Two former police detectives who now work as corporate investigators say the Isle of Man needs to fight allegations made in the Paradise Papers with ‘cold facts’.

Rob Kinrade and Dave Bell - who work as Expol Ltd – have spoken out after the investigative journalists from The Guardian, BBC Panorama and other media elsewhere have unearthed information about offshore jurisdictions.

They say that the allegations made against offshore financial centres – not least the Isle of Man – seem certain to rock confidence in low-tax jurisdictions the world over.

In a statement they say: ‘Although the consequences are not yet fully understood, revelations uncovered by the Paradise Papers could be particularly damaging for an industry which provides a backbone for the Manx economy, supporting thousands of local workers.’

Since 2005, Expol Ltd has been operating in the fields of corporate investigation and global risk consultancy from its headquarters in Douglas and more recently opened a base in London.

They say: ‘While directors are not seeking to make a value judgment on the island’s unique tax laws and VAT regulations, we are in a position to make certain comparisons about what we see when carrying out daily research in dozens of jurisdictions, many of which are described as “tax havens”.’

They continue: ‘The Isle of Man’s authorities must fight off bad press with cold facts. It is in most areas a transparent, well-regulated jurisdiction; and it offers a high level of traceability in relation to the research of companies and property assets.’

The investigors say the Isle of Man should be compared with somewhere such as the British Virgin Islands (BVI).

The Isle of Man employs an open-source, publicly accessible and comprehensive Companies Registry, as well as a new beneficial ownership database. The beneficial ownership database, in common with the UK and other jurisdictions, being restricted.

The BVI, meanwhile, will declare merely that a company exists - and nothing else. Even the USA facilitates secrecy through domestic finance centres such as the state of Delaware

They also point to the UK’s Land Registry and say it arguably offers a more shrouded search facility when checking land and property assets of an individual or company.

Expol is a proudly independent firm, but staff regularly peruse open-source databases such as the above when working with clients who are making large acquisitions, when carrying out due diligence and conducting pre-employment screening checks for major organisations.

Mr Kinrade and Mr Bell, who are former senior detectives in the Manx police forece and who have a joint 75 plus years experience in investigations, say: ‘We find, in contrast to many, the Isle of Man offers a good level of transparency and hides very little.’

Among the ‘revelations’ made in the recent Panorama programme were that Formula 1 star Lewis Hamilton, who lives in Monaco, registered his jet in the Isle of Man and didn’t pay VAT.

But the BBC programme failed to say that the Isle of Man and the UK share the same rules on VAT. It did not suggest that the Isle of Man was operating those rules differently from the UK. In fact, it didn’t raise that issue.

The Isle of Man Government has subsequently referred the issue to Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs.

If that concludes the island has been applying the rules differently, there will be a case to answer.

If it doesn’t, Panorama’s ‘scoop’ will be totally undermined.

Panorama also claimed it had evidence to show how far the Manx government was prepared to go to help tax dodgers.

But its evidence involved a Tynwald order from almost 13 years ago, which was enacted but never used. Then those rules were changed seven months later.

Most viewers probably concluded that this sort of thing happens all the time in the Isle of Man, rather than the truth, that this was a one-off from 2004 that had no real effects whatsoever.

Again, with that knowledge they might have been surprised that the BBC judged it worth airing on prime time television.

If those allegations were the best that Panorama could come up with, it must throw into doubt just how explosive the 13million documents about off-shore jurisdictions leaked (or stolen) from the Appleby law firm really are.