SPCS

SOCIETY FOR PROMOTION OF COMMUNITY STANDARDS INC.

Alex Swney – Heart of the City founder – sentenced to 5 years jail

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Alex Swney – the disgraced former boss of Auckland’s Heart of the City, has been sentenced to five years and seven months jail.

The 57-year-old, who has admitted to tax evasion and defrauding the business group, appeared in the Auckland District Court on Wednesday.

There will be no minimum non-parole period.

The maximum penalty for the dishonest use of documents charge is seven years in prison.

Swney is the founder and former chief executive of the publicly funded Heart of the City, which promotes businesses in central Auckland. He was granted a temporary reprieve in April, after a sentencing judge fell ill.

Swney was fired last year after the Inland Revenue Department filed charges over $1.8 million of unpaid taxes, and a further $1.3m in penalties and interest.

The ensuing scandal triggered a Serious Fraud Office (SFO) investigation into Swney’s longstanding involvement with the group.

He pleaded guilty to the SFO charges, admitting he had submitted fictitious invoices to Heart of the City which netted him over $2.5m.

For full story go to:

http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/industries/69645518/heart-of-the-city-founder-alex-swney-sentenced-to-5-years-jail

Alex Swney – Auckland’s Heart of the City CEO – fired for tax evasion

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Auckland’s Heart of the City chief executive Alex Swney has been fired from his job after it was revealed he had been charged with tax evasion.

Swney has been charged with 39 counts of tax evasion involving a total of more than $3 million, including penalties and interest.

Judge Grant Fraser lifted name suppression this morning in the Auckland District Court. [Read more…]

Why do so many Chinese companies use the British Virgin Islands (BVI)?

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Extracts from: Why do so many Chinese companies use the British Virgin Islands (BVI)?

By Nicholas Shaxson  – author of Treasure Islands, a book about tax havens. He writes for the Tax Justice Network [TJN].

Article source: http://treasureislands.org/why-chinese-companies-flock-to-the-bvi/

Naomi Rovnick of the South China Morning Post published an excellent article in 2011 looking at the use by Chinese companies of British Virgin Islands (BVI) vehicles

She reported that ten percent of all “foreign” investment into China comes from the BVI, in fact – and growing explosively. Why so? Well, the reporter met quite a lot of obfuscation. The lawyers didn’t want to tell her; one Scottish corporate lawyer merely said ‘ask the Chinese clients’. But she extracted this telling quote from U.S. lawyer Steve Dickinson, which says it all!

“The reason for this strong link between China and the BVI is a very simple form of tax avoidance. If you take the money straight back into China you pay capital gains [or income] tax. If you leave it in the BVI, wait a while then send it back, it can be made to look to the authorities like it is a foreign investment, and you don’t pay tax on that.”

Mr Dickenson failed unfortunately to distinguish between “tax avoidance – which by definition involves getting around the law without actually breaking it, and tax evasion, which is a criminal activity. What he was is in fact talking about is Chinese interests pretending to be foreign – essentially escaping tax, illegally, through offshore deception. This is illegal. It is tax evasion.

Chinese interests pretending to be foreign – essentially escaping tax, illegally, through offshore deception. This is illegal. It is tax evasion. [Read more…]