The Whitewashed Blacklist Conspiracy

11 Dec 2017

Writing in The Guardian (where else?), Prem Sikka, Professor of Accounting at Sheffield University, says the EU’s blacklist of tax havens is a whitewash and its targeting of low-income countries smacks of imperialism.

I miss hearing Prem savage the auditing profession, but Imperialism? Can you whitewash a blacklist?

He goes on to say that the UK is complicit in tax avoidance (ah, a conspiracy!) and should be on one of the lists – the EU also issued a “grey list” of countries which have committed to changing their rules, and some commentators said that the USA among others should be on it, but if as Prem suggests the UK is “complicit”, why are companies using the offshore shelters, or are the UK tax authorities helping companies to ship their profits offshore so HMRC does not get so much money? That’s the trouble with Imperialist conspirators, they just don’t think it through!