I did say some years ago that it’s easier in this country to buy a football club than to pay £1,000 into an ISA. You need a bob or two more (depending on the team you’re after) but the point is that money talks and can oil and grease all sorts of wheels. If you’re persona-non-grata and/or your big bucks come from dodgy sources, open a few offshore companies and no-one will guess it’s you. Trying to sanction Russian oligarchs brought this to the fore, but nothing much has changed. We regularly get calls from providers asking for additional ID and proof of source of funds for the smallest of investments. I doubt the checks would be as thorough if you wanted to buy Canary Wharf, for example…
“HMRC scraps plans to tax pensions after death”
A couple of other Statement Highlights (in my world, anyway). A welcome ‘nothing happened’ on the treatment of pensions on death. They were never going to be liable to IHT (too complicated with trusts and trust law) but there was talk of making them income-taxable on the recipients at whatever age you die.
