Slashdot Mirror
Panama Papers: Data Leak Exposes Massive Official Corruption (theguardian.com)
An anonymous reader writes: The hidden wealth of some of the world's most prominent leaders, politicians and celebrities has been revealed by an unprecedented leak of millions of documents that show the myriad ways in which the rich can exploit secretive offshore tax regimes. The Guardian, working with global partners, will set out details from the first tranche of what are being called "the Panama Papers". Journalists from more than 80 countries have been reviewing 11.5m files leaked from the database of Mossack Fonseca, the world's fourth biggest offshore law firm.
Twelve national leaders are among 143 politicians, their families and close associates from around the world known to have been using offshore tax havens. Among national leaders with offshore wealth are Vladimir Putin, Nawaz Sharif, Pakistan's prime minister; Ayad Allawi, ex-interim prime minister and former vice-president of Iraq; Petro Poroshenko, president of Ukraine; Alaa Mubarak, son of Egypt's former president; and the prime minister of Iceland, Sigmundur Davio Gunnlaugsson. The leak is one of the biggest ever - larger than the US diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks in 2010, and the secret intelligence documents given to journalists by Edward Snowden in 2013. More here. Search the Offshore Leaks Database here.
Twelve national leaders are among 143 politicians, their families and close associates from around the world known to have been using offshore tax havens. Among national leaders with offshore wealth are Vladimir Putin, Nawaz Sharif, Pakistan's prime minister; Ayad Allawi, ex-interim prime minister and former vice-president of Iraq; Petro Poroshenko, president of Ukraine; Alaa Mubarak, son of Egypt's former president; and the prime minister of Iceland, Sigmundur Davio Gunnlaugsson. The leak is one of the biggest ever - larger than the US diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks in 2010, and the secret intelligence documents given to journalists by Edward Snowden in 2013. More here. Search the Offshore Leaks Database here.
But I am not surprised. Time to do some 1789?
Yes, I'm left. You have a problem with that?
It's Sigmundur Davið - that's an eth, not an o. And yes, people were already furious with the way he's been running our government, now it's boiling over. Hopefully we'll be getting rid of him soon enough....
If I ever become wealthy and mad, I'll leave Companion Cubes on desert islands for shipwreck survivors.
Remember citizens, 'conspiracy theorists' are just nutjob losers who want to blame the reptilians or whatever for the fact that their lives suck and their tinfoil hats are too tight. The world is, in fact, basically decent and as-described. Carry on.
Looking around, it doesn't look like there are any people listed from the US.
https://panamapapers.icij.org/the_power_players/
Concert cellist Sergei Roldugin has known Vladimir Putin since they were teenagers and is godfather to the president's daughter Maria. On paper, Mr Roldugin has personally made hundreds of millions of dollars in profits from suspicious deals. But documents from Mr Roldugin's companies state that: "The company is a corporate screen established principally to protect the identity and confidentiality of the ultimate beneficial owner of the company."
Tomorrow's papers: Sergei Roldugin was found in his Moscow apartment this afternoon, apparently from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the back of the head.
When the foot seeks the place of the head, the line is crossed. Know your place. Keep your place. Be a shoe.
these papers implicate lots of western politicians directly, esp from uk. to quote "Six members of the House of Lords, three former Conservative MPs and dozens of donors to UK political parties", and david cameron family .
in contrast, putin's implication is indirect at best, with vague indefinite connections,"The Russian president’s best friend – a cellist called Sergei Roldugin - is at the centre of a scheme in which money from Russian state banks is hidden offshore. Some of it ends up in a ski resort where in 2013 Putin’s daughter Katerina got married."
best friend not described as that before? and location of a wedding reception?
but this summary only mentions non western leaders(if we ignore iceland), as of now. curious! /. afraid of ?
who is
Though there is nothing unlawful about using offshore companies, the files raise fundamental questions about the ethics of such tax havens
So the leaks don't expose much of anything. This does raise the obvious question of where did that money come from in the first place, but that's old news.
Hmmm... Weird. Also, Canadians, British, Germans, etc. Something is not right.
so as little dirt as possible falls on the U.S. Corruption in global sports organizations, corruption in global oil business, and now this as well, and very little of it falls on the U.S. Very suspicious.
