Panama Papers Affair Widens As Database Goes Online (bbc.com)

In late April, it was reported there would be a huge new 'Panama Papers' data dump on May 9th. The report did not disappoint as today the Panama Papers affair has widened, with a huge database of documents relating to more than 200,000 offshore accounts posted online. The database can be accessed at offshoreleaks.icij.org. The papers were leaked by a source known as "Jony Doe," and the papers belonged to the Panama-based law firm Mossack Fonseca. The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) decided to make the database public despite a "cease and desist" order issued by the law firm.

Comments

So what happened, or will happen?

[Anonymous Coward]

... Apart from the primeminister of iceland...

Re:So what happened, or will happen?

[Sarten-X]

Not much.

I haven't followed this leak closely, so it's very possible I've missed something, but as I understand it, the vast majority of the offshore accounts being publicized are completely legal. Embarrassing to their owners, perhaps, but not illegal in themselves.

Rather, the release of such private details is likely illegal, so any prosecution or criticism has to admit that it also benefited from illegal activities, effectively shooting itself in the foot.

Re:So what happened, or will happen?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's nice to know when, say, a CEO lets his/her employees go because there's not enough money (and yet there's many millions in offshore accounts).

Re:So what happened, or will happen?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not sure about the first part. I suspect the same thing, that the vast majority are completely legal, but there's no telling until the breach is analyzed. I do expect a large amount of illegal activity to come forth too. Primarily from undeclared assets and interest.

All that said, while the release of these details, and the methods by which they were obtained may be illegal, that won't stop prosecution. Lets say Johnny Storm hacks a computer belonging to Pamela Isley and dumps it's content online. The hack and subsiquent dox are illegal. However, illegal material is also found in that dump, belonging to Pamela. That is also clearly illegal, and while it may (or may not, lot of if's in this scenario) be admissible as evidence in it's own right, it will be probable cause for investigators. If it turns out to be real and they find more evidence, the fact that the first action by Johnny was illegal will not stop them from going after Pamela.

To put it in a more physical sense. I break into someone's house, discover a meth lab, and tell the cops. Yes, I am going to jail for breaking and entering. However, the cops aren't going to say "well, the method by which the lab was discovered was illegal, better not let us catch you again!". No, they'll take my statement, get a warrant, raid the house, and gather more evidence.

Re:So what happened, or will happen?

[wierd_w]

If I am not mistaken, the fact that these accounts are legal is a significant contributor to the public outrage (fabricated or otherwise) concerning this media event.

EG, if there were no laws against poisoning pigeons in the park, then a group of kids showing up with cans of bugspray and hosing down birds to watch them flop around until dead would not be illegal. That does not mean that the behavior is socially acceptable-- just not illegal in this contrived example. (Yes, I am well aware that it is indeed illegal to poison pigeons in most western countries. This is just an analogy; tortured and not ideal perhaps, but just an analogy.)

The real world example of the panama papers reveals a substantive effort by many power elite to obfuscate holdings, financial connections with industries they may be regulating as elite power brokers, and dealings with agencies or groups of less reputable character, as well as run of the mill tax avoidance, and sheltering of assets from unsteady local economies.

The practices are not "illegal", but they are socially unacceptable, which is why there is a scandal. The fact that "such things are actually legal" throws gasoline on the fire, not water.

Another tortured analogy might go something like this:

In many European countries, prostitution is perfectly legal. A conservative political figure publicly decries the practice of prostitution, but uses obfuscated holdings such as these to pay for such services on a very regular basis. No laws are violated-- the money was his to spend, and the service he obtained with it is legal. That does not make the circumstances stop being scandalous-- That of his blatant hipocracy, and abuse of client privilege to hide it to continue to snooker his electorate.

So, the fact that these accounts are not illegal does not remove the controversy, it is what causes it.

Can we move past that line of reasoning now?

Re:So what happened, or will happen?

