Panama Papers Source Breaks Silence Over 'Scale Of Injustices' (theguardian.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: The whistleblower behind the Panama Papers broke their silence on Friday to explain in detail how the injustices of offshore tax havens drove them to the biggest data leak in history. The source, whose identity and gender remain a secret, denied being a spy. The whistleblower said the leak of 11.5m documents from the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca had triggered a "new, encouraging global debate," thanks to the publication last month of stories by an international consortium of newspapers, including the Guardian. The source gave Suddeutsche Zeitung leaked documents from Mossack Fonseca's internal database in real time installments. The papers included details of the beneficial owners of offshore companies, passport copies, and emails. The source said they decided to act after understanding the "scale of the injustices" the documents described. Mossack Fonseca denies wrongdoing and says its operations in Panama and elsewhere are "beyond reproach." Intriguingly, the source said they originally offered the documents to "several major media outlets." Editors reviewed the Panama Papers but in the end "chose not to cover them," they alleged. It is unclear which media organizations declined the material. The anonymous whistleblower also approached WikiLeaks -- again without success. "Even WikiLeaks didn't answer its tip line repeatedly," the source complained, adding: "The media has failed." The source used the name "John Doe" when they approached Germany's Suddeutsche Zeitung newspaper.

Comments

Pirate party

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's follow the example of the Icelanders, who jailed their corrupt bankers, and who come next election will vote in the Pirate Party. They promote transparancy and government accountability. You can't be corrupt if everything you do is public. Moreover, the big governments tell us, if we don't have anything to hide, we should give up our privacy but how about we turn that argument right around onto them?

Re:Pirate party

[whoever57]

Also, no need to go abroad to hide assets. Delaware provides all the necessary secrecy.

Re:Pirate party

[Anonymous Coward]

Delaware is in the United States and provides ZERO secrecy to Federal Investigations and IRS investigations, and zero against TMC celeb website.

Look, there are a bunch of you trying to explain away this bizarre lack of American politicians, businessmen, contractors, lobbyists, celebrities, in the Panama Papers, Occams razor, they've been filtered because the leak comes from an agency with a legal duty to filter out the Americans. Who else would take the trouble? Why else would they take the trouble?

But that means there's an agenda there, and likely its a surveillance agenda.

Crusader for taxes?

[ebonum]

Still seems strange. Who's mission in life is it to help all governments collect more taxes? It would make more sense if it was more targeted. Say someone who saw Nigeria's oil money going oversee into official's secret accounts.
The simplest explanation is still: A government agency did this so that they could pass laws giving them more control over the global financial system. Have a problem with China? If you know everything in every bank, you can hurt the children of the rulers. That is leverage.

Re:Crusader for taxes?

[tsotha]

The story here isn't that some people haven't paid taxes. We don't know, after all - just because you have money in a foreign bank account doesn't mean you haven't paid your taxes. The real story is how some of these people managed to accumulate such large sums of money on a relatively small official salary.

Re:Crusader for taxes?

[hey!]

Still seems strange. Who's mission in life is it to help all governments collect more taxes?

Do I really have to spell this out for you? When rich people hide their taxable income, it means everyone else has to pick up the slack.

No thinking person should be against taxes. If you don't like government, you should be against spending. Taxes are simply the corollary of spending.

Re:Crusader for taxes?

[rtb61]

The story is those people cheating on the taxes are the same people promoting austerity, actually buying politicians, so services are cut back due to lost tax revenue and citizens suffer and die. So tax havens are basically economic terrorists, attacking other countries economies and harming those citizens in collusion with the corrupt politicians of those countries and the 1% psychopath class as well as transfer of funds from the tax evaders accounts to the corrupt politician accounts (so hiding money has been proven, what has yet to be accounted for is how that hidden money was earned). So it is not just people cheating a little on their taxes, it is organised crime upon a massive scale, bribery and corruption, upon a mass scale. The question is should countries being cheated by tax havens and having their democracies attacked and their economies seriously damaged, declare economic war upon tax havens, real serious, active economic war to destroy those tax havens and put them out of business.

Re:Why so many media didn't publish this?

[CrimsonAvenger]

Note, for the record, that "evaded taxes" has a legal meaning. What is described in the documents in question doesn't fit that legal meaning (hence the new expression "tax avoidance" to describe legal ways to pay less taxes, as opposed to "tax evasion" which is a crime).

Also note that there isn't actually any evidence that any crimes were committed by anyone mentioned in any of the documents in question.

Now, whether what is so described fits the definition of "moral" is a lot more debatable. Especially when people in government spend time decrying "tax avoidance" (not a crime) while at the same time doing "tax avoidance" themselves....

Re:Why so many media didn't publish this?

[JaredOfEuropa]

Also note that there isn't actually any evidence that any crimes were committed by anyone mentioned in any of the documents in question.

Like hell there isn't. The documents themselves do not mention crimes but they certainly are proof of crime. There is no law against setting up anonymous corporations and sticking your money in there, but you still have to declare that money to internal revenue. Hiding your money by using this construction is tax evasion, not avoidance.

The wealthy benefit heavily from my taxes

[rsilvergun]

I pay about 27% Fed & State alone (single male, no house, decent income). Meanwhile they get subsidies, bail outs and a military that protects their overseas factories and investments.

Here in the States our infrastructure is crumbling. Flint, Mi just poisoned their entire city to save a buck on their Water bill. There've been several bridge collapses and we've got dams all over the place in danger. Our roads are clogged with cars because there aren't enough roads. It's a mess, and the rich just fly jets & helicopters over it or drive in their limos. Meanwhile I pay for the airports their private jets use.

So yeah, screw that noise. They're benefiting from civilization they should bloody well chip in. They're not doing that. I say bully for this guy.

Re:Why so many media didn't publish this?

[ultranova]

There are a number of perfectly legal and non tax related reasons for hiding business activity from competitors or parasitic 'investors'.

And there are a number of perfectly legal and non murder related reasons why you might be sneaking behind someone with a knife and a Scream mask.

Prove on a case by case basis that these people were cheating on taxes before trying them in the court of public opinion.

Ah yes, the good old "delay until public's attention is diverted" -tactic. The court of public opinion isn't a criminal court. It's a civil one, and operates on preponderance of evidence.