Your ongoing investigation into the Paradise Papers (Huge data leak reveals how the global elite protects its wealth from the taxman, 6 November) is vital. The leak confirms the vast extent to which big companies and individuals hold money in UK-linked tax havens, which can help to drain billions from the world’s poorest countries. Tax avoidance could cost developing countries $200bn a year according to the IMF.

From ActionAid’s experience on the ground, we know that it is the poorest women and girls who suffer most when taxes aren’t paid. When schools charge fees because they aren’t properly funded, it is girls who are the first to drop out. When hospitals don’t have the resources they need, it is women and girls who are most likely to be left caring for the sick.

The government must use its power to boost transparency and make UK companies publicly reveal the amount of profit they make and tax they pay in each country where they do business, and ensure UK-linked tax havens introduce public registers of the companies they host.

Jon Date

Senior advocacy manager, ActionAid UK

• The late Sue Townsend’s scenario in The Queen and I of eviction of the royal family to a council housing estate is perhaps still a step too far for many; but turning the royal household into a department of state, with its wealth and liabilities under public control, and its staffing levels subject to regular review, would be a useful beginning. Monarchist citizens enjoy the ceremonial aspects of the institution; I doubt that they think our country needs a royal family that plays obscurely in the offshore markets (Queen’s cash invested in controversial retailer accused of exploiting the poor, 6 November).

Tony Robinson

Frinton-on-Sea, Essex

• If the Queen of the Cayman Islands invests in the Cayman Islands, is it technically “offshore”, or is she just supporting a local business?

Nigel A Callaghan

Machynlleth, Powys

• Naughty of you to infer that Jeremy Corbyn singled out HM the Queen to apologise for tax evasion (Paradise Papers: Theresa May refuses to promise register of offshore trusts, theguardian.com, 6 November). He said “ANYONE” who put money into a tax haven to avoid paying tax should apologise. And so they should, especially when supported by millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money.

Sue Nicholson

Whitley Bay, Tyne and Wear

• Who are all these people angry at the Queen? Our 90-year-old monarch who has carried out her duties as head of state impeccably for the past 60 years has done nothing wrong. The investment advisers of the Duchy of Lancaster have done nothing wrong either. The Queen’s estate has been scrupulous in paying 100% of the tax due.

What is the press trying to do? I am sure there are those at the Guardian – and the BBC and other media – who would like to see the monarchy destroyed, and with it the history and the income it brings to Britain.

Maureen Bridge

Tavistock, Devon

• Never in the course of history has somebody avoided so much tax while trying to influence British politics and overinflate the price of gallantry medals often won by those who paid the ultimate sacrifice for their country (Tory donor Ashcroft used offshore trust to shelter wealth while in Lords, 6 November). Perhaps it is time to ask why non-doms, such as Lord Ashcroft, are still allowed to make political donations. Trade unionists are not paying the political levy via tax havens. In light of the new revelations, if no criminal prosecution is possible, the government could at least seize his UK assets, including his medal collection, and strip him of his British citizenship to spend the rest of his days in Belize.

David Nowell

New Barnet, Hertfordshire

• The Paradise Papers have identified school fees as one of many uses of offshore money (James O’Toole: the ‘tax alchemist’ who can slip assets past UK taxman, theguardian.com, 6 November). I wonder how many private schools check the provenance of funds coming as fees. Private schools’ charity status also seems to offers them the opportunity to be untransparent and unaccountable, even to the community they serve.

The Charity Commission confirmed to me that a fee-paying school’s opposition to disclose information was validated by its constitution and was also in line with the Charity Commission’s rule. The Association of Governing Bodies of Independent Schools also claimed to me that governors would not be able to exercise independent judgment efficiently, contribute freely and honestly to the establishment of strategy, and support and hold to account the management, if they could not be assured that all they said was confidential.

The implication that private schools’ authorities cannot work effectively unless they are granted secrecy raises big concerns and not just about money laundering. Private schools are also not obliged to respond to freedom of information requests. Wouldn’t it be time that these schools also lost their ringfenced right to secrecy and became more transparent in their governance?

Dr Katia Chornik

London

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