In the grounds of Havilland Hall, the largest private estate on Guernsey, there stands an imposing cigar-wielding bronze figure, the likeness of corporate raider David Rowland who has been one of the islands’ longest-serving tax exiles.
The statue of the son of a scrap metal trader was unveiled in 2005, his 60th birthday, at a party where the guest of honor was Rowland’s good friend Prince Andrew.
Once labeled a “shady financier” in the British parliament, Rowland today retains little of the enfant terrible City of London profile that ruffled establishment feathers in the 1970s and 1980s. He is best known as one of British Prime Minister David Cameron’s most generous financial backers, who abruptly reversed out of the role of Conservative party treasurer two years ago.
Rowland’s tax residency today is unclear. He gave more than ￡4 million (US$6.27 million) to the Conservatives between the summer of 2009 and February last year — donations he would only have been able to make if living at a UK address.
“My father doesn’t talk to the press,” said Jonathan Rowland, the dotcom boom entrepreneur who now runs a private Luxembourg bank owned by his family.
Rowland senior, like many super rich who make their home in the Channel Islands, values the privacy island life affords. In common with his friends and near-neighbors Sir David and Sir Frederick Barclay, who live on the private tax-free island of Brecqhou, photographs of him are extremely rare.
Another Tory donor to have switched residency to Guernsey is the private equity baron Jon Moulton, whose Better Capital fund owns Jaeger, the double-glazing firm Everest, and Reader’s Digest. He joins private equity tycoon Guy Hands, best known for leading Terra Firma’s disastrous takeover of EMI. Hands is a friend of British Foreign Secretary William Hague.
Stephen Lansdown, majority owner of Bristol City football club, said his move to Guernsey followed “ridiculous” UK tax levels. Lansdown’s fortune came from founding Hargreaves Lansdown.
The Formula 1 racing driver Jenson Button moved on from Guernsey to Monaco. The Welsh golfer Ian Woosnam, former F1 champion Nigel Mansell and broadcaster Alan Whicker, live on Jersey, all admitted under special tax deals meant to draw in the super rich.
Taiwan is a small, humble place. There is no Eiffel Tower, no pyramids — no singular attraction that draws the world’s attention. If it makes headlines, it is because China wants to invade. Yet, those who find their way here by some twist of fate often fall in love. If you ask them why, some cite numbers showing it is one of the freest and safest countries in the world. Others talk about something harder to name: The quiet order of queues, the shared umbrellas for anyone caught in the rain, the way people stand so elderly riders can sit, the
Taiwan’s fall would be “a disaster for American interests,” US President Donald Trump’s nominee for undersecretary of defense for policy Elbridge Colby said at his Senate confirmation hearing on Tuesday last week, as he warned of the “dramatic deterioration of military balance” in the western Pacific. The Republic of China (Taiwan) is indeed facing a unique and acute threat from the Chinese Communist Party’s rising military adventurism, which is why Taiwan has been bolstering its defenses. As US Senator Tom Cotton rightly pointed out in the same hearing, “[although] Taiwan’s defense spending is still inadequate ... [it] has been trending upwards
After the coup in Burma in 2021, the country’s decades-long armed conflict escalated into a full-scale war. On one side was the Burmese army; large, well-equipped, and funded by China, supported with weapons, including airplanes and helicopters from China and Russia. On the other side were the pro-democracy forces, composed of countless small ethnic resistance armies. The military junta cut off electricity, phone and cell service, and the Internet in most of the country, leaving resistance forces isolated from the outside world and making it difficult for the various armies to coordinate with one another. Despite being severely outnumbered and
After the confrontation between US President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Friday last week, John Bolton, Trump’s former national security adviser, discussed this shocking event in an interview. Describing it as a disaster “not only for Ukraine, but also for the US,” Bolton added: “If I were in Taiwan, I would be very worried right now.” Indeed, Taiwanese have been observing — and discussing — this jarring clash as a foreboding signal. Pro-China commentators largely view it as further evidence that the US is an unreliable ally and that Taiwan would be better off integrating more deeply into
RSS