A MAN leaving a shop without paying for a Snickers has explained that, thanks to a network of complex offshore arrangements, it is perfectly legal.
Julian Cook told Londis staff that the Snickers had been leased by a business registered in the Cayman Islands and owned by a Jersey-based trust, which has claimed a full tax refund from a UK accountancy firm at which his wife is a valued client.
He told the shopkeeper: “You’ll be paid, but not in the form of a cash sum or anything drab like that.
“It’ll be an interest-free loan channelled through a business incorporated in Ireland that’s stateless for tax purposes, to a company registered in the British Virgin Island to myself and my father which will lend that money to its Lithuania subsidiary for tax relief.
“Really it’s more efficient, you’ll get the full amount minus the 20 per cent VAT of course, and not one bit of it is breaking the law. Thanks. Ciao.”
Convenience store owner Norman Steele said: “At first I was absolutely furious, but the more he explained the more bored I got and, in the final analysis, I’ll probably just let him get away with it.”
