Render unto Caesar....

Just back from the Solicitors. As always, smiling at the incongruity of the rigorous money laundering processes to be gone through for a relatively small sum with my lawyer, D, who has been a good friend for 15 years.    We lunch almost weekly, I celebrated family weddings, and he cleared up parental estates.   But the incongruity lies in the amount of paperwork over very little - while "Foreign criminals are using the London housing market to launder billions of pounds, pushing up house prices for domestic buyers, a senior police officer has warned.
Donald Toon, the director of economic crime at the National Crime Agency, spoke after a spike in receipts from a tax on homes bought up by companies, trusts and investment funds rather than individuals. 
Such corporations, usually based in offshore tax havens, are sometimes used by buyers keen to hide ownership of assets from their own countries’ tax authorities. The secrecy they offer can equally be used to squirrel away ill-gotten gains."   The Times - today.