[wierd_w]

In theory, evidence collected through illegal means cannot be submitted in court. "fruit of the poisoned tree" and all that.

In practice, in the US at least, there is this insideous thing called "parallel construction" where the prosecution pretends that they have a magic crystal ball, and knew all along about the nefarious dealings of Pamela, and just so happens to be putting forth a case against her at this time as a pure coincidence. ;)

Re:So what happened, or will happen?

[MightyMartian]

Doesn't that usually apply when the state is the one using illegally obtaining the information (i.e. without a warrant or with an overbroad warrant, etc.)

What exactly is the status of illegal conduct revealed by a third party? I'm sure the IRS, and really tax authorities the world over, must be able to investigate potential evasion if a third party releases the data.

Re:So what happened, or will happen?

[Anonymous Coward]

In the US, this only applies to evidence illegally obtained by law enforcement. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... Relevant quote: "Evidence unlawfully obtained from the defendant by a private person is admissible. The exclusionary rule is designed to protect privacy rights, with the Fourth Amendment applying specifically to government officials"

Re:So what happened, or will happen?

[ShanghaiBill]

It's nice to know when, say, a CEO lets his/her employees go because there's not enough money (and yet there's many millions in offshore accounts).

Companies employ people when the employees add value and contribute to profit. They don't employ people because they can afford the spend the money.

Re:So what happened, or will happen?

[Sarten-X]

The practices are not "illegal", but they are socially unacceptable, which is why there is a scandal.

That's ridiculous. These practices are quite openly available and documented. I personally used to work for a company that advertised where we could help set up foreign accounts.

Another tortured analogy might go something like this... his blatant hipocracy, and abuse of client privilege to hide it to continue to snooker his electorate.

And that's fine for a scandal, but it's still not illegal. At that point, people are outraged that a politician might have lied! Of all the unspeakable horrors, that one should certainly go without saying.

That's pretty much exactly what happened in Iceland. A politician promised to fix up banks, and was found to have held a large interest in the very banks he was using government power to save. That's a conflict of interest, and a good reason to be upset, but he apparently made all of the required disclosures at the time. He might not be the person you want to have in charge, but whether that's enough reason to kick him out of office is a matter for local laws.

So, the fact that these accounts are not illegal does not remove the controversy, it is what causes it.

Can we move past that line of reasoning now?

Well, frankly, no. Moving "past this line of reasoning" is to beg the question of whether the outrage is justified. In effect, you're asking that we suspend rule of law, and vilify people for daring to disregard the morality of this particular angry mob.

I'm all in favor of bringing justice to those who have actually done something illegal, but we must be careful that we aren't just aiming our anger at a convenient scapegoat.

Re:So what happened, or will happen?

[ShanghaiBill]

In theory, evidence collected through illegal means cannot be submitted in court.

The leak violated Panamanian law. It is not clear if any American laws were broken.

"fruit of the poisoned tree" and all that.

"Fruit of the poisoned tree" usually only applies if the government broke the law to obtain the evidence. It does not necessarily apply if the law breaking was done by a third party.

But very few of the people on the list were Americans. We have plenty of perfectly legal domestic tax shelters.

Re:So what happened, or will happen?

[ShanghaiBill]

The practices are not "illegal", but they are socially unacceptable

Don't be so quick to judge. Many people on the list are from Mexico, Venezuela, Colombia, and other Latin American countries where extortion and kidnapping for ransom are common. Some of them are hiding their wealth to protect their families.

If they are not breaking any laws, then why do you care where they park their money? Why is it any of your concern?

Re:So what happened, or will happen?

[Anonymous Coward]

Companies employ people when the employees add value and contribute to profit. They don't employ people because they can afford the spend the money.

