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Shuttleworth Loses $20m Battle With S. African Reserve Bank Over Expatriated Funds
An anonymous reader writes: Canonical founder Mark Shuttleworth has lost his long running battle with the South African Reserve Bank over a R250m exit charge ($20.5m) levied on his personal fortune when he tried to ex-patriate to his new home on the Isle of Man in 2009. The exit charge was part of a capital control system since abandoned by the South African government, which Shuttleworth had successfully argued at the Supreme Court of Appeal last year amounted to an unconstitutional tax. The Supreme Court ordered the Reserve Bank to pay Shuttleworth back.
While Shuttleworth had promised to leave the R250m in South Africa as a fund for helping others to press constitutional issues to the highest court in the land, the Reserve Bank appealed to the Constitutional Court for a final appeal — which it won this morning. The upshot being that the bank gets to hold onto the money after all. One judge did offer a dissenting opinion, however, in which he said he would have dismissed the final appeal with costs. The article notes that "The irony is that the exit charge at the heart of the matter is no longer levied on transfers going out of the country."
While Shuttleworth had promised to leave the R250m in South Africa as a fund for helping others to press constitutional issues to the highest court in the land, the Reserve Bank appealed to the Constitutional Court for a final appeal — which it won this morning. The upshot being that the bank gets to hold onto the money after all. One judge did offer a dissenting opinion, however, in which he said he would have dismissed the final appeal with costs. The article notes that "The irony is that the exit charge at the heart of the matter is no longer levied on transfers going out of the country."
Really? The HMRC in the UK is very quick at giving overpayments and corrections back - on a few occasions I have had cheques simply turn up without any requests or even knowing I was due one.
I suggest you take a trip out of your comfort zone to countries away from the cuddly comfy west and see how "confused" I am.
Your argument is that I should visit some regressive hellholes which are known to be poor on human rights as my comparison? They treat women like second-class citizens in those countries as well, I suppose you also support that wholeheartedly.
Give your boyfriend a kiss and cuddle in the middle of a street almost anywhere in the middle east, africa, russia, central america or the more conservative parts of far east and see how long before you're beaten up or in prison.
Yep, I was right. You ticked off a list of places it's shitty to be a woman without any apparent awareness that these places just don't get the whole "human rights" concept in general. Which, mind you, I don't think are natural; I think we have to fight for each one, and then go on to defend it.
Hell, even do it in a lot of southern US states and see what happens.
Yes, I already know the south is full of hicks in sticks. Until you get to ATL, perhaps, which is one of the gayest cities in the world. Dallas is also very very gay. Austin has (had? haven't checked) a gay bar called the "Rainbow Cattle Club" that you drive past most times you go downtown via the 35. So there's even places in the south where homosexuals are permitted to behave like all the other humans, most of the time anyway.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"