I believe all of these have come to light and under investigation on intentions by the U.S, to wash their hands a bit after the NSA fall-out, and to make the whole world look bad and corrupt, while trying to look like shining white knights themselves.
Is that so? Are you sure?
The man who once ran Putin's campaign to take over all independent media in Russia was found bludgeoned to death in a Washington, D.C. hotel room. He would have been privy to all kinds of insider information, including money Putin has stolen from the Russian people. Take note of the NY Times article where, before an investigation had even begun, the Russia state media was already lying about what happened to Lesin: he had a heart attack.
But this wasn't the first Russian who had inside knowledge of Putin's thefts, and who met a similar fate. Considering the billions Putin has squirreled away overseas, it's understandable people such as Lesin would need to be liquidated, especially, if the reports are true, they are giving inside information to the U.S. or others.
This other article from the Guardian appears to be more in depth, detailing how Putin and his oligarchs have amassed personal fortunes worth anywhere from hundreds of millions of dollars to billions of dollars, all stolen via the endemic corruption of Russian business. Bank Rossiya is essentially Putin's personal bank from which he doles out billions to those who please him. To those who fall out of favor, they have to watch their backs or face the same fate as Lesin.
I'm sure there will be denials about all the facts, but since there is no word for truth in Russian, it's understandable. After all, how can a report about someone's death being from a heart attack come out when the investigation hadn't even begun if you don't want the truth to be known?
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
Nobody is starving just because people with money are using legal tax shelters.
Sure they are; government assistance programs are not as funded as they could be.
I can name a nation of people suffering because fucks like David Cameron and George Osbourne are removing welfare that WORKING people need in order to work and be independent, while they and their cronies all benefit from a wage increase.
And now to find out they are probably throwing money through these tax schemes on top?
They will get destroyed if any link is found. Absolutely destruction of their whole party.
I would hardly be surprised if the lying hypocrite fuck is part of it. He lies through his teeth so hard every single day.
These people, just like scummy multinationals, are stealing money from taxpayers in every country they work.
Money owed to the state.
Don't give me your "but capitalism" bullshit, capitalism is at the core of corruption in the financial world and regulation IS needed to keep them in order.
The free market is the worst thing. It should be banned universally.
All it has lead to it regulatory committees being paid off, or being created BY said companies just to appease a government-run agency, despite them doing absolutely nothing to stop the corruption they should be stopping. (hell, then you have groups like the FDA and FCC in the US being paid off all the damn time to turn away and ignore things)
People are literally dying horrible, painful slow deaths because of these companies releasing toxic foods and products that go out for years before 3rd parties catch them.
It matters for naught, as nothing can be done anyway besides "hey, hey guys, stop selling these things okay?", so it is pretty pointless them saying anything!
It needs to stop. NOW.
And now to find out they are probably throwing money through these tax schemes on top?
So you're basically just ranting with no actual facts, just blind ignorance.
Made more ironic that it's been known for years that Cameron's family fortune was in fact made through tax havens:
http://www.theguardian.com/pol...
Try and be a little more informed, a little less blinkered and a fuckload less bloody stupid.
Each has secrets that can destroy the other.
so I hardly see this as news. At worst It's moderately annoying for the people involved. Also the leakers are probably going to die soon (poor bastards).
Remember all those reforms that happened after Snowden's leaks? No? That's because there weren't any. So long as social issues exist to divide the working class into easily manageable groups you're not gonna see squat. Let me know when you figure out how to get people to stop caring about Abortion, Gays and guns long enough to care about economics..
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
If it's American documents released, there would've been 50 comments in the first 5 minutes begging for military trials and how these leaks are damaging to the country, how we need to protect our military and their assets. People were crying out for the DoJ to arrest, prosecute, stow away in Guantanamo and even execute the leakers. Now that it's primarily about other countries, I don't see any of that outcry. I don't see any media, mobs or prosecutors demanding for these leakers to go through anything like what Assange, Swartz or Snowden are going through.
I hope they find a Hillary/Obama/Sanders threesome somewhere in there.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
Non sequitur... It does not follow. Literally.
