Panama Papers: Cameron unveils new law on tax evasion

UK Prime Minister David Cameron on Monday unveiled a new law that would hold companies liable if they failed to stop their employees from evading tax.

In a statement to the House of Commons in the wake of the Panama Papers documents leak, Cameron also said that British overseas territories had agreed to start exchanging financial account information automatically from September.

He announced the establishment of a government task force, made up of Revenue and Customs, the Financial Conduct Authority and other bodies, to look into the Panama Papers documents.

Cameron's financial affairs have come under forensic scrutiny since it was last week revealed in leaked papers from law firm Mossack Fonseca that his late father Ian had run an offshore trust from which his son had benefited.

The prime minister defended the right of all people to make money legally, in testy exchanges with opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn that divided the debate along class lines.

Cameron said the fund, Blairmore Holdings, in which he held shares that he sold for a taxable profit of £19,000 in 2010, was legitimate, adding that such investments were "standard practice and not designed to avoid tax".

Corbyn argued that the UK had not done enough to stop those with wealth from using offshore tax havens which gave the impression that there was "one rule for the rich and another for everybody else", adding that in the context of the government's austerity programme ordinary people were angry that more wasn't being done to maximise tax receipts.

"Does he realise why people are so angry? We have gone through six years of crushing austerity. Families lining up at food banks to feed their children, disabled people losing their benefits, elderly care cut and slashed, living standards going down."

"Much of this could have been avoided if our country hadn't been ripped off by the super rich refusing to pay their taxes."

"The truth is that the UK is at the heart of the global tax avoidance industry. It's a national scandal, and it's got to end," he said.

Just as Cameron was about to stand up, his Finance Minister George Osborne published his own tax return for 2014-15. Corbyn published his as the prime minister made his opening remarks.

Osborne had over the weekend indicated he would consider releasing his tax returns, but Cameron appeared to force his hand on Monday morning.

“The prime minister has made it clear that he was willing to be transparent. That is right for potential prime ministers also,” Cameron's spokesperson said.

“With regard to those in charge of the nation’s finances, the prime minister takes that the view that chancellors and shadow chancellors should show transparency.”

Osborne is seen as one of the contenders for Cameron's job when he steps down before the next election, due to be held by 2020.

Cameron's returns from 2009-15 showed he received two payments totalling £200,000 from his mother Mary in 2011, a year after he inherited £300,000 from his father.

They also reveal he earned almost £1.1m and paid about £400,000 in income tax. The earnings included almost £47,000 from a share of rent paid on his family home in west London.