UK private jail owners send profits to tax havens

(Daily Mirror): Private jail bosses paid from the public purse are putting profits offshore to avoid tax, MPs will be told this week. Firms making millions out of the privatisation of British justice are not paying their due, says a Prison Officers’ Association report. Taxpayers pick up the bills for land and buildings of these jails. But the people running them have parent companies which the POA has traced to tax havens. The report says: “Billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money is being diverted from essential public service provision that could benefit society as a whole. Often those that benefit most are registered in tax havens.” POA general secretary Steve Gillan said it was “a national scandal”.

The report says: “Making a profit out of incarceration is morally repugnant. Companies have a vested interest in keeping the prison population high to maximise profits.” It says firms have no incentive to go along with Mr Clarke’s “rehab¬¬ilitation revolution” – aimed at cutting the ¬crippling expense of ¬prisons by ¬reducing the number of inmates.

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