Dispatches

How the Rich Avoid Tax (2016x2)

: 08, 2016

In this Dispatches Special, actor Greg Wise takes the extraordinary step of secretly recording his own meetings with 'tax planners'. Using his privileged status as a high net-worth individual, Greg goes into the world of high-end tax avoidance and meets 'advisors' keen to help the rich and famous minimise their tax liabilities or even avoid tax altogether. While tax avoidance is legal, he is told that the amount of tax he chooses to pay is down to his own 'moral barometer', with one advisor offering to 'zero his tax bill'. The tax dodging schemes promoted to Greg involve setting up companies in offshore tax havens and ramping up investment to maximise government tax relief. Last year, angered by reports of rich individuals not paying their 'fair share' of tax, Greg threatened to withhold his own tax payments until something was done. In this programme he uncovers a normally hidden world of tax avoidance, available only to the rich.