Prince Charles has millions in off-shore tax havens: Royal is latest to be dragged into Paradise Papers cash scandal

It is claimed the royal campaigned to change two climate change agreements even though he could benefit from rule change

Andrew Gregory Political Editor 23:27, 7 NOV 2017

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/prince-charles-millions-shore-tax-11484478

Prince Charles has become embroiled in the tax scandal as leaked documents revealed he has millions of pounds stashed offshore.
And the royal was tonight accused of a “serious conflict” of interest over a secret investment he made in a Bermuda-registered firm run by a pal.
It came to light in the Paradise Papers, which also showed MPs have millions of pounds offshore.
And it followed claims that £10million of the Queen’s own fortune was invested in a tax haven . There is no suggestion those involved acted illegally.
The Prince of Wales faced accusations that he campaigned to change two climate change agreements while his private estate had an offshore interest that would benefit from the rule change.
The Paradise Papers show that in 2007 the Duchy of Cornwall, which provides Charles with an income and which he is said to be “actively involved” in running, bought shares worth £58,000 in Sustainable Forestry Management Ltd. He was a close friend of Hugh van Cutsem, a millionaire banker, the firm’s director.
SFM traded in carbon credits, a market created by international treaties to tackle global warming. It was hampered by the two agreements.
Mr Van Cutsem had lobbying documents sent to the prince’s office. Charles later made a speech criticising the agreements. In 2008, the Duchy sold its stake in SFM, which almost tripled in value. Despite Charles’ campaign, the environmental agreements were not changed. SFM is no longer in existence, and Mr Van Cutsem died in 2013.
The Duchy of Cornwall said the prince has no direct involvement in its investments. Clarence House said Charles had “never chosen to speak out on a topic simply because of a company that it may have invested in”.
But Sir Alistair Graham, ex-chair of the Committee on Standards in Public Life, said: “There’s a conflict of interest between his own investments of the Duchy of Cornwall and what he’s trying to achieve publicly. I think it’s unfortunate somebody of his importance, of his influence, becomes involved in such a serious conflict.”
The 13.4 million leaked papers, held by law firm Appleby, show the Duchy also made investments worth £3million in the Cayman Islands in 2007. This is legal, there is no suggestion of tax avoidance. It came as Duchy of Lancaster chairman, Sir Mark Hudson was knighted by the Queen days after it emerged the Duchy inv­ested about £10million of the £500million estate offshore.
He joined the Duchy Council in 2006, a year after an initial £5.7million investment was made in a Cayman Islands-based fund.
The papers also show the late Duke of Westminster’s estimated £9.35billion Grosvenor Estate has included offshore holdings. There is no suggestion rules were broken. A spokesman said: “No family member has received any benefit derived from these but if they ever did, they’d be fully liable to tax [here].”
And it emerged the Parliamentary Contributory Pension Fund, worth £621million last March, has £6.6million invested in Jersey-based BlackRock UK Property Fund and another £6million in firms accused of tax avoidance.
The 2015/16 annual report lists Google, Apple and Amazon among its 20 biggest individual shareholdings.
A Commons spokesman said: “Some funds are domiciled offshore to enable investors from different countries to invest in the same fund, and also to prevent double taxation.”
Dame Margaret Hodge blasted a scheme Formula 1 ace Lewis Hamilton used to avoid paying VAT on a jet and said he should not be knighted. She added: “[He] should hold his head in shame at his contrived refusal to pay the British taxes he should.”

Brazil: Unemployment, rent drive housing occupations

It is here where squatters have built a teeming tent city, named the People without Fear Occupation, in the industrial city of Sao Bernardo do Campo, next to Sao Paulo.

The occupation sits on a fenced-off 70 square-kilometre lot – roughly the size of eight soccer pitches – and is overlooked by middle class condominium blocks.

The squatters say they are driven by expensive rents and Brazil’s current economic crisis. Unemployment is the highest in decades at 12.4 percent. More than 13 million are unemployed.

Almost all of those living here survive precariously day to day from odd jobs. Many have racked up debts.

They are occupying the land to pressure the government to build more low-income housing.

Hundreds of similar occupations have sprung up in recent years, on the edges of Sao Paulo, South America’s wealthiest city, and across Brazil.

“I used to reject jobs if the money or the conditions weren’t right. Now I’ll take anything,” Helio da Conceicao dos Santos, a 25-year-old professional bricklayer, told Al Jazeera.

Adelino de Lima Silva, a 34-year-old construction worker unemployed since 2015, said that sometimes only manages two or three odd jobs a month.

