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Leaked papers have revealed that Roman Abramovich, the Russian billionaire and owner of Chelsea Football Club, may owe up to £1bn to the UK following a failed attempt to evade tax on hedge fund investments. The papers show that investments worth $6bn were channelled via companies in the British Virgin Islands (BVI) but managed from the UK, meaning that they should have been subject to UK tax. Investments linked to the scheme can be traced back to some of the money that funded Chelsea when Mr Abramovich owned the club.
The corruption was centred on Eugene Shvidler, a billionaire businessman and former Chelsea director who is challenging the UK’s decision to impose sanctions against him for his closeness to Mr Abramovich. A tax expert has stated that evidence suggests Mr Shvidler made strategic decisions on the investments whilst based in the UK, rather than in the BVI, implying that the companies should have been paying UK tax. Mr Shvidler’s lawyers have denied the allegations against him.
In recent years, the UK has investigated a number of cases in which the super-rich have used complex offshore structures to avoid paying the full amount of tax owed. Joe Powell, a Labour MP, has called on HM Revenue and Customs to investigate the case urgently in order to recover what he has described as “very significant amounts of money that could be invested in public services.”
Previous leaks have shown how Mr Abramovich avoided paying millions of pounds in VAT on the running costs of his yacht fleet, whilst the wealth he acquired through a corrupt deal in the 1990s was invested into Keygrove Holdings Limited, a BVI company that invested around $6bn into western hedge funds, ensuring that as little tax as possible was paid
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