Have you ever heard of the phrase “Wealth Defense Industry”?

It’s an entire group of people whose purpose is to not only structure the finances of the rich to avoid taxes, but to defend those structures and arrangements against any government who begins to investigate them and find something they could possibly charge them with. They have an exemplary record of dealing with governments across the planet and reducing fines and penalties down to the equivalent of you or me having to pay $20 on earnings of millions.

One of the features of the industry is that even if a government can even approach a near certain conviction, to the tune of maybe a small percentage of the Billionaires wealth, the Billionaire can simply proclaim the “Reliance “defence, where the Billionaire can state that due to the complex nature of their financial arrangements, they were “relying” on the advice of their advisors and couldn’t have possibly known that what was being done could possibly be even slightly criminal.

And then of course if they are looking at a particularly large penalty, they just go about making very public charitable donations, making themselves look like great philanthropist, spending millions of their Billion Dollar fortunes, akin to you or me spending $20, bringing about good press, goodwill, and discouraging any prosector or judge from wanting to fight hard to penalise them.

So if anyone really wants to talk about the state of taxation in this country, or even the world, how about we be honest about who is, and especially who isn’t, really paying taxes.

Saeed Parker  - Comments at Taxation and Representation Rally