Douglas Souza Ferreira, a 27-year-old father of one, lost his job at a soft drinks factory three years ago.“Jobs which used to pay BRL$150 [$47] now pay BRL$100 [$31] or BRL$80 [$25] it’s really competitive. We used to live well employed full time, now it’s barely enough to eat,” he added.

“You chase after jobs, spending your own money. Then when things don’t work out, you come home upset because you can’t provide for your family,” he said.

More than 7,500 families lived int he occupation by early October [Tommaso Protti/Al Jazeera]

Organisers say on the first day of the occupation in early September, 500 families occupied the empty land. But within a week, that number grew to 5,000 families, and by early October more than 7,500 families were set up there.

“This shows the worsening social crisis in Brazil and the deepening housing deficit,” Guilherme Boulos, national coordinator for the Homeless Workers Movement (MTST) that organised the occupation and commands dozens of others across Sao Paulo state and more nationwide, told Al Jazeera.

‘The perfect storm’

Brazil’s housing deficit stood at 6.2 million homes according to a study by Joao Pinheiro Foundation using the last available data from 2015.

Sao Paulo state, Brazil’s most populous, was the most affected, with a total deficit of 1.3 million homes.

Even in Sao Paulo’s far-flung neighbourhoods, which lack infrastructure, are often crime ridden and can require two hour commutes downtown, apartment rentals usually cost between $150 and $240. Minimum wage is about $285 a month.

Boulos said the housing deficit worsened since 2015 as Brazil plunged deeper into recession, the result of falling commodity prices, economic mismanagement and political crisis. The economy contracted 3.8 percent in 2016.

In 2016, 37,000 housing units for low-income families were built [Tommaso Protti/Al Jazeera]

The Sao Paulo ABC region where the occupation is located was once the country’s booming industrial hub. It has lost 80,000 jobs since 2015 according to data by the Brazil Institute of Geography and Statistics.

“The majority of workers on the urban peripheries don’t own their house; they rent and are totally vulnerable – if family members lose their jobs and income falls drastically, they lose their home,” Boulos said.

“This is the drama being lived by millions of families across Brazil today and is causing occupations to increase across the country.”

He added that cuts to the federal social housing programme “Minha Casa, Minha Vida” have exacerbated the crisis.

“It’s a perfect storm – increased demand and reduced supply of low-income housing,” Boulos said.

Data given to Al Jazeera by Brazil’s Ministry of Cities confirmed that the number of low-income housing units built to attend families with a monthly income is less than $550 dropped from 537,000 units in 2013 to just 17,000 units in 2015 and 37,000 units in 2016.

The Sao Bernardo occupation has community kitchens, bathrooms and meeting rooms where tasks are allocated such as cleaning and cooking. Many spend their time divided between the camp and friends or relatives houses.

‘We’re not looking for handouts’

Heloha dos Santos Silva,17, and her husband Marlon, 19, live at the occupation full time with their nine-month-old daughter Helena. Marlon does odd jobs working at a car wash, but rarely gets work.

“It’s a squeeze and sometimes water gets inside when it rains. What we dream of is our own home,” said Heloha.

Organisers say they want the land disappropriated and used to build low-income housing. This is legal in Brazil if the property has remained vacant and unproductive for some time.

In 2014 ahead of Brazil’s football world cup, squatters won the right to remain and build low-income housing on an abandoned lot in Sao Paulo’s East Zone, an occupation dubbed “Cup of the People”.

Brazil occupation [Tommaso Protti/Al Jazeera]

“We’re not looking for handouts, we want what we have the right to in the constitution: housing, decent healthcare, education,” said Andreia Barbosa, a single mother of five and one of the camp coordinators.

Organisers and local media say the Sao Bernardo lot belongs to construction company MZM Construtora and has been vacant for 40 years. They also allege the company owes hundreds of thousands of Brazilian real in back taxes to the local government.

Al Jazeera contacted MZM Construtora for comment but received no response by the time of publication.

Eviction ordered

Local government and a neighbourhood petition group say the occupation affronts property rights.

“It’s ridiculous, you can’t just invade someone else’s property, the land has an owner,” said Eneas Moreira, 54, a consultant for the automotive industry whose apartment overlooks the camp. He said he feared that the occupation would bring down the value of his apartment.

“It’s terrible to see each day, the conditions are appalling, there is no infrastructure there,” he said.

Brazilian media reported that one of the squatters was shot with an air-gun on the day of the protest.Moreira and about 2,000 others recently took part in a street protest against the occupation.

Sao Bernardo City Hall said in an official comment to Al Jazeera: “The administration is against any form of invasion, be it public or private land.”

It added that it has its own housing programme with “1,980 people on the waiting list”.