True, but it is also becoming more and more popular for companies in the US to tell their employees that the company simply cannot afford to give them a cost-of-living raise, even though the company is raking in record profits. Especially if those profits are hidden in "secret" off-shore tax dodge accounts. This is one reason why the gap between the highest and lowest paid people in a corporation is widening every year. Company boards of directors routinely vote themselves big fat pay raises for themselves and the shareholders, but won't pay their workers much of anything. You know, those same workers that are doing the work producing all those corporate profits.

Re:So what happened, or will happen?

[wierd_w]

So, what you are saying is:

It is perfectly legal for a wealthy person (Let's say a Greek politician) from Cyprus to have heard, through whatever means, that the banks were going to seize private deposits, and to have taken extraordinary measures to create offshore shell accounts and transfer their fortune there to protect it while everyone else that lacked the connections to create this labyrinth of obfuscation had their accounts siezed in the forced austerity plan.

Because it was perfectly legal, there is no controversy?

I fully expect that very situation to be there at least one time in this data dump.

That's the problem with conflict of interest-- you cannot prove that they did the transfer with knowledge of the impending crash that the public did not have, and further, there might not have even been laws like the US's insider trading rules concerning such action to begin with. That does not change the percieved injustice of a wealthy politicians continuing to be wealthy, after crashing the bank and loan infrastructure, and financially emperiling everyone else around them-- which is exactly what these kinds of services are essentially for.

There is a reason I used the poisoned pigeons analogy earlier. Something can be perfectly legal, and yet be very repugnant at the same time. Claiming "But it is not a crime to poison pigeons!" does not in any way reduce the repugnance of poisoning the pigeons for sadistic pleasure.

Privatizing gains and socializing losses is repugnant. Obfuscated foriegn accounts exist for this very purpose.

Re:So what happened, or will happen?

[ShanghaiBill]

True, but it is also becoming more and more popular for companies in the US to tell their employees that the company simply cannot afford to give them a cost-of-living raise, even though the company is raking in record profits.

Companies give raises, or not, based on what they think they need to pay to retain employees, and attract new employees. They don't give raises "because they can afford it". Employees chose to stay, or not, based on what they think they are worth, and what they can earn elsewhere.

Whether there is "hidden money" or not, is irrelevant. Plenty of highly profitable companies layoff workers that they consider unproductive, as they should. No "affordability" justification is needed.

Re:So what happened, or will happen?

[wierd_w]

That kind of reasoning could be applied to literally any questionable behavior, including literally illegal ones.

But as to "why I care:"

Let us consider a moment, a wealthy politician who is involved in policy decisions that would affect the nation's credit rating with the IMF, and thus the comparative value of the native currency against that of other nations. In the US, this is literally every congressman and senator-- They are all involved in the anual fiscal budget process, and thus contribute to these decisions.

The very existence of a foriegn money shelter is a conflict of interest in this case-- Given sufficient holdings of exchanged currency, a devaluation of the domestic currency would result in a marked increase in capital power of the investment.

EG, let's say that when the exchange is first made, the currencies are at parity 1:1 exchange. The money is now no longer in dollars-- it is now in some foriegn currency. The US's credit rating is degraded, say because of insanity on capitol hill involving the budget deadline, and now the exchange is .75usd:1whatever. The effective fortune of the politician just increased by 25%, especially if they believe the US Dollar will rebound. After the devaluation, they exchange back to US dollars, wait for the recovery, then buy foriegn notes again. Possibly even repeat.

You cannot prove that they did this intentionally.
What they did is "perfectly legal."

Does that make it socially acceptable though? I say "No." The potential for rampant, flagrant abuse is astounding, and the people who can afford these shelters are the very people in positions capable of enacting these kinds of events.

Re: So what happened, or will happen?

[Anonymous Coward]

At sone point in the future, you may not need employees to run companies. Why do people exist and why do companies exist? Are countries platform for corporate overlords to profit from people's resources and land? At some point the discussion is gonna be this:

Employees are not needed and workers can't survive without jobs. Do We do? If you consider humanity as a group, then work should not determine your social welfare. If humanity does not exist, only "land/capital" owners, then the conclusion is the goal is to fire everyone at some point, and whoever isn't well capitalized should migrate earth.

