Last week while in the US, I had a chance meetup and coffee (in a Starbucks, where else?) with Phil Hodgen. If the name is unfamiliar he is a blogging, sometimes tweeting tax lawyer who spends an unhealthy amount of time wandering around the Middle East helping ludicrously wealthy people save tax. I’m sure Richard Murphy would massively disapprove of what Philip does for a living but hey – if the world was all the same then it would be an exceedingly dull place. Anyhoo…
Philip’s blog is definitely worth paying attention to, if only for the entertainment value as he discusses issues around tax avoidance and evasion. I particularly liked his take on the Lichtenstein affair which has so wound up the German press. His suggestions for those awaiting a call from HMRC is priceless:
- Jump up and down and say “It’s not right! The government can’t do illegal stuff like that!” (Response: So what? Cat. Bag. Out.)
- Sit tight and do nothing. (Response: Inevitable merely postponed. Pain handed to your kids because you won’t deal with it.)
- Run away to Panama. (Saw that happen last week for a U. S. citizen I know. He is a fugitive for the rest of his life.)
- Be a grown up and clean up your mess. (Why make a money problem into a jail problem?)
To more mundane matters, Phil and I talked about the problems associated with managing many projects with few resources and no particular desire to spend a fortune on IT. I reckon he needs something like Wordframe but he uses Worldox on which to organize and store documents. I wonder if the two could be integrated?