The eviction of the occupation has been ordered by a local judge.

The squatters, the judiciary, the owner of the land and local security chiefs are expected to meet on December 11 to negotiate the eviction.

Sao Bernardo Mayor Orlando Morando posted a video on his Facebook, welcoming the eviction but said he hoped it would be peaceful.

Evictions from similar occupations have been rough in the past.

In 2012, an eviction of a similar housing occupation Pinheirinho on the outskirts of Sao Jose dos Campos in Sao Paulo state ended in a pitched battle between military police and occupiers that lasted two days with scores injured.

On October 31, 10,000 housing movement activists marched 20km from the Sao Bernardo occupation to Sao Paulo’s governor’s palace to demand the disappropriation of the land.

Local media reported that authorities will meet with the squatters again next week to review their demands.

“Our rights won’t fall out of the sky, that’s why it’s important that we continue to mobilise,” said Boulos.

VIEWFINDER LATIN AMERICA 2014

Occupying Brazil

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA NEWS

 2017 Al Jazeera Media Network

by Sam Cowie

City offering to pay homeless a year’s worth of rent if they leave town

By Yoav Gonen September 29, 2017 | 9:04pm

The city wants the homeless to get out of town — and is offering to pay a full year’s rent to those willing to abandon the five boroughs.

http://nypost.com/2017/09/29/city-offering-to-pay-homeless-a-years-worth-of-rent-if-they-leave-town/
Under a pilot program quietly launched last month, shelter residents who have been in the system for at least 90 days and have a source of income can get 12 months of rent paid up-front virtually anywhere they can find an apartment.
Their travel expenses to vamoose would also be paid under a program already in place known as Project Reconnect.
“The plan to send some families outside of New York City only speaks to the devastating lack of affordable housing here for low-income families,” said Giselle Routhier, policy director at the Coalition For The Homeless. “While it could be beneficial to a small subset of families, we would also be concerned about the short-term nature of the assistance and the stability of families at the end of the year.”

The Department of Homeless Services recently notified shelter providers of 17 apartments available across the river in Newark, according to WNYC radio, which first reported on the initiative.
Asked if they were on board with New York City providing financial incentives for its homeless residents to move to their city, Newark officials there would only say they knew nothing about the initiative.
DHS officials declined to provide the cost of the program, saying there’s no specific allotment while it’s evaluated for interest and effectiveness. They also didn’t provide figures for the maximum allowable rent the city is willing to pay.
SEE ALSO
Albanese rips de Blasio’s $98M homeless shelter plan

Albanese rips de Blasio’s $98M homeless shelter plan

At the same time, they repeatedly referred to it as an old program while providing hoards of information unrelated to the pilot.
“For decades, the city has helped our homeless neighbors seek housing where they can best get back on their feet; sometimes that includes outside the five boroughs,” said DHS spokesman Isaac McGinn.
In the past five years, the city has paid $1.2 million in travel expenses — the only expense that was previously covered — for 2,512 families who relocated outside the five boroughs. Last year, the top destinations were Florida, Puerto Rico and North Carolina, according to DHS.
With the shelter population hovering near 60,000, the city is desperate to find new living spaces for the homeless.
Asked about the initiative, GOP mayoral candidate Nicole Malliotakis said the city should be focusing more on job training and local support services.
“Once again Mayor de Blasio believes hardworking New Yorkers’ pockets are bottomless pits,” she told The Post.
Additional reporting by Rich Calder

By selling our land to private developers the Government is failing to build the affordable homes we need. Enter your postcode here to see the local authority sites being sold near you.

Public land, private profit

Less than 1 in 5 of new homes built on public land sold off are affordable. Will you help us do something about it?

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Aussie couple builds off-grid mobile home with 2 containers

Paul Chambers had began building a home out of two shipping containers as a project, but when his wife got tired of suburbia and put their four-bedroom home on the market, his project became the couple’s full-time home (Paul’s ebook: www.buildshippingcontainerhous­e.com)

Paul and Sarah Chambers were living in rural Scotland when Paul received a job offer in Australia. They packed their belongings and moved to a large home with a pool in an Australian suburb. After only a few months, they began to tire of spending so much of their income on their home. They also felt they’d lost touch with nature and a more active lifestyle (“there weren’t even any trails for walking”, explains Sarah).

So they sold their home and moved with Paul’s “project”: two shipping containers he’d been transforming into a kitchen/bathroom + bedroom/living room. They found someone willing to let them park their new home on their rural property in exchange for making improvements to the land.

When the couple first moved onto the property, the home was a very simple shelter and over the following three years, they built the containers into a proper home.

