The Isle of Man’s position is at the centre of international scrutiny like never before - and much of what’s been said is simply wrong.

iomtoday.co.im is calling on our readers to stand up for Mann.

The island was given a big boost on Friday when the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Developmen said the Isle of Man retained the top ’compliant’ rating by the global body reviewing tax transparency - one of only six countries worldwide.

The UK and US are also among scores of countries deemed ’largely compliant’ based on a first round of reviews.

That news came after an onslaught of criticism from off the island.

The latest round of island-bashing began with the so-called revelations of the Paradise Papers.

Now some politicians in the UK have jumped on the bandwagon and are gunning for the island, with one even alluding to the possibility of imposing direct rule from Westminster.

The topic was discussed in the House of Commons last week after Panorama and the Guardian promised revelations about the island.

Yet the evidence presented by the work of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists was flimsy at best.

In fact, it was based on innuendo, supposition and much of it was downright misleading. One of Panorama’s great revelations was of a Tynwald order from TWELVE years ago, which was enacted but never used.

It centred on a protected cell company scheme from 2005 which Panorama claimed was designed to undermine the European Savings Tax Directive, a measure aimed at preventing cross-border tax evasion.

A casual viewer might have thought Panorama had evidence that this happened all the time in the island, rather than evidence of one incident that happened quite a long time ago under rules that were changed seven months later.

Is that really such a big deal, warranting primetime exposure on BBC1?

Is that the best the Paradise Papers could come up with from the 13.4 million confidential electronic documents relating to offshore investments through which many investigative journalists have sifted?

Panorama included the allegation that Formula One four-times world champion Lewis Hamilton, who lives in Monaco, avoided paying VAT on his £16.5m jet by using an Isle of Man scheme.

Chief Minister Howard Quayle told reporter Richard Bilton that the government only accepted VAT refunds on imported jets if it was ’100% for business use’.

The only glimmer of a real story was that the Paradise Papers included a document from Manx Customs & Excise showing Lewis Hamilton’s jet was used 15% for private use.

What the Panorama audience was not told was that the Isle of Man and the UK operate under the same VAT rules.

The Isle of Man is the only low-tax jurisdiction to share VAT with the UK. Other jurisdictions have their own purchase taxes.

For Panorama to have had a real scoop, it would have shown that the Isle of Man judges VAT rules differently from the UK.

But it didn’t bother to even address that issue.

After being confronted by Panorama, the Manx government has asked Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs to look into the island’s VAT system.

It could be, of course, that the HMRC concludes that the Isle of Man does operate VAT rules differently, in which case there really would be a case to answer.

When Mr Hamilton bought his jet, it was no secret.

The Isle of Man Examiner - and other media - reported the deal as it happened in 2013.

When a Manx company, Bridgewaters, was linked to what Panorama and the Guardian portrayed as a shady deal involving Everton FC, the company in question issued an unequivocal statement.

’Bridgewaters had, prior to tonight’s programme being aired already confirmed that it was not owned or controlled by the individual referred to in the Sunday BBC programme and comments to that effect in tonight’s programme are wholly inaccurate.’

The editing of the Panorama was appalling.

The allegations about the Isle of Man segued into allegations about James O’Toole, a ’tax alchemist’ who could legitimately turn taxable assets into something that would pass unnoticed by UK tax authorities.

At Isle of Man Newspapers, we were baffled. Who was he? How come we didn’t know anything about him?

It turned out he had nothing to do with the Isle of Man and works from London. Panorama’s audience would not know that.

The Guardian is continuing with its attacks, however.

On Tuesday it ran a piece full of cliches about the island’s slow pace of life.

It said there was ’nothing in the local media, at least, to indicate the island was in the eye of an international storm that has swept across Europe and the US’.

Our readers know that is drivel.

The Isle of Man Examiner included a page after the first Panorama programme and last week’s Manx Independent included three pages about the Paradise Papers and the front page was about the Paradise Papers-inspired threat to the VAT agreement with the UK and page two also featured a story outlining Margaret Hodge’s attack on the island.

The online version of the Guardian story linked to two stories from our site, iomtoday.co.im designed to show slow life in the island.

One was of a car crash that it said was last week (in fact, it was on October 24, but the Guardian and accuracy aren’t natural bedfellows) and a court case involving a man spitting at someone else.

We must confess that when we saw the story links on the Guardian, we altered our stories to include links to our Paradise Papers stories, to give Guardian readers a novel experience: accurate reports on what its investigations actually uncovered.