Crime Rap Sheets

Thursday 13 October 2011

FORMER policeman lived the high life in Marbella by running a £300million VAT fraud

 

 – the biggest ever uncovered in the UK. Nigel Cranswick, 47, tried to cheat the taxman by claiming back tax on £2billion worth of bogus sales made by his mobile phone firm I2G. The “phenomenal” turnover was generated in eight months, HMRC said. Advertisement >> Meanwhile Cranswick lived it up in his rented villa in Marbella. “Despite this phenomenal turnover... I2G operated from a small office in Sheffield,” HMRC said. The scam was smashed after a five-year police probe, Newcastle crown court was told. Cranswick, from Sheffield, admitted conspiracy to cheat HMRC, as did accomplices Brian Olive, 56, of Doncaster, and Darren Smyth, 42, from Rotherham. Claire Reid, 45, also from Rotherham, admitted false accounting. The four will be sentenced next month

BRITS ABROAD

35074501 Today from i: Brits abroad

T

Rich Brits plot escape to France

 

 wealthy Britons are planning to flee what they believe to be an over-taxed and crime-ridden UK, with France the most favoured destination, according to a survey published by British bank Lloyds TSB. The survey, published on Monday, found that 17 percent of those with more than £250,000 ($391,025) in savings and investments wanted to move abroad in the next two years, up from 14 percent six months earlier. The most popular destination for the rich exiles was France (21 percent), followed by Spain (15 percent) and the US (11 percent).  Three-quarters of those questioned (73 percent) thought that crime was a bigger problem in Britain than other developed countries. "Sadly, it seems August's riots, tax increases and a rising cost of living have cast a pall over life in the UK for some wealthy people," said Nicholas Boys-Smith, managing director of Lloyds TSB International Wealth in a statement. "It may reignite fears of a 'wealth drain' from our economy as rich people seek pastures new," he said. 42 percent of those questioned named tax as a reason for leaving, up from 35 percent six months ago. Cost of living was a factor for 52 percent, up from 31 percent. Research in January 2011 suggested that 4.6 percent of the UK population have over £250,000 in savings and investments, which equals around 2.8 million people.

A poorly designed, over-extended and ill-disciplined monetary union is in danger of falling apart

Matt kenyon
Illustration by Matt Kenyon

What if it falls apart? For all my adult life, I have been what in England is called a pro-European or Europhile. For most of that time, European history has been going our way. Now it may be on the turn. Soon, it could be heading the Eurosceptics' way. What then?

Over the last half-century, the institutional organisation of Europe has progressed from a common market of six west European states to a broader and deeper union of 500 million individual Europeans and 27 countries, from Portugal to Estonia and Finland to Greece; 17 of them share a single currency, the euro. There are no border controls between 25 European countries in the Schengen area. Enveloping it all is the fragile skin of the European convention on human rights (now under facile attack from some British Conservatives) which allows any individual resident of no less than 47 countries, including Russia, to contest a violation of their inalienable human rights all the way to a European court of human rights in Strasbourg.

Never has Europe been so united as this. Never have more of its people been more free. Never before have most European countries been democracies, joined as equal members in the same economic, political and security community. Our continent still has a grotesque amount of poverty, injustice, intolerance and outright persecution. (Try living as a Roma or Sinti in eastern Europe for a taste of all that.) I prettify nothing. But – to adapt a famous remark about democracy by that great pro-European British conservative, Winston Churchill – I do say that this is the worst possible Europe, apart from all the other Europes that have been tried from time to time.

Now all this is under threat. A poorly designed, over-extended and ill-disciplined monetary union is in danger of falling apart, bringing bitter recriminations and lasting divisions. More fundamentally, the past emotional motivators and political engines of European unification are no longer there. The peoples of Germany, the Netherlands and other core countries of the European Union are loth to take steps of further integration which many of the creators of monetary union thought would be necessary to sustain it.

I blame politicians like Angela Merkel for not showing more leadership in this respect, but such leadership would involve a heroic, uphill struggle to persuade reluctant publics in what are still (contrary to what Eurosceptics claim) largely sovereign national democracies. If these were not sovereign national democracies, the whole financial world – from Washington to Beijing – would not this week have been waiting with bated breath on the vote of one small party in the parliament of Slovakia.

I note in passing that many of the current difficulties of the eurozone were predicted back in the 1990s, and I was a sceptic about monetary union at that time. This is what I wrote in 1998: "The rationalist, functionalist, perfectionist attempt to 'make Europe' or 'complete Europe' through a hard core built around a rapid monetary union could well end up achieving the opposite of the desired effect. One can all too plausibly argue that what we are likely to witness in the next five to 10 years is the writing of another entry for [Arnold] Toynbee's index [to his A Study of History], under 'Europe, unification of, failure of attempts at'." But I am not now going to hide behind that testament to my own earlier scepticism about one element of a larger project.

As a pro-European, I stand by the whole project, warts and all. I recently contributed to an appeal – which you too can sign – arguing that the eurozone can only be saved by further fiscal integration and a strategy for growth. Remarkably, even the Eurosceptic prime minister David Cameron recently told the Financial Times that Germany and France need to fire a "big bazooka" to convince financial markets and hence preserve the eurozone. That is a bit like the Duke of Wellington wishing Napoleon success in consolidating his continental empire – but extraordinary times do produce such delicious moments.

Beyond this, however, I'm not going to add a single word to the 537 newspaper columns you have already read explaining how the eurozone must and can, or must not and can not, be saved. You decide which economic commentator you believe.

Instead, I want to ask what happens if the eurozone does fail, one way or another – and that failure begins a much larger process of gradual disintegration. Suppose that the EU in 2030 has become something like the Holy Roman Empire in, say, 1730: still extant on paper, but more origami than political reality. What then?