Their home is completely off the electric and water grids. When they first moved to the bush they used a 3kw Honda generator, but they’ve since installed 2Kw of photovoltaic panels and a bank of batteries and phased out the generator. They have enough energy to power their home with all its conventional appliances, including a standard fridge/freezer. For heating, they rely on firewood (collected from fallen trees on the property; they have “not cut down a single tree”). For air conditioning, they use fans and AC “during really hot days”.

In the beginning they had to rely on water deliveries, but Paul has since installed an extensive rainwater capture setup- both on the roof and gutters beneath the home- which provides for all their water needs: 65 square metres of rain water collection in 10,000 liters of storage. The indoor bathroom includes a shower, but Paul built an outdoor, open air bathtub which they heat with solar in the summertime.

They’ve also created an extensive vegetable garden inside a netted garden cage (after the animals and hot sun destroyed their first attempts). For eggs, they have two hen houses. Paul has published an ebook explaining how he built the home including a step-by-step guide: buying and moving shipping containers, a wiring diagram and schematics, installing solar panels and a breakdown of costs.

Paul’s youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/paulcreatesuccess

Original story: https://faircompanies.com/videos/aussie-couple-builds-off-grid-mobile-home-with-2-containers/

The Fair World Project

Justice in the Fields

Mission:

• people are treated fairly with dignity;
• the environment is respected and nourished;
• commerce fosters sustainable livelihoods and communities in a global society based on cooperation and solidarity;
• fair market opportunities and fair government and trade policy defend, and support the contributions of farmers, workers, and artisans to our global society;
• marketing claims have integrity and promote throughout entire supply chains, and support dedicated brands that put people before profits.

Goals:

• To contribute to the movement to build a just economy that benefits and empowers all people especially those traditionally marginalized in our current system, including family-scale farmers, small-scale artisans, and food and apparel workers
• To educate consumers, retailers, manufacturers and marketers regarding:
  • The standards, criteria, and possible fair-washing behind claims of fairness and justice on products they produce, sell and/or consume, including understanding the benefits and limitations of third-party verifications.
  • The ways government and international trade policies support or inhibit a just economy.
  • Key issues, theories, initiatives, policies, and campaigns related to fair trade, family-scale farmers globally, labor justice, sweat-free apparel, and trade and agriculture policy
• To pressure companies to: improve sourcing and labor practices by obtaining fair trade, fair labor or other appropriate certification for major supply chains; make only authentic ecosocial market claims; and support public policies that benefit small-scale producers and workers
• To promote certification labels, membership organizations, companies, and brands that further progress toward a just economy
• To facilitate dialogue among and between movements working towards a just economy
• To advocate for a better world by: educating and inspiring individuals and organizations through our twice-yearly free publication; providing educational resources and workshops for consumers, retailers, and brands; and collaborating with other organizations with similar values.

Co-operative socialism: a seven point action plan

1) Co-operatives and peace – not Corporations and coercion
Convert competitive, market-based businesses into workplace co-operatives, and remodel monopoly activities as stakeholder community co-operatives: each co-op having responsible, time-limited stewardship of land and knowledge resources, shared from the commonweal, with each co-op demonstrably working according to the Statement on the Co-operative Identity of The International Co-operative Alliance.
See points 2) and 5), below, for the funding mechanism for this;

2) Predistribution not Redistribution. Distribute the created wealth from these workplace co-ops through nationally collected, co-operative corporate taxation, distributed into local, democratically-controlled, Co-operative, Community Banks and, so, make money and credit available for eco-and socially-responsible wealth creation, community development and care,

3) Global stewardship for needs and care, not private resources for profit Maximise human needs and public service provision (health, life-long education, libraries, transport and so on) on a co-operative, free-at-the-point-of-use basis, thus only retaining money as a mechanism for access to discretionary purchases,

4) Fair, guaranteed incomes for all. Introduce guaranteed fair income for all, within upper and lower limits, and with elements of automatic liveable Citizens’ Income – and so do away with the need for direct and indirect personal taxation,

5) Banking as public service – not as global warfare
Abolish money-lending and credit-creation for profit: operate banking as a community co-operative public service (see point two above),

6) End global exploitation through financial speculation
Reintroduce international exchange controls, a Tobin Tax, etc, as necessary,

7) All our sisters are our brothers: and all our brothers are our sisters

Make capital grants (not loans) to developing countries

https://c-r-l.com/news/uk-housing-crisis-can-be-solved-if-the-rich-release-land/

January 6, 2016 by CRL Management

The richest landowners in England are being asked to help alleviate the national housing crisis by making land available for building new homes.

