IT was encouraging to see John Glen MP supporting the ‘outing’ of users of tax havens in his piece last week (View from the Commons, September 13).
At least £25bn disappears from these shores each year and this deprives the country of much needed tax revenue.
Most of your readers, and Mr Glen's constituents, will be paying higher taxes than they need, to compensate for this massive loss of income.
However, the call for ‘setting international standards’ will take years to achieve, thus giving the illusion of action while nothing in fact will happen.
Many tax havens, like Jersey and Guernsey, are Crown dependencies and others are overseas territories like the Cayman Islands, and the City of London is the key element in these arrangements.
Might Mr Glen achieve more by asking pointed questions about why the City remains free to carry on as it does? Tackling the secrecy and lack of accountability of the City is crucial to ending these abuses, which are international in scope and leave us and other parts of the world much the poorer.
PETER CURBISHLEY, Great Durnford
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