Exclusive: How a court case over an unoccupied office block could end a widely used tax avoidance scheme
From the outside, the seven-storey building at 2 America Square looks like any other office block in the heart of London’s financial district.
Located about half a mile from Tower Bridge, one might expect it to be a hive of commercial activity, teeming with employees holding important meetings. However, much of the property is home not to staff vying for their next bonus, but to stacks of nondescript black boxes arranged in neat lines.
The building, leased by a Virgin Islands-based company called 48th Street Holdings Ltd, has found itself at the centre of a court case that has finally signalled the end of a tax avoidance scheme believed to have cost local authorities more than £1bn.
For almost two decades, companies in England have been exploiting a legal loophole to avoid paying business rates on unoccupied commercial buildings.