It does not follow that if the government had more money that they'd be spending it on social safety nets. It does not matter the government, it simply does not follow. It is not necessarily true that they'd be more inclined to feed the hungry than they would be to make a down payment on yet-another-expensive-defense-project.
I've been alive for quite a while and that doesn't necessarily make me wise - but it does mean I've had the chance to witness a lot of things. One of the things I've witnessed is that governments, at least the more stable of them, don't actually have an income problem. Not at all. They have a spending problem. We talk about the tax breaks and the tax rates while ignoring the fact that the overall taxation rate on GDP is actually as high was it has ever been.
No, the governments have plenty of money. They just spend it on some really stupid things - like another bomber, fighter, aircraft carrier, or straight up hookers and blow. A trivial, nearly meaningless, sum might actually go/have gone to needy people but that's not even a certainty. Hell, it's not even a high probability. So, that doesn't follow. If the government had more money, there's almost certain more hookers and more blow and those just aren't going to do themselves, you know.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
Beware,
This 'event' was 'sponsored' by a Soros funded entity AND there are currently no USA names on the list AND the biggest fingers are pointing at people the USA doesn't like.
Sounds like a setup.
46137
Is not the Clinton's money, it's a charity organisation and their books are open for inspection..
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Some journalists are going to publish only part of it, to damage only those that they have interest in hurting. Wikileaks publishes everything, and that's what we need, so that every citizen can go through it and show what's inside.
People who have access to it, please, leak it all.
(I was checking the journalists in ICIJ from my country, they are not from very different media outlets. I can see a lot staying hidden and I imagine it will be the same for other countries)
No, people might not literally starve. But the rest of us will pay more in taxes to cover the costs of running the government while the ultra-weathy exercise legal options to avoid taxes that regular taxpayers can't. Even if you accept that government simply spends too much, what it does spend still comes out of those taxpayers that pay their taxes, whether at full rate or spectacularly discounted through creative legal methods. Sure, we can work to lower the costs and the need for tax revenue in the first place, but it has to come from *somewhere*, and the ultra-weathy have done fine income-wise or in terms of lower tax rates over the last couple of decades.
That's assuming the methods being used are actually legal.
Not so surprisingly, Slashdot is about the only regular site I go to that I've found allowing comments on this leak. Most news sites & others I frequent have them all disabled. Funny that. Journalistic bravery, or self-preservation? :)
Even less surprisingly, top Russian communist leader corrupt...news at 11.
In any case, rather than follow the money, just keep en eye out for Mossack Fonseca's execs who are reported suddenly 'missing', or have 'accidents' in the near future. The shitstorm over this hasn't even begun yet. Popcorn time.
David Cameron and George Osbourne are removing welfare that WORKING people need in order to work and be independent
What is wrong with this is not that they are removing it but that working people need welfare in order to work and be independent in the first place. Paying welfare to people who are in work just allows companies to pay lower wages increasing the profits for the fat cats at the top.
A guy who once left [grapevine.is] in the middle of a parliamentary session while answering questions because he had a craving for chocolate cake?
Leaving seems to be a thing with him: he apparently walked out of an interview when they asked him about his off shore accounts. Perhaps there was some more cake on offer.
I don't really have a problem with tax breaks, as some call them. Many people don't understand them and will call them "subsidies" or "tax-breaks" or other things without actually understanding them. For example, it'd be fucking moronic to tax a business on income other than its profit. Lots of people who complain about things like taxation (and this is NOT an accusation about you personally - let me make that clear) don't even know the difference between revenue and profit.
I've had conversations that went a bit like this:
They: That company had 1.2 billion in revenue. There's no reason they shouldn't be paying half of that in taxes. .3 billion.
Me: Their profit was
They: Then they need to make more money.
They: All corporations suck!
Me: Did you mean that? Really?
They: Yes. Every corporation is evil, money-grubbing, thieves.
Me: You mean like the EFF or Linux Foundation? How about the ACLU, Habitat for Humanities, or BSD?
They: No, they can't let the guy park his car in the underground parking lot for free. It's against the law.
Me: Wait, what?
They: They have a legal obligation to make all the money they can, at any expense, and anything else puts the CEO in jail.
Me: Are you high?