For us pro-Europeans, what happens then will be, first of all, a paradoxical kind of liberation. Rather like the supporters of a long-term incumbent government, for decades now we have felt some obligation to defend the existing state of affairs, with all its obvious flaws. Eurosceptics, by contrast, have enjoyed the glorious irresponsibility of opposition – and, heaven knows, the Brussels institutions furnish endless easy targets for the sceptic and the satirist.

Now the boot will be on the other foot. For a few years, like an incoming government, Eurosceptics will be able to blame current problems on the preceding regime (overhasty monetary union led to German-Greek loathing, etc), but that only lasts so long. Sooner or later it will become clear that it is their kind of Europe we are living in, not mine.

More German travelers have been using foreign airports since a flight tax was imposed early this year.

 

 

Consider two small airports in the middle or Europe. At Maastricht Aachen Airport, business is booming thanks to an influx of German passengers who are fleeing a national aviation tax introduced on January 1, 2011. Meanwhile, just 80 kilometers across the border, Germany's Weeze Airport has been steadily losing customers.

A few years ago, things were exactly the opposite. The Netherlands had its own, yearlong experiment with an aviation tax, but revoked it in July 2009 after it saw Dutch hubs like Maastricht Aachen Airport lose passengers to rivals in neighboring countries, including Germany.

The levy cost Dutch airports, airlines, and related businesses between 1.2 and 1.3 million euros in lost revenue, according to a study by Amsterdam Aviation Economics, a research institute affiliated with the University of Amsterdam.

Hans van Mierlo, a professor of public finance at the University of Maastricht, said the abundance of transportation options in Europe means travelers can and will seek out alternatives whenever one country unilaterally imposes an air passenger tax.

"The [Dutch] crowd went to Germany; now the German crowd comes to us," he told Deutsche Welle. "I am surprised that the German government didn't learn from the Dutch failure."

Front of Maastricht Aachen Airport Maastricht-Aachen Airport may be small, but traffic is growing rapidlyHefty rates

The German aviation tax runs at a rate of eight euros per one-way flight within Europe, 25 euros for medium-haul services to the Middle East and Sub-Saharan Africa, and 45 euros for long-haul flights. The tariff only applies to flights originating in Germany. The German Finance Ministry reported the duty raised 434 million euros in revenues in the first half of 2011.

However, for travelers, the tax can double the total cost of a bargain ticket. That has driven Irish budget carrier Ryanair to cancel some of its services from Weeze Airport and add flights at Maastricht. Meanwhile, rival airline Germanwings has launched a service linking Maastricht to Berlin 12 times per week.

Those moves helped drive Maastricht Aachen Airport's whopping 70 percent increase in passengers so far this year. That is quite a comeback from the time of the Dutch aviation tax, when it lost 25 percent of its customers.

Runway of Maastricht Aachen AirportMaastricht's airport has new routes to Bucharest, Tenerife, and other spotsAmong the new clientele is Ne Pham from Jülich, Germany. She told Deutsche Welle that she used to fly out of Cologne or Dusseldorf to destinations like Italy, the United States and her native Vietnam.

"It's cheaper to fly from [Maastricht] than from Germany," she said. "It's easy to find, has lots of parking spaces, and a very fast check-in. It's small but nice."

Maastricht makeover

To accommodate new passengers, Maastricht Aachen Airport has renovated its main waiting area and sole restaurant. A new bus line runs from Cologne directly to the Dutch airport, where travelers are greeted by a row of flags from seven European countries. Airport staff members are required to speak German and English in addition to Dutch, and a number of them speak French as well.

Marion Schramm and her husband, from Geilenkirchen, Germany, echoed Pham's reasons for choosing Maastricht Aachen Airport. But they were not as impressed by the small airport's recent makeover.

"It's obviously dinky," Marion Schramm told Deutsche Welle, "You see everything right away. But it's a lot cheaper than Germany at the moment."

Lobby of Maastricht Aachen AirportCustomers have mixed reviews for the small Dutch airport's facilities

Weeze's woes

The German Airport Association, which represents German air hubs, has called for an immediate end to the national flight tax. It reported a tepid growth rate of 3.2 percent at airports throughout the country this July, compared with the same month last year.

Weeze Airport, near Dusseldorf, had 22.8 percent fewer customers in the same time period. Ludger van Bebber, the airport's managing director, said many of the hub's clients used to come from the Netherlands.

"The aviation tax destroys the level playing field for us," he told Deutsche Welle. "That is the main issue we have here at Weeze."

Meanwhile, Berlin's two hubs are seeing travelers hop across the border to nearby Polish airports. And people in Munich do not have to drive far to reach a number of alternative airports in Austria and the Czech Republic.

Jan Tindemans, chairman of Maastricht Aachen Airport's board The chairman of the Maastricht airport's board is planning for growth to continueDutch chairman confident

While the German Finance Ministry has denied recent media reports that it might lower the aviation tax rates, the ministry is scheduled to evaluate the levy's effects on small and medium-sized airports in June 2012.

The chairman of Maastricht Aachen Airport, Jan Tindemans, said he is not worried about his business in the short term - even if Berlin ends up decreasing or revoking the tax.

He told Deutsche Welle that winning back market share in the wake of the Dutch tax experiment was very difficult. He does not expect things to be any easier for German hubs.

"No bakery wants its customers to go for one or two times to another bakery, because they always think [the customers] will stay there," he said. "There will be some people who will go back, but I don't think there will be much of an effect."

Tindemans said Maastricht Aachen Airport is seeking to add more airlines and destinations to its roster. He added that his airport could double annual traffic to almost one million passengers over the coming years if economic conditions remain stable.

Related Posts with Thumbnails