This is why offshore is important. Today, companies and wealthy individuals pay profits. When they hide their wealth through proxies and rely on Bermudas, Switzerland, etc. they are just leaching everyone in the world.

Why should they enjoy the safety the USA brings them if they won't even contribute with taxes? Work has a lot of taxes because companies and the wealthy evade a lot. It's very patriotic to see Warrent Buffet take the stance that income tax should raise for wealthy. Until we find a way to "replace work with something better", not paying important taxes just places all the burden on work, making it more expensive, and accelerating the process to replace work with lower paid work or just "automation".

Offshore hiders are a net negative for humanity.

Re:So what happened, or will happen?

[Trogre]

High frequency trading is also legal.

Re: So what happened, or will happen?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do people exist

Good luck with that one.

why do companies exist

To make profit for interested shareholders. And nothing aside.

Re:So what happened, or will happen?

[LostMyBeaver]

Nonsense.... the highest paid are the highest paid because they are skilled negotiators who understand how to market themselves and convince the people who are approving their raises and those higher sums that it is reasonable to do so.

The lowest paid are the lowest paid because they lack the ability to represent themselves and build their network to increase their perceived value to others. They don't place themselves in the right places with the right people at the right times. As a result, they are overlooked or aren't given their higher pay.

There is absolutely nothing out there that says that if an employer wants to keep more money for himself and believes that he can continue operating his company and holding onto his employees without giving raises that he is obligated to give raises anyway. It would be like you going to the more expensive car shop to buy the exact same car with the exact same terms at a higher price because it just feels right to do so. You don't even feel shy telling the car sales person you really want the car but it's a little out of my price range when you know perfectly well you can pay the extra $20 a month without even thinking about it. And he doesn't feel shy telling you that he can't really afford to come down any further on the price.

If you don't know how to be a dirty whore... or you think it's beneath you to make jokes about your secret of your success is related to wearing knee pads, you will be paid based on what the market will bare. If I can convince you to work for me and earn me lots of money while I pay you a wage that says "If the government would legally permit me to pay you less, I would" why the hell should I pay a guy willing to work on those terms more?

That being said, I refuse to hire anyone at all that would be willing to work for someone like that. If you don't understand your own self worth well enough to come straight out and say "Listen, you and I both know that I'm worth more than that. Let's for the moment suggest that I'm asking you to pay me X+$10,000 a year, you want to pay me X - $10,000 a year and we'll settle on X which will make us both feel as if we didn't quite get exactly what we wanted but walked away better off than we would have otherwise".

Also... what I find amazing is that most people don't realize that when you apply for a job which is listed as $80,000-$100,000 a year, that's not the number the company can afford, that's the number which the company believes that can hire the person for the position for. In reality, if they publish a budget of $80-$100, they can easily pay $120-$160 if you can convince them that you think you're worth it.

This is where the problem arises, convincing yourself you're worth it. First of all, do you think that your presence at the company is worth their outlay of about $250,000 a year which is what that $160,000 salary will cost them? Is there any profit in the company hiring your for that price? Understand you would never want to work for an idiot who can't figure out whether you're actually worth that much. Now... it's irrelevant whether you are in fact worth that much. What is important is, will your employment at the company generate enough value for the company that either you'll bring in the $250,000 for them (hopefully some profit as well) or that the services you're providing the company will provide that much in value. For example, would it cost more or less to hire a consultancy who also provides insurance and service etc... Does your knowledge have the opportunity that simply having you present to spout words of wisdom will make money or save money?

If that's the case, then think to yourself as those guys do... If I try to start with a price which I believe I'm worth and then justify it based on how much value I bring to the company, then why not instead identify what I believe the company can afford to pay and instead of asking for the sum that I wanted, I can instead say "If my presence is worth $5,000,000 a year to the company, then I surely can ask

Re:So what happened, or will happen?