They: It's called fiduciary duty, you fucking idiot. Look it up on Wikipedia! It's predatory stock-holders doing it!
I've had multiples of those conversations in the past month.
So, you'll have to pardon my skepticism when it comes to people, on this site in particular, attempting to discuss matters not pertaining to computers and technology.
I don't know what your income bracket is but I know that I sold my business and retired 8 years ago. As such, I know what the "wealthy" pay in taxes. I also pay attention to the numbers.
Now, this part might be confusing for you. I'll try to make it clear but I'm not the most articulate.
I have a few dollars. You'd call me rich or wealthy if you saw my bank account. And yes, if you need verification then I've actually met multiple people from this very site - in person. I have also been doxxed, back before it was even a thing.
My tax records are not a matter of public record but I pay capital gains rates. I don't do short-term investing. Just so that you know, a good rule of thumb is that if you hold onto it for longer than a year then it is taxed at capital gains rates. If you hold it less than that then it counts as regular income and is taxed at regular income rates - on the same exact form that you have access to. But, so you know, my overall rate, prior to reducing my burden, is 23% - counting both State and Federal. I can reduce it further than that, in a whole host of ways, but I don't really bother.
This is leading to the confusing part...
I not only don't mind taxes but I feel that I could pay more in taxes and not even notice. It's my duty to not really pay more than is required. I'm not very good at that - ask my accountant. I don't save receipts, I donate anonymously, I don't write off/down most of the things I buy that are business related.
Business related? Absolutely. I'm still very much the chief executive officer for several incorporated groups of people. They're rather passive things but the information, the articles of incorporation/corporate charter, can all be dug out of the records easily enough. That's besides the point.
The point is, you can incorporate if you want. Hire yourself as a sub-contractor and pay you to go to your day job. It might be worth it, if your tax burden is high enough.
But, like I said... I don't mind taxes and would actually happily pay more if I had any reason to believe it'd be spent wisely. When I sold my business, I did donate to the government. Yes, donate. I gave the US Government money, my money, and without force. I specifically was able to donate to NASA. In case your'e curious, you can donate to NASA but you can't earmark the donation for a project. Donations must go to the general operations fund. I was wantin
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
Tax havens exist for everybody.
Everyone can craft a limited liability company or incorporated in a tax haven. They are actually usually no "tax havens" but have simply retarded laws regarding "offshore companies". Try to live in such a tax haven and they tax you like any other country.
Most of the time it is easy from any country - where ever you live - and obviously even completely legal.
Everyone who is not doing it, has his own reasons, probably just o lazy to do the paper work or lack of trust in the the lawyers needed in the "destination country".
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
It would be fun if letters of marque could be used for people who engage in tax doges. Find the cheat and get a large share, not the relatively small share that the IRS alleges they will give you with a ton of strings attached. Another notion is what a cool book or movie it would be for someone to take over a small tax haven and transfer the assets before the law shows up. You could have fun with that plot line. The sequels could involve various extortion angles while the thieves are on the run. It would be one of the times that people root for the pirates.
Consult a legal professional.
However, filing an application to incorporate isn't hard. You generally need three people. One will be president, the VP, and the third will be the treasurer. Or, COO, COE, or COO. Or whatever, really. You just need to fill in those parts of the document.
You basically use your SSN as your tax ID number - they work just fine for that purpose. If the asset's primary use is for the business (in this case, you doing your job) then you can write it off. You can't write off lunch with your wife - necessarily. If she's in sales and you're entertaining a prospective customer then you can write it off. You probably won't be able to write off your whole car but you might get some depreciation. (Don't forget to claim it when you sold it or traded it in.)
There are lots of things to do. Incorporate AND hire an accountant and keep the lawyer on retainer. Depending on how much you make, it'll probably save you money in the first year. You can incorporate and get the protections associated with it. Your boss might need to be amicable to this.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
You made a reference to the first macaroni machine brought to the US by Thomas Jefferson on his return from Europe in ... 1789.
Well done Sir.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
For one as limited as you, you may struggle to see the connection but it is obvious. It is largely a zero sum game with a run off valve. There are X pounds in tax to be paid, there are Y pounds circulating around the economy, there are also Z costs that need to be paid. When greedy citizen A uses the run off valve to remove some of the money for his own purposes, this means that the shortfall in X has to be covered by the rest of us in the form of higher taxes. This affects the lowest earning citizens the most and yes, in many cases literally means they cannot afford food or other necessities.
