicles she drove were all required to have a COF, guaranteeing passengers that they had been held to a higher standard than normal WOFs. This is as it should be when you’re carrying passengers for reward and safety is a priority.
Last year people began offering cheap rides in Dunedin via a local Facebook group. The Police eventually cracked down on the practice when it was revealed that one of the “drivers” was awaiting trial for killing two people in a motor vehicle accident, and had been driving an unregistered and unwarranted vehicle at the time. I believe that guy is now serving jail time.
I’m sure Uber has some good drivers, but when they can offer to make people instant taxi drivers for just $25 with few safety checks and no compliance to the existing law, something smells bad.
The taxi drivers I know all paid between $20k and $50k to buy into their business. That’s quite an investment which takes years to pay off. If the government allows Uber to operate illegally, it’s the equivalent of sticking a big bureaucratic finger in the faces of thousands of registered NZ taxi drivers. Their investment in their business just went down the tube.
Uber needs to be pulled up on this. Now.
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When the IRD began to look into foreign trusts in 2013, John Key's lawyer lobbied the Revenue Minister at the time, Todd McClay, invoking the PM's support and effectively killing the investigation.
"We are concerned that there appears to be a sudden change of view by the IRD in respect of their previous support for the industry. I have spoken to the Prime Minister about this and he advised that the Government has no plans to change the status of the foreign trust regime," Mr Whitney wrote in an email.
"The PM asked me to contact you to arrange a meeting at your convenience with a small group of industry leaders who are keen to engage to explain how the regime works and the benefits to NZ of an industry which has been painstakingly built up over the last 25 years or so."
The industry which tends to shun sunlight was worried that any review of foreign trust rules could "severely damage" their income.
The day after Mr Whitney's email to Mr McClay, the minister's office contacted Inland Revenue to say the minister had "expressed some concern that one of the options that will be presented in the report to him before the end of the year would be a removal of the foreign trust regime".
Inland Revenue senior official Carmel Peters responded saying they would "bear this in mind in how we write the report".
Then in May last year Inland Revenue confirmed to staff that there would be no review of foreign trusts due to "wider government priorities". Think about that. The possibility of collecting hundreds of millions of dollars in tax from wealthy offshore "investors" was no longer a goverment priority.
Naturally, while talking to reporters after a pre-budget speech, Key was his usual illusive self and failed to mention that the person who had approached him was none other than his own long-time lawyer, offshore tax (haven) specialist, Ken Whitney.
One of the members of the tax, that group, the foreign trusts, asked me about it. I said I haven't got a clue what you're talking about, I don't think that's right that there are changes, but go and take it up with the minister.
That's right. Tax havens... money laundering... it was apparently all too complicated for former currency-trader Key's little brain to take onboard. Nothing to see here folks, moving right along. Let's go bash some beneficiaries instead.