Apr 5, 2016

Surprised this thread hasn't been made already. This was huge news. Essentially data was leaked that the most powerful people in the world have been evading taxes.

http://panamapapers.sueddeutsche.de/articles/56febff0a1bb8d3c3495adf4/

"In the months that followed, the number of documents continued to grow far beyond the original leak. Ultimately, SZ acquired about 2.6 terabytes of data, making the leak the biggest that journalists had ever worked with. The source wanted neither financial compensation nor anything else in return, apart from a few security measures.

The data provides rare insights into a world that can only exist in the shadows. It proves how a global industry led by major banks, legal firms, and asset management companies secretly manages the estates of the world’s rich and famous: from politicians, Fifa officials, fraudsters and drug smugglers, to celebrities and professional athletes."



In business, you can avoid taxes by investing in something. If a company makes one million dollars, but spends 500,000 on investing in new technology for their product or something like that, they're only taxed from the remaining 500,000 because that's all of their "profit." (I'm not a businessman so I'm not sure on the complete legality of all the kinds of spending but I think this is a basic summary). This is all normal and fine; all companies require investing in order to grow their company.

So a company in Panama basically made a business in creating fake businesses. Companies could "invest" million of dollars and then it wouldn't be taxed, because according to legal documents it isn't profit, it's an "investment," which is untaxable, and then they would get their money back from the fake business. So imagine if that $500,000 of investments from my above example was fake, and after awhile 90% of the money was given back to the business (I'm assuming the Panamian company took a cut of the money as payment). 2.6 TB of data in total, over 11 million documents and over 200,000 fake companies. According to the website that published the news of the leak, they were contacted by an anonymous source with encrypted files with the data sometime in 2015. Here's am exerpt from the article:

Over a year ago, an anonymous source contacted the Süddeutsche Zeitung (SZ) and submitted encrypted internal documents from Mossack Fonseca, a Panamanian law firm that sells anonymous offshore companies around the world. These shell firms enable their owners to cover up their business dealings, no matter how shady.

Apparently there's several trillion dollars of money that should've been taxed and wasnt. Not sure if that means trillions that should've been taxed off of, or trillions of dollars of straight tax money, but either way it's a LOT.

Many political leaders (many seem to be in the Middle East), and celebrities are involved as well. To prevent any one person from being blamed for the leak, hundreds of news organizations are going to release further full details tonight (that's what Ive heard, not sure how true it is) but the list apparently has thousands of people/companies on it. There's 11 million documents though, and even though hundreds of journalists have been going through the data for months, there's still information that has yet to come to light.




Here’s a list of the international figures who have been linked to the Panama Papers:

Vladimir Putin’s associates
The Russian president’s name does not appear in any of the records, but hisbest friend and other close associates have been named by the ICIJ investigation for allegedly having helped launder more than $2 billion. A Putin spokesman said last week that it was bracing for an upcoming “information attack” and that an organization was trying to smear the Russian leader.

Sigmundur Gunnlaugsson
Iceland’s Prime Minister co-owned a British Virgin Islands-registered company called Wintris Inc., which reportedly held shares worth nearly $4 million in three Icelandic banks that collapsed during the financial crisis of 2008. He stormed out of a reecent television interview when asked to explain his involvement in the offshore company. His spokesperson said in a statement to ICIJ that the Prime Minister had “adhered to Icelandic law” and properly disclosed their financial interests to the tax authorities. He has since resigned.

Mauricio Macri
The president of Argentina did not disclose his connection to Fleg Trading, a company which was incorporated in the Bahamas in 1998 and dissolved in January 2009. Macri, his father and brother were directors of the company. Macri’s spokesman told ICIJ that the Argentine president didn’t list Fleg Trading as an asset because he had no capital participation in the company.

Petro Poroshenko
The Ukrainian president set up a secret offshore company in the British Virgin Islands in 2014 when his troops were being wiped out in eastern Ukraine by Russian troops and pro-Moscow rebels, according to TheGuardian, citing the Panama Papers. A spokesman for Poroshenko said in a statement to the ICIJ that the creation of the trust had no relation to political and military events in the Ukraine.

Bashar Assad’s cousins
The Syrian president is linked to the Panama Papers through two cousins, Rami and Hafez Makhlouf, who control key gateways to Syria’s oil and telecoms industries, USA Today reports.

Lionel Messi
The Argentine professional soccer star and his father, Jorge Horacio, were the ultimate beneficial owners of a Mossack Fonseca-registered company called Mega Star Enterprises, which was set up in 2012, according to TheGuardian. They are both currently on trial in Spain for tax evasion, the newspaper said. Messi plays as a forward for Spanish club Barcelona and the Argentina national team.

David Cameron’s father
The late father of the British Prime Minister ran an offshore company that allegedly avoided paying taxes in Britain by hiring several Bahamas residents to sign its paperwork, The Guardian reports. Ian Cameron, who died in 2010, helped create and develop Blairmore Holdings Inc. in Panama in 1982 and was involved in the investment fund until his death, according to the ICIJ.

Bidzina Ivanishvili
The former Prime Minister of Georgia owned a company based in the British Virgin Islands, although it’s not clear what the company was used for, according to the ICIJ. The reclusive billionaire, whose tenure as prime minister ended in 2013 after about a year, earned his wealth in Russia in the metals and banking industries. Gia Volski, a representative for the ruling party in the former Soviet republic of Georgia, told state TV that Ivanishvili “has nothing to hide and has never hidden anything,” the Associated Press reports.

 

Apr 5, 2016

scandals on scandals on scandals