You see the issue is, when you and I, as working stiffs hide our money from Mr Cameron, he sends some nice men from HMRC to your house with a nice letter that says "pay or go to jail". However when someone like Mr Cameron does it, he's hard done by.
Only the truly naive believe this. The fact is a lot of costs need to be paid and if not paid by the government end up being pushed onto you with a markup. The US health insurance system is a good demonstration of this. Despite all the flaws of the NHS, it's still cheaper than the US system and more effective for anyone except those earning above 150,000 pounds.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
"congress had an overall approval rating of 13%. Yet, 95% of the incumbents retained their seat." Only they don't call it cheating they call it gerrymandering. A nasty little way to make sure the districts are sliced in a way that popular voting does not count, (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerrymandering "how to steal an election") you probably know that but I wanted to remind all our US friend how they get fucked in the ass by their politician.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
Anyway, that's not what I came to say. While it is most certainly true that everybody could profit from these tax havens by "filing the paperwork", that is not entirely true. Many require you to create companies and I know as a fact, than in my country that's not cheap. Well, okay, it'll cost you about the price of a small family car. Is that much? Not really if you've got millions or billions. So, that is one barrier of entry.
Also keep in mind that many smaller businesses and private persons, need their income to actually live. So, that 100000$ income you have? You need it. No way you offshore it all, so you can save on taxes. Bigger companies and very rich individuals have the luxury of having a certain fluidity and can do with that "extra money", including making it disappear in shady tax schemes.
Finally, the above problems didn't exist, you have to look at the return of investment. If I'm setting up a complicated, perhaps even borderline illegal, tax scheme to avoid taxes of, let's say 500$ a year, am I investing my time wisely? We're talking 1.37$ saved a day... That's not even the overpriced latte at Starbucks. Drop the caffeine habit, and save more...
So, I'm not really all that sure it's a matter of "too lazy to do the paperwork".
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
Everyone who is not doing it, has his own reasons, probably just o lazy to do the paper work or lack of trust in the the lawyers needed in the "destination country".
Half of the world live on less than $2/day, I'm sure there's probably other reasons than not trusting your lawyer...
In many countries, rather than being paid directly you can register as a business, whether that's as a sole trader, or some other type really depends on your country, it's laws, and it's options.
Whilst it's getting harder in some countries, such as the UK, what you were long able to do is get your employer to pay your business entity, rather than you, and then pay yourself from your company the minimum salary you can get away with that is either tax free, or low tax. The extra money paid to your business will typically then be paid to you via a mechanism such as dividends, which you will not pay standard income tax bands on, but will pay capital gains bands, which are generally lower.
So for example, in the UK, the tax bands on standard income are roughly as follows:
£0 - £10,000 = 0% tax
£10,000 - £42,000 = 20% tax
£42,000 - £150,000 = 40% tax
£150,000+ = 45% tax
So if you were earning say £60k a year, you'd pay 0% on the first £10,000, 20% on the £32,000 between £10,000 and £42,000, and then 40% on the £18,000 between £42,000 and £60,000. That is:
£0 (0% rate) + £6,400 (20% rate) + £7,200 (40% rate) = £13,600
(Note: You also pay NI tax in the UK, but I'm keeping it simple here).
Now, if you'd instead paid via your company using the aforementioned low salary + capital gains combo, the capital gains tax rates were, until Friday I believe roughly:
£0 - £11,000 = 0% tax
£11,000+ = 20% tax IF you are paying 40% income tax
£11,000+ = 10% tax IF you are NOT paying 40% income tax
So you'd end up paying:
£0 (0% income tax) + £0 (0% CGT tax allowance) + £3,900 (10% CGT tax) = £3,900 tax.
This is because you're paying yourself a salary of £10,000 on which no income tax is owed, and then £50,000 in dividends which are owed at only the non-40% CGT rate, because your salary paid to yourself isn't in the 40% bracket, so 10% is owed on this.
Now, you do typically have other costs from doing this - you have to pay a chartered accountant for example, which narrows the gap, but these costs are typically fixed.
