Irish billionaire Dermot Desmond clearly didn't appreciate being asked about the Paradise Papers by the BBC, as this letter to BBC Scotland's investigations correspondent Mark Daly shows:

Image source, Francois Lenoir

And these are those talks that Guernsey's Gavin St Pier is referring to.

European Union states have decided to bring forward a discussion on creating a blacklist of tax havens, following the release of the Paradise Papers.

EU countries had planned for months to reach an agreement on a blacklist for tax havens by the end of this year, following the leak of the Panama Papers in 2016, but the discussion has now been moved forward in light of the new revelations.

The European Commission is proposing an EU-wide list of tax havens meant to discourage the re-routing of profits made in the EU to tax-free or low-tax countries.

The latest revelations "put renewed emphasis on the work the European Commission is doing to fight tax avoidance", said the vice president of the EU's executive arm, Valdis Dombrovskis.

Rob Byrne
BBC News Online

Guernsey's most senior politician says the timing of the release of the Paradise Papers was designed to serve the EU's agenda in Brexit negotiations.

Deputy Gavin St Pier told the BBC the leaks were part of an orchestrated political campaign.

He said: "The Council for EU Finance Ministers is meeting today in Brussels, they will all come out this afternoon and piously and earnestly say how important it is that the UK cleans up its act with the Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies"

Guernsey has 7,000 people employed in offshore financial services, accounting for a third of the economy, but is yet to be linked to any major findings as part of the leak.

"We are an integral part of UK's financial services industry, and ecosystem, which is the strongest in the EU."

"This serves the EU's agenda particularly well in the Brexit negotiations," he said.

In the 1960s, it was a place of rowing boats, Punch and Judy and people selling deckchairs. What happened to the Isle of Man?

Today Programme
BBC Radio 4

More from the Isle of Man's chief minister, Howard Quayle. He has told the Today programme that the island is "not a tax haven".

"That is not just my view," he said. "That is also the view of the OECD and the University of Amsterdam, which recently produced a list of tax havens and the Isle of Man was not one of them.

"The Isle of Man closely mirrors the UK's customs rules and regulations and our VAT act of 1996 mirrors the UK's 1994 one."

BBC Breakfast

The Isle of Man has been in the spotlight after it emerged Formula One champion Lewis Hamilton got a £3.3m VAT refund after a Bombardier Challenger 605 aircraft was imported into the island in 2013.

Howard Quayle, chief minister of the Isle of Man, tells the BBC that the dependency has not done anything wrong.

"I can't discuss individual cases but the Isle of Man closely follows the UK law on VAT, and as a result, we're fully compliant. We have HMRC come over every quarter to review our practices, that's a matter of course, and they have found no wrongdoing," he said.

"But to prove that there has been no wrongdoing, we have invited the HM Treasury to carry out an assessment of our practices on the treatment of VAT on business jets... the two key allegations we received from Panorama have been investigated, and the evidence we have is that there has been no wrongdoing and that those individuals will get their VAT back if they reside in the UK.

"Up until 2011, these jets were zero-rated and they paid no VAT. If you're using them for business, you're entitled to a full refund. VAT is highly complex... and as a result we have called in HM Treasury to review our practices.

"But we are convinced that had [Lewis Hamilton] applied in the UK, he would have been given the full VAT refund."

If you missed the second edition of Panorama, from Monday night, looking at the Paradise Papers, you can watch it here.

Image source, Tax Justice Network

In order to end tax avoidance, governments need to start taxing the global profits of multi-national corporations, says advocacy group Tax Justice Network, external.

"The current tax system is broken beyond repair. After two years of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) trying to patch up the system, even its biggest members the EU and US have given up and are looking at alternatives," said Tax Justice Network's chief executive Alex Cobham.

"If we want to stop companies like Apple taking a bite out of our public services, we need a much better way of taxing multinationals.

"Unitary taxation would save governments billions in lost tax revenues – as well as making multinationals and tax authorities accountable to citizens in a completely new way."

