Owen Glenn - The Absent Consul

It's Small

Not many New Zealanders will know that most dairy farms in New Zealand are larger than the 485 acres that compromise the Principality of Monaco. Indeed at 1.98 kms square, even the fattest of Labour MP’s could push play and walk it. Monaco is just 3.3 kms long and .6 kms wide with 20% of the land being green. To get there find your way with your wallet to Nice in France.

Therefore with such a small land mass and a population of 32,000 and the highest rate of car ownership in the world something doesn’t make sense.

It's Sexy

In the offshore industry in which I work, it is considered the glamour posting for its James Bondish intrigue. Yet I completely lack the love of the French culture and language required to successfully reside there. Plus in terms of net pay after terribly high expenses, there are more profitable places in which to work which is the most important consideration. The offshore industry there is though small, insular but extremely lucrative.

There are Taxes and Charges

The "tax haven" status is a little misleading. In order to fund the Principality of Monaco there are reasonably high Stamp Duty, Capital Transfer Tax and Registration Fees. And of course, income from Casinos. If you work there you have to pay social insurance contributions (well your employer does). These can be up to 50% of salary. It makes doing business there restrictive. A business gets taxed if more than 25% of its turnover is generated outside of Monaco. There is also a complicated VAT (GST) system that taxes depending on essentials and non-essentials.

Only around 7,000 people living in Monaco are actually Nationals, 500 of those are Police and most seem to be related to Royalty. The remainder, with the exception of the poor French who pay tax, are there like Owen Glenn, for its tax "haven" status.

Residency

With regards to claiming residency it really seems to depend on who you know. Once you go through the process of obtaining residency, you are meant to live there 6 months to prove you are resident, in order to keep the status but this can be bargained down to 91 days. We all know Owen Glenn is well connected due to the size of the bulge in the side pockets, on June 11 it is rumoured that he has arranged to receive his New Zealand Order of Merit from the Queen at Buckingham Palace, rather than from rumpy old Anand Satanyand in Wellington.

Glenn is a man who doesn't do things by halves. He's obviously an absolutely fabulous businessman that New Zealand should be ashamed to have lost at such a young age but a diplomat or politician, he ain't. His is a life of far too much "character" and hot chicks.

It's harder to reside in Monaco if you aren't mega wealthy but not as impossible as the media are now painting it to be. Owen Glenn can afford to be tax resident nowhere in the world, ie. keep moving, using his superyacht and no doubt access to many properties worldwide. That he writes down Monaco as his residence may be more posturing for the cameras. When I ran into him in 2002 he told me he was living in Sydney, obviously for less than 183 days a year.

In Monaco you have to rent or buy an apartment suitable for your needs ie. if you have a family you can't rent a one bedroom place but the rent is no more than London or Hong Kong. The most important point is to prove you can support yourself and wont be a burden on welfare. I have heard that just €100,000 is a minimum to be held at your bank depending on the circumstances. Of course if you have to work your field is limited as your employer will have to pay you a fortune and social insurance contributions are high. So you need to be able to afford to do worse than nothing. Which is difficult when the cost of living is so high. Which is why even the super wealthy never actually live there. Plus it bores them to death after a few weeks.

The funniest quirk I think is that I have been told it costs €9,500 to get a Monaco drivers license.

In Monaco, with a Kiwi passport, born in India, from what I have read Glenn will pay only tax on income derived in the USA through his business interests in the USA where the IRS has concreted in laws that cannot be structured out of. It is unlikely he spends much time in Monaco as well.

Suitability for Honorary Consul



Lets forget for a minute that Owen Glenn gave ANY money to Labour and intelligently look at the role of Honorary Consul free of political emotion.

In my travels to far away unusual places I meet many New Zealanders who for the title and privilege that attaches have applied to be and offered to pay for up keeping the positions of Honorary Consul. I have assisted in drafting a proposal for one of these "positions". Few are ever chosen as usually once everyone knows about it, more applicants throw their names into the hat and it confuses the issue too much and nothing gets done.

The larger title of Consul is used for the official representatives of the government of one state in the territory of another, normally acting to assist and protect the citizens of the consul's own country, and to facilitate trade and friendship between the people of the country to whom he or she is accredited and the country of which he or she is a representative.

Owen Glenn is in line to be Honorary Consul to Monaco. It is not a paid position but it comes with privilege such as invitations to important parties that we know Glenn loves and local connections he may not currently have, although that is hard to believe as he has the universal currency of wealth.

Obviously Monaco is not a place where with 32,000 people that you could ever justify a full-time diplomat, but Monaco is not a place that many New Zealanders will ever travel. It’s excruciatingly expensive and not really a backpacker destination. In Monaco, even a man of Glenn's wealth and expertise, is tragically middle-incomed!

Monaco has an Honorary Consul in New Zealand, his name is Richard Worth. Do they need one? Perhaps not but who cares as Monaco drove it and I am sure Richard's not Worth enough to put a dent in any election campaigns over there! But Richard Worth does actually live in New Zealand for the best part of most of the year. He is not in New Zealand to avoid paying taxes, he is a citizen of New Zealand with a long standing record of being present. He's not going anywhere.



The whole point of an Honorary Consul is that he or she is present and available to help should the need arise. Richard Worth passes this very simple first test.

Owen Glenn is effectively a very mobile tax exile who has never been resident in New Zealand for tax for any significant time in his life. He is without question, an incredibly successful businessman but one that I don't think New Zealand can have much claim to. Quite how he got a New Zealand Honour is another great "unsolved" mystery that we all suspect we know the answer to.

The very definition of Honorary Consul requires presence and availability to actually do something should the need arise. According to this article Glenn flirts between the UK, Monaco and Sydney. Throw in a worldwide business and I would be very surprised if he spends more than the minimum 91 days a year in Monaco to keep this residence if he actually has it with his continuing business interests and charitable hobbies all around the world.

In this article, Glenn actually told the reporter that he plans to sell up and live in Sydney.

"Soon he plans to sell the company, return to Sydney and concentrate on the Foundation".

In other words, every New Zealander physically working in Monaco right now could very well be more qualified for this position if the Government want to fill it, than Owen Glenn. Being a very small place, most who physically work there would have by now better connections in Monaco than yet another "rich" guy who comes in for a few days with a boat or by jet and buys drinks at the Casino with blonde entourage.

Conclusion

The only difference being, they didn't loan or give money to Labour.