Again this is a very simplified example, other taxes and costs do come in to play, and countries have been cracking down on this kind of avoidance to varying degrees, but hopefully this illustrates the sort of tactic that has long been abused. Effectively it's only worth it if your salary justifies it - the problem is if you're on a lower salary (say £30k), you may find that by the time you've paid your accountant et. al. that you've not really achieved anything other than wasting an awful lot of your time filling in tax returns - it's not worth the effort unless your salary is high enough for the fixed costs and hassle to disappear into irrelevance compared to the tax saving.
Again, depending on the country you're in this may not even be possible any more (if it ever was), or the rates may be adjusted to make it not worthwhile - i.e. some countries have more progressive tax rates than the UK, and some have smaller gaps between income and CGT rates. I don't know how the numbers work out in the US to put it in the context of the GP's point.
it'd be fucking moronic to tax a business on income other than its profit
No it wouldn't. It would be moronic to tax a business on income other than its profit at the rates that currently apply to profit, but there is a lot to be said for a low rate of tax on turnover:
it seems that these documents were leaked from a prestigious law firm no? So that being the case it seems that you would be better served to hire them to deal with hiding your money. Now I'm not sure that the people that used this law firm "did the paperwork" themselves. And so there is a financial barrier to entry obviously
so your arguement falls flat on its face hard
Don't give me your "but capitalism" bullshit, capitalism is at the core of corruption in the financial world and regulation IS needed to keep them in order.
Stopped reading there.
All you need to do is a quick review of the Quality Of Life of the population's lower and middle class during the last 5000 years to conclude that, while capitalism isn't perfect, it's the best system humanity have come up with so far.
Elok
If you think the market is anything approaching an idealistic "free," you've been drinking the kool-aid without reading the label.
So, think of the suffering hookers, pimps and blow dealers who aren't getting that additional business because the government is getting end-run and can't tax the hidden money.
To me, the real problem is that the money is hidden - squirreled away in private control, ready to splash out as a personal power-play whenever the urge strikes. Unlike government programs, these guys already have all the money they need to satisfy their hookers and blow appetites. What these guys do is arbitrarily splash out a big pile of cash when the urge strikes them to own some waterfront property, or a yacht, or jet - they employ a ton of people on a more or less temporary basis and then close their wallet and let everybody go looking for work again. As their numbers decline (per capita), there aren't enough of them to form a stable working economy.
If you could rely on the rich to spend their money, they wouldn't be a problem. Hell, even if they only spend 1/2 of it before they die, that's enough to keep the wheels spinning for the rest of the world. But, when they go all Steve Jobs and sit on their billions until they die, and worse yet squirrel it away out of sight, that starves the economy, depression style.
Really> What percentage of those people receiving benefits are cheats? Go on, provide the statistics.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
"Me: Their profit was .3 billion."
Do you know why their profit was so low? Because (some of them) funneled their profits to the company in tax heaven. How they do that? For example, by buying new logo for 1 billion, taking loan for that witn 20% interest rate, or by licencing for huge value, etc. From the company in the tax heaven.
Legal? Maybe. Ethical? You answer that.
Regulated capitalism. Look at what happened in the US with the train and oil monopolies and you can see that when one person owns it all, lots of people suffer and they don't care.
Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
Really> What percentage of those people receiving benefits are cheats? Go on, provide the statistics.
Here's a couple. By the UK government's own figures 0.7% of the entire welfare budget is accounted for by fraud. That's less even than the amount due to clerical errors by the Department of Work and Pensions, which comes to 0.9% of the total budget.
Better yet, there is good evidence that the welfare system is effectively subsidising large companies, like Tesco and fashion chain Next, who are paying employees on or below the poverty line and letting the welfare system pick up the pieces. Of course you will never see wealthy companies (or their wealthy executives and shareholders) called "benefit cheats"; they are merely "optimising their cash flow".
Your very first sentence is self-contradictory. People need government welfare programs so they can remain independent. What? If one is dependent on a government welfare program, you are not independent. I stopped reading after that. It just wasn't worth my time to continue to find fallacious assertions such as those.
Other than this text, there is no discernible information contained in this sig.