[Sarten-X]

there might not have even been laws like the US's insider trading rules concerning such action to begin with.

Then you should be angry at lawmakers, not somebody who happens to have better circumstances than someone else.

That does not change the percieved injustice of a wealthy politicians continuing to be wealthy,

"Perceived injustice" is not the same thing as an actual injustice. A "perceived injustice" is when someone beats you in an automobile race fifteen consecutive times because their car goes faster. An actual injustice is when he does so by breaking an established rule like a power limit.

There is a reason I used the poisoned pigeons analogy earlier. Something can be perfectly legal, and yet be very repugnant at the same time. Claiming "But it is not a crime to poison pigeons!" does not in any way reduce the repugnance of poisoning the pigeons for sadistic pleasure.

It does, however, drastically alter the morality of the situation. The responsibility for the objectionable act shifts from the perpetrator to the lawmakers. If this is such a widely repugnant act, then lawmakers would be negligent to allow it to remain legal. On the other hand, perhaps it's not pigeons, but rats. They may be a disease-spreading menace, and harboring them may actually be detrimental to society. In this case, the lawmakers would be fully justified to allow the killing of such plague-bearing pests, regardless of how much you might love the little furballs.

Ultimately, the purpose of a lawful government is to codify the rules that provide for the betterment of society. If you disagree with the laws, that's a matter for you to take up through the proper channels of your government, but you do not automatically get the right to harass and defame law-abiding citizens just because they have resources that you don't.

Re:So what happened, or will happen?

[Anonymous Coward]

New AC here:

Companies give raises

"Companies"? I do not think that word means what you think it means.
It's "officers" in the company who make such decisions, not some non-corporeal legal entity.

Those same officers give themselves ridiculously exorbitant pay rises and benefits, all while telling the staff that the organization is going broke. (Sometimes, they give themselves such benefits WHILE the organization is going broke.)

I'm not saying companies should hire people just for the heck of it ... I'm drawing attention to the contradictions / blatant lies.

Re:So what happened, or will happen?

[Anonymous Coward]

So, what you are saying is:

It is perfectly legal for a wealthy person (Let's say a Greek politician) from Cyprus to have heard, through whatever means, that the banks were going to seize private deposits, and to have taken extraordinary measures to create offshore shell accounts and transfer their fortune there to protect it while everyone else that lacked the connections to create this labyrinth of obfuscation had their accounts siezed in the forced austerity plan.

It can't claim that this is "perfectly legal" but there's no question in my mind that it is moral. You speak as though this is a bad thing to do. Why should a private citizen not do all they can to protect themselves and their wealth from such a collapse?

Privatizing gains and socializing losses is repugnant.

Ah, now you're suggesting that the person's wealth is ill-gotten. That's a wholly different matter. I guess you left that as implicit in the description "politician". I completely agree that this kind of moral hazard is utterly repugnant. But it is the theft and fraud that is at fault, the government involvement in banking, and the taxation that are the problem. Protecting oneself from theft and general economic lunacy is one of the few solutions and its a shame that it's so inaccessible to most. Let's have more private banking options so that individuals can, for example, evade all taxation with little concern.

Re:So what happened, or will happen?

[wierd_w]

(shakes head)

The controversy *IS* "Why is this legal?!"

That is what people are outraged about-- that these kinds of things happen all the time, and are considered "normal" in the world of international high finance.

I thought I pointed that out? The people of the western world are collectively asking that question because of the disparity in how the system operates in this regard.

That is why the argument "But it is perfectly legal!!" is assinine. The fact that it is legal is what is being taken exception to. People want it to not be legal!

I can fully understand why they would want to make it illegal--

Not only does it allow the wealthy to shift the burden of maintaining an orderly society onto the more scrupulous (because, pshaw, they could set up offshore accounts too, if they werent so dumb and poor minded!-- or whatever) by allowing them to "avoid" taxes on their wealth, It allows their financial fortunes to rise with the tide of everyone else during the good times, but fail to sink like the others when that tide goes out.