According to a recent recommendation from the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS), those who own 5,000 of England’s largest country estate are in a position to create economic growth, employment, and housing in areas of the country where the population is declining. RICS is lobbying the government to launch more schemes to support building new homes on unused land.

At present there is a shortfall of 76% in rural housing, which is compelling people to leave country communities and driving up house prices to such an extent that homes are unaffordable.

The call went out as recent figures revealed that in December, house prices in the UK grew at their most rapid rate in eight months. This happened amid warnings that a deficit of new homes could drive price growth even higher.

Data compiled by Nationwide revealed that prices went up by an average of 0.8% in December, in increase from the 0.1% growth experienced in November.

Sir Peter Erskine, who has constructed 22 affordable properties on his family estate in the East of Fife, Scotland, commented that large estates represent a solution to dwindling population levels in rural communities.

The area near the Cambo estate lost a post office and grocery shop in recent times, and the local school is facing a dearth of pupils.

Sir Peter said that he cared about the well-being of the community, and as major stakeholders, landowners can do a lot of good.

150 staff are employed at the Cambo estate during the peak season, but he warned that if affordable housing is not available, the area’s slow decline can’t be halted.

Jeremy Blackburn, RICs’ head of policy, said that small quantities of affordable housing can make rural communities more viable. He added that the rural housing crisis could be solved if only 10 homes were built in each of the 1,600 small towns in rural England.

He pointed out that the issue was not so much about central government providing fiscal incentives to landowners to encourage building new homes, although it would be helpful. It was about encouraging landed estates and local authorities to work together to build homes, establishing affordable options for both young and old homeowners, especially tenanted farmers who will need somewhere to retire.

Sir Peter said that the TV programme Downton Abbey’s Christmas special showed that country estates were once the centre of social and economic activities in rural areas. He claimed that landowners across the country are willing to assist in bringing about positive social change, but high taxes and hostile political attitudes held them back.

Over the years, he said, there has been a hostile political atmosphere and a punitive tax system was in place until recently.

“We are now in an era where people will once again appreciate the value of these estates and what they can do for the community.”

2017: Kate and Alan’s Burrows aka Mud Hut Woman, give a heartfelt account of what life is truly like for them trying to live in a Devon roundhouse they built on their own land – the council want to knock it down

Their application for retrospective planning permission has been refused and they have been ordered to remove their dwelling and vacate the land by December 2017.

Petition https://www.change.org/p/north-devon-district-council-save-the-round-house-in-the-woods

​Man builds mud hut in Watford forest

North Devon Council: Save The Round House In The Woods

https://www.change.org/p/north-devon-district-council-save-the-round-house-in-the-woods
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Petitioning North Devon District Council

Save The Round House In The Woods

Dinah Mason

Willand, United Kingdom

18,230

Supporters

Kate and Alan have built a beautiful home on the land they own from materials gathered from the land. Their application for retrospective planning permission has been refused and they have been ordered to remove their dwelling and vacate the land by December 2017.

Kate suffers from multiple chemical sensitivity and since living in the round house her health has greatly improved, having to move back into conventional accommodation will be seriously detrimental to her health and well being. 

They are lobbying the council and anyone who will listen for the One Planet Development scheme that is currently used in Wales and the low impact policy that has just been introduced in Dartmoor national park to be rolled out nation wide. Currently there is no provision in England for true sustainable development of this nature and this needs to change.

A short film about their project made by James Light can be found here

This petition will be delivered to:

North Devon District Council

Read the letter

Dinah Mason started this petition with a single signature, and now has 18,230 supporters. Start a petition today to change something you care about.

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Updates

1 day ago

17,500 supporters

6 months ago

Petition update

Save The Round House In The Woods

Kate and Alan will be live from the roundhouse on Monday morning on ITV’s This Morning

1,000 supporters

Dinah Mason started this petition

Reasons for Signing

Low impact dwellings on land owned by the individual should be welcomed with open arms by an overstretched council. Homes like this should be encouraged not blocked at every turn.
siddy langley, Plymtree, United Kingdom1 Mar 2017

The argument that “it’s not in the public interest to have dwellings popping up all over the countryside” is blatant nonsense. 
Frankly most people prefer modern houses with heating and, petsonally, I’d prefer a scattering of such dwellings to the huge estates big business covers whole acres with.
Mary McCarthy, Gloucester, United Kingdom1 Mar 2017

52

This is natural. They own their land and have built their own home, I don’t see the problem. Maybe if they weren’t putting it all to good use I would feel differently but they aren’t harming anyone in any way shape or form.
Sophie Edwards, Plymouth, United Kingdom 1 Mar 2017