Letters: No way to dodge the tax haven issue
It's sad, sombre, sobering and soulless, when one reads that the aid budgets in most of the wealthy countries are falling, yet so many of the really rich hide their money offshore for personal gain (Secrets of the rich who hide cash offshore, 4 April). Yet the privatising and profiteering 1980s and 1990s seem to have imbued the public with a "me-only" mentality. The really wealthy have fed at our expense, and instead of giving back to their countries, have gouged more private wealth instead of realising their obligations – and how much joy they could get from setting up foundations to aid the poor.
Unless governments set the standards and change their legislation to encourage opinion leaders to value those who give over those who are incredibly rich, we appear doomed to this selfish culture. We need more people like the Australian businessman Dick Smith, who believes that financial magazines should be publishing lists of the top 100 tax payers rather than the top 100 wealthy. In other words, we need to see tax paying as a positive, rather than a negative, and ensure that those who reap untold benefits (often from public licences and permits) contribute their fair share. Sadly, I don't see this happening.
Peta Colebatch
Pretty Beach, Australia
Your investigation into offshore account holders reveals the corrosive effects of financial secrecy. But the impacts are neither restricted to a few high-profile cases, nor to rich countries. Developing countries lost an estimated $859bn in 2010 to illicit financial outflows – more than they received in aid, and more than the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the UN estimates would be required to end hunger globally. This year, the G8 should act to end financial secrecy by agreeing to publish a registry of who owns companies, foundations and trusts, automatically share tax information with other countries, and push tax havens to do the same. This would help governments north and south to recover billions of dollars which could transform the lives of millions of people living in poverty.
Sol Oyuela
Christian Aid
Gavin Hayman
Global Witness
Kathleen Spencer Chapman
Oxfam
Brendan Cox
Save the Children UK

Reading your headline, we were astonished that you think that rich people hiding money away in tax havens is a "secret". That the rich do this is pretty well common knowledge, and we are sure that for them it's de rigueur. The 2011 book Treasure Islands by Nicholas Shaxson and other investigations into these havens have just confirmed that this manifestation of tax dodging and obligation dodging have been going on for years. As most of these havens are British and we are governed by rich boys and the City, why should we expect anything to change? As Shaxson points out, the City of London is the largest tax haven of all, so why don't you go after this large group of (British) anti-social people with the same doggedness you used for phone hacking?
Kay and Barrie Thornton
Ellesmere, Shropshire
Brilliant investigative journalism. Well done. Any chance you could expose the lawyers and accountants in the City of London who benefit from this lucrative trade as intermediaries? The UK's share of £21tn could solve the deficit problem at a stroke and IDS won't have to prove he can live on £53 a week. If Labour doesn't pick up on this and dismiss all talk of austerity programmes then we should all hand in our cards and vote Green.
John Airs
Liverpool
If George Osborne genuinely does want to "make work pay" his best move would be to increase the minimum wage to a living wage. This would take many working people out of the welfare net and remove, or at least reduce, the need for taxpayers to subsidise companies so that they can pay low wages in order to increase their profits (no doubt sent abroad to avoid tax, or squandered on director's needless bonuses). It would also increase spending on goods and services thus giving a boost to the economy. And those then getting a decent wage would pay a bit more in tax – isn't this a win-win-win idea?
Michael Miller
Sheffield