Simply because you CAN do something, does not mean you should.

By your reasoning, if an online game has a technical issue that can be exploited to your advantage, it is "Totally not cheating" to use that exploit, because the game lets you do it--even if that exploit basically makes it so you cannot lose.

And further, "If you have an issue with it, you should take it up with the game's developers."

Newsflash-- it is still cheating.

In this case, the cheaters have a hand in developing the game, and have a vested interest in keeping the exploits-- and other people dont really have a choice to not play against them.

The ethics of the action are indepedent of the legality of the action. A cheater seeks an unfair means of getting ahead of the competition. Most offshore account providers have prohibitive minimum deposit values to make use of them, making them effectively unusuable by nearly everyone but the already wealthy. This makes them unfair, even though, should some outrageous circumstance drop shitloads of cash on a random joe, he is technically "able" to open one himself, if he knows about them.

A technical exploit in an online game is likewise available to anyone who knows about it and has the tenacity to exploit it-- everyone has the same binary user application after all, and play on the same servers. the rules apply to everyone. Theoretically, anyone can do it!

But doing such an exploit will get you just as banned. :)

Why? because it is cheating.

Thinking that everyone should cheat, and that by not cheating you are just dumb or something, is so unethically minded I dont even know where to begin.

The same applies to global finance. The system lets you do it. That does not make it stop being an unfair and abusive practice against less powerful market actors, and thus unethical to even consider.

Re:So what happened, or will happen?

[wierd_w]

Do you really not see the ethical problem?

When everyone evades taxes, no taxes are collected. When no taxes are collected, no vital services that maintain the society can be provided. The society ceases to function, and everyone suffers.

When some evade taxes, (to maintain their wealth, naturally!), but others do not, the ones evading the taxes privatize their gain (an orderly society with working essential services), while socializing the loss (All those other people have to pay for it.)

Sickeningly, those best able to shift that burden onto others, ar the least liklely to have serious, like changing consequences of having to pay, and the ones forced into the situation, are the ones most harmed by being forced into it.

Sheltering your wealth is NOT victimless, because no action is without consequence, and the ideal you have stated (everyone evades paying) harms everyone the most.

That's just taxes. There are numerous other ethical problems with simply sheltering fortunes against sagging economies through exploiting the world monetary system.

Really, you cannot see these?

Re:So what happened, or will happen?

[Anonymous Coward]

Not much.

I haven't followed this leak closely, so it's very possible I've missed something, but as I understand it, the vast majority of the offshore accounts being publicized are completely legal. Embarrassing to their owners, perhaps, but not illegal in themselves.

It isn't illegal to have offshore accounts. All of them are illegal.
The illegal part is to not mention the money there on your tax declaration and since there is no benefit in having your money in Panama unless you do business there or if you intend to keep it hidden I would guess that the vast majority of the accounts there was opened with criminal intent.

It is still wrong to out the few people who have accounts there for legit reasons. (Perhaps they have been removed from the leak, who knows?)
The thing you can do to help here is to not assume that someone is a tax evader just because they are on the list, just like you shouldn't assume that someone is a rapist or a pedophile based on a mere accusation.

An interesting side point is that more than half of the taxes are being evaded. Almost exclusively by the people/companies with the largest income.
If one could get them to pay their share of the taxes it would be possible to cut the taxes in half for everyone while still maintaining the same public funding.
I guess the lower/middle class just don't realize how much more money they would have in their pocket if the rich couldn't avoid paying taxes.

Re: So what happened, or will happen?

[untoreh]

Isn't that a little discriminatory? The tldr of your post is basically if you are not a good salesman of yourself you deserve your lower pay. This implying every human is supposed to be good at making contracts? I am not sure life is "the wolf of wall street "...

