The first article from the investigation features a Jersey based scheme called K2 which the newspaper alleges shelters £168m from the UK taxman, including £3.3m on behalf of famous comedian Jimmy Carr.
Also targeted by the investigation is accountant Roy Lyness from Peak Performance Accountants. An undercover reporter posing as an IT consultant earning £280,000 a year was promised by Lyness that using K2 would slash his hypothetical tax bill of £127,000 to just £3,500 – equivalent to a personal income tax rate of 1.25%.
Lyness was also recorded by The Times as saying: “It’s a game of cat and mouse. The Revenue closes one scheme, we find another way round it.
“It’s like a sat-nav. I’m driving to Manchester, get a message saying there’s a smash at Stoke, press this button to re-route. That’s all we do with tax avoidance. The Revenue puts a block in, we just go round the block.”
To read the full story and to watch secret filming of the K2 product being sold at an conference in Birmingham, click here.
Also available today is an article from International Adviser exploring the issues faced by the Channel Islands – including the deepening government scrutiny of tax avoidance. To read the article click here
