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British prime minister defends his finances amid Panama Papers disclosure

 
British Prime Minister David Cameron makes a statement to the House of Commons about his wealth on Monday. Cameron said, “Aspiration and wealth creation are not dirty words.”
British Prime Minister David Cameron makes a statement to the House of Commons about his wealth on Monday. Cameron said, “Aspiration and wealth creation are not dirty words.”
Published April 12, 2016

LONDON — Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain clashed with the opposition Labour Party in Parliament on Monday over tax havens and his inherited wealth, and, in a spirited debate over economic fairness set off by the disclosures in the Panama Papers, defended the right of Britons to "make money lawfully" as long as they paid their taxes.

"Aspiration and wealth creation are not dirty words," said Cameron, a Conservative, attacking the Labour Party for "wanting to tax" anyone who wanted to pass on their home or their wealth while still alive to their children, calling that "the real lesson of today."

The Labour Party leader, Jeremy Corbyn, assailed Cameron for presenting "a master class in the art of distraction," and accused him of "losing the trust" of ordinary Britons.

The furor over the Panama Papers has brought new pressure on senior British politicians to reveal their incomes and tax returns, reflecting the broader global response to the disclosures in the leaked documents about widespread use of tax-avoidance and tax-minimization methods by the wealthy and powerful around the world.

Cameron provided the public with the essence of his tax returns from the past six years on Sunday, becoming the first prime minister to do so, and Corbyn released his 2014-15 return on Monday afternoon; he paid a $142 fine for late filing. The chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, also released the details of his most recent tax return.

Mayor Boris Johnson of London, a Conservative legislator, also released figures from his latest tax returns, showing that with his newspaper column and royalty revenues taken into account, he made more money last year than Cameron, Osborne and Corbyn combined.

The first minister of Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon, released her tax return over the weekend.

No one has accused any of these politicians of breaking the law or evading taxes. But there is a public concern, as Corbyn put it, that "there is now one rule for the super-rich and another for the rest."

Cameron defended his government's record in trying to crack down on tax evasion, including from British overseas territories and dependencies, which brought jeers from the opposition benches. Over half of the more than 214,000 secret companies that the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca is known to have set up, according to reports based on the Panama Papers, were incorporated in the British Virgin Islands.

Cameron said the British Virgin Islands and other British territories and dependencies, except for Anguilla and Guernsey, had promised to require more transparency about offshore companies, taxes and beneficial owners of trusts (as opposed to blind trusts).

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Cameron also tried to draw a distinction between offshore trusts, like the one his father was involved in, that pay out dividends that are taxed like any other investment, and offshore companies designed to hide income.