Image source, Getty Images

The CEO of Cayman Finance, which protects and develops the financial services industry on the Cayman Islands, has defended the territory's tax status.

“Cayman is a transparent, tax neutral jurisdiction and not a tax haven," said Jude Scott.

"Our legal, regulatory and legislative regimes clearly show we meet none of the definitions of a tax haven used by the OECD or leading transparency organisations.

“Like other international financial centres, the Cayman Islands has had to get used to unfair and inaccurate reporting about our role in the global financial marketplace.

"However, we will not tolerate unfair attacks against our Queen, Elizabeth II, who maintains normal and legal investments in Cayman, a British Overseas Territory, a compliant and transparent jurisdiction that is part of her Dominion."

The offshore finance industry puts trillions of dollars worldwide beyond the taxman’s reach.

Here’s one way the wealthy use to avoid those tax bills.

The Paradise Papers allege that Apple rearranged its affairs, moving the firm holding most of its untaxed overseas cash to Jersey. Here is what the Jersey government now has to say:

BBC Breakfast

Although taxes might be lower in some countries than the UK, an expert says that this does not mean that businesses do not have to pay anything at all in a tax haven.

Such jurisdictions can afford to charge only small or minimal rates of tax because they are "quite small countries," Russ Mould, a companies expert at AJ Bell, tells BBC Breakfast.

"Its outgoings are much smaller... it may not charge much corporation tax, but it will charge companies to register...there will still be income tax of some kind," he says.

"They will attract high net worth individuals, so they might not charge a big [tax] percentage but there will still be money coming in, customs and excise will be quite high, and you might even have to pay departure tax."

Image source, Getty Images

This is what Apple chief Tim Cook said four years ago, during a US Congressional grilling into the firm's tax affairs.

"We pay all the taxes we owe, every single dollar. We don’t depend on tax gimmicks.

"We not only comply with the law, we comply with the spirit of the law."

The Paradise Papers showed that Apple, the world's most profitable firm, has a secretive new structure that would enable it to continue avoiding billions in taxes.

Apple denies breaking any laws, and says it remains the world’s largest taxpayer.

Today Programme
BBC Radio 4

Apple has been accused of exploiting tax law loopholes in the US and Republic of Ireland.

Commenting on the Ireland revelations, Brian Lucey, professor of finance at the School of Business, Trinity College Dublin, told the Today programme: "It really shows the size of the multi-nationals you are dealing with, when you think that the cash hoard of Apple is equivalent in size to the reserves of a country like Singapore."

Rita de le Feria, professor of tax law at the University of Leeds, said: "If we believe the problem is just on tax havens, that is a misunderstanding of the issue at stake."

Image source, Getty Images

And here is the OECD speaking on the issue. Its Monica Bhatia tells BBC Five Live's Wake Up to Money programme that there is indeed increasingly close co-operation between nations to combat tax evasion.

"There are 150 countries and jurisdictions that agreed to exchange information for global law enforcement purposes," she says.

She said that they were also regularly looking at newly-emerging tax avoidance schemes and coming up with ways to tackle them.

Andrew Walker
World Service economics correspondent

BBC economics correspondent Andrew Walker says that the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) estimates that between 4% and 10% of total global corporate revenues are lost to tax evasion.

That costs the global economy some $10bn to $240bn a year he told BBC World Service.

"That is a lot of money for any government, but particularly in developing countries. There is an international effort under way to do something, co-ordinated by the OECD."

BBC Radio 5 live

Image source, Getty Images

The Paradise Papers have been ruffling a few feathers.

"Reporting has been misleading, sensational, and simplistic. This is manufactured news," Gavin St Pier, Guernsey's chief minister tells BBC Radio Five Live's Wake Up to Money.

He said the leaks were part of an orchestrated political campaign.

Mr St Pier said Guernsey employed 7,000 people in financial services, which accounted for about one third of its economy.

"We have nothing to apologise for or be embarrassed about."