{"id":13878,"date":"2017-11-07T15:21:54","date_gmt":"2017-11-07T15:21:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/unitelive.org\/?p=13878"},"modified":"2017-11-08T12:09:01","modified_gmt":"2017-11-08T12:09:01","slug":"trouble-in-paradise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/?p=13878","title":{"rendered":"Trouble in Paradise?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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An explosive data leak \u00e2\u20ac\u201c one of the largest of its kind, containing more than 13m documents \u00e2\u20ac\u201c showed the extent of tax avoidance among the world\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s elite, including powerful and influential people in the UK.<\/p>\n

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Even the Queen was found to be linked to the scandal, as the Paradise Papers<\/a>, as the leak is called, revealed that her financial advisers invested \u00c2\u014110m in offshore tax havens.<\/p>\n

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Lord Ashcroft \u00e2\u20ac\u201c a major funder of the Tories, who\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s donated \u00c2\u014110m to the party in recent years \u00e2\u20ac\u201c was also implicated. The Papers showed he ferreted away more than \u00c2\u0141300m in a secret offshore trust.<\/p>\n

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Despite living in the UK, Ashcroft, the Papers suggest, maintains his domicile for tax purposes in Belize and may have done so even when he was a Tory peer from 2000 to 2015.<\/p>\n

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Labour has called for a full public inquiry into tax avoidance following the publication of the Paradise Papers \u00e2\u20ac\u201c something prime minister Theresa May has so far refused to do. She has also refused to establish a public register on offshore companies.<\/p>\n

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Labour has also called on the tax office to investigate the Tory donor Ashcroft, who fled from a BBC Panorama<\/a> reporter who followed him at the last Tory Party Conference demanding answers to the secret trust.<\/p>\n

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Ashcroft escaped, dodging into a toilet.<\/p>\n