Terry Sarten: Hiding the filthy lucre is just so taxing

BEHIND CLOSED DOORS: The entrance of the Hong Kong head office of Panama-based law firm Mossack Fonseca, one of the world's biggest creators of shell companies, behind which 11.5 million confidential documents were leaked last week showing how some of the world's richest people hide assets in trusts, including in New Zealand.PHOTO/AP

So now we have apparently become the Switzerland of the South Seas ...

Like the Swiss, we do have cheese. We make very good chocolate. We have more cows than them, but feel no need for more cowbells. We have glorious mountains, lakes, rivers and you can hear yodelling at most country music nights down at your local.

We are kind of neutral in that we don't start wars (although we are always keen to join in) and the Swiss only have those fancy pocket knives that have screwdrivers and bottle openers while we have the All Blacks, No8 wire and Lydia Ko.

On the downside, unlike the Swiss, most of us can only speak one language, in a dialect that is impenetrable to international ears. An Australian wit described New Zealand as "the land of the Long Lost Diphthong" (exhibit A: listen to John Key speak).

The Swiss are famous for their secret bank accounts where all sorts of nefarious persons stash their ill-gotten gains, where politicians and dictators conceal their bribes, kick-backs and stolen loot. Now it appears that we are doing that in our own inimitable Kiwi style by allowing wealthy people to hide money from the taxman and/or woman in trusts.

Once upon a time, trusts functioned as neutral ground for managing estates to prevent improper access to family assets from conniving persons, often members of the same family. Now we find that trusts have become the go-to places for thieves and scoundrels on an international scale.

Politically this is tricky, as it is highly likely that many of our MPs have money and assets in trusts arrangements. This is done to create distance between their assets, such as properties, and their involvement in decisions about such things as capital gains, tackling the housing crisis in Auckland and property development.

It is quite feasible that many in Parliament would not be keen to see the matter of trusts examined too closely.

We know that internationally the big multi-national corporations are busy shifting millions around in complex financial contortions in order to pay as little tax as possible.

This, in turn, means they are avoiding their contribution to infrastructure, education, justice and law enforcement that they rely on to function. Hiding money that is meant to support a country's economic and social progress is theft disguised as clever accounting.

Governments around the world, prompted by recent revelations about the extent of tax avoidance, are all doing some pretty intense navel-gazing right now and finding all sorts of nasty things among the fluff in their financial tummy buttons.

They are feeling the rage of the little people, those like you and me, who do pay tax, either out of our wages or by declaring income to IRD.

I cannot afford legions of accountants and tax lawyers to manipulate the books, shuffling money off into tax havens around the globe, but I am looking for a haven for my parking meter money where I can hide my small change.

If I move this money out of the glovebox of my car, hide it in an offshore tax shelter, then set up a shell company that trades in glovebox money futures, I can avoid paying any tax on the $4.50 earned. And this money I can then recycle back to buy a coffee - and I will be sipping it with all the satisfaction of one who has just joined the tax dodging elite.

-Terry Sarten is a writer, musician, satirista and New Zealand taxpayer - feedback: tgs@inspire.net.nz.