Bernie Ecclestone has avoided paying a potential tax bill of £1.2 billion ($2bn, €1.45bn) to Revenue and Customs (HMRC) after agreeing a secret deal with the British government. A BBC Panorama investigation found Ecclestone paid a £10m ($16.8m, €12m) settlement in 2008 to end a nine year investigation by HMRC into his family's tax affairs. In 1995, when Ecclestone took control of Formula 1's TV rights, he handed the rights to then wife, Slavica, who set-up an offshore trust fund in Lichenstein to contain the profits. Because the trust is offshore, no UK tax is paid on the TV deals Ecclestone makes, avoiding huge tax bills - as long as Ecclestone had no hand in...
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