Private Eye reveals the extent of England owned offshore

Some fascinating insight in last week’s Private Eye which shows the extent of England that is now owned by offshore companies, generally for legal tax avoidance purposes. The data shows property worth £170bn with a quarter of the properties with no value data. The magazine estimates a conservative total of £200bn.

Private Eye says: “Using this data the Eye published a series of exposés of the companies, arms dealers, oligarchs, money launderers and others who use offshore companies, before David Cameron addressed the issue on a trip to the Far East in July. “There is no place in Britain for dirty money,” he said, promising to publish details of the property titles held by offshore companies. Even if this were to happen, however, it would fall far short of enabling offshore-owned property to be immediately identifiable, as the Eye can now make possible.”

For renewable energy ‘offshore’ has positive connotations. For ownership of England’s green and pleasant land and tax, not so much.

Those interested should read the accompanying article and explore the excellent interactive map. We spent at least an hour looking round our own City to see who owned what – and were quite surprised by what it revealed.

http://www.private-eye.co.uk/registry