Re:So what happened, or will happen?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, I am well aware that it is indeed illegal to poison pigeons in most western countries.

Which is very bad. Pigeons are like flying rats. They spread diseases and destroy property. And you cannot do much with it when they are protected by law.

Re:So what happened, or will happen?

[Anonymous Coward]

That is why the argument "But it is perfectly legal!!" is assinine. The fact that it is legal is what is being taken exception to. People want it to not be legal!

Nonsense, the voting record of people indicates that they do not give a damn. Parties promising fair taxing and corruption elimination are not winning the polls. Parties promising/giving small freebies are wining the polls. Or worse, parties advertising the most are winning the polls.

Thinking that everyone should cheat, and that by not cheating you are just dumb or something, is so unethically minded I dont even know where to begin.

If everyone would move earnings to tax havens then the governments would be forced to do something about it to preserve their tax income. So you are rejecting one of the ways to remedy the situation.

Re:So what happened, or will happen?

[Anonymous Coward]

What you do not seem to understand is that system (like human society) will converge to Nash equilibrium and not Pareto optimum. You are trying to argue for utopia. Which might work a bit if there would be significant percentage of human population who would share your views and care enough to act.

Re:So what happened, or will happen?

[LongearedBat]

Nonsense, the voting record of people indicates that they do not give a damn.

I disagree. One can only vote for alternatives when alternatives are available. When all parties stand on the smae side on this topic, then there are no alterantives to vote for.

Re:So what happened, or will happen?

[just another AC]

Nice world you live in, no messy shades of grey.

Some people might know their self worth, but

due to financial commitments (like mortgages in places where house prices and rent are ludicrous) cannot afford to say goodbye to an employer and potentially need to tread water for a few months until something else comes along.
due to family commitments may need to work in a particular suburb to be close to a particular hospital (condolences if that is anyone here) / school / retirement home / ...

or many other reasons.

Re:So what happened, or will happen?

[Anonymous Coward]

If I am not mistaken, the fact that these accounts are legal is a significant contributor to the public outrage (fabricated or otherwise) concerning this media event.

EG, if there were no laws against poisoning pigeons in the park, then a group of kids showing up with cans of bugspray and hosing down birds to watch them flop around until dead would not be illegal. That does not mean that the behavior is socially acceptable-- just not illegal in this contrived example. (Yes, I am well aware that it is indeed illegal to poison pigeons in most western countries. This is just an analogy; tortured and not ideal perhaps, but just an analogy.)

The real world example of the panama papers reveals a substantive effort by many power elite to obfuscate holdings, financial connections with industries they may be regulating as elite power brokers, and dealings with agencies or groups of less reputable character, as well as run of the mill tax avoidance, and sheltering of assets from unsteady local economies.

The practices are not "illegal", but they are socially unacceptable, which is why there is a scandal. The fact that "such things are actually legal" throws gasoline on the fire, not water.

Another tortured analogy might go something like this:

In many European countries, prostitution is perfectly legal. A conservative political figure publicly decries the practice of prostitution, but uses obfuscated holdings such as these to pay for such services on a very regular basis. No laws are violated-- the money was his to spend, and the service he obtained with it is legal. That does not make the circumstances stop being scandalous-- That of his blatant hipocracy, and abuse of client privilege to hide it to continue to snooker his electorate.

So, the fact that these accounts are not illegal does not remove the controversy, it is what causes it.

Can we move past that line of reasoning now?

can we move past the line of reasoning that this is somehow a "scandal" like anyone with double figure IQs doesnt implicitly understand THIS IS HOW SHIT WORKS and how IT ALWAYS HAS WORKED and ALWAYS WILL WORK. And whatever tip of iceberg is uncovered here is irrelevant compared to the true scale of this kind of shit going on across the World like it Always has, and Always will. And no amount of media or public outcry or changing of rules will change a damned thing, only perhaps a minor inconvenience to Those who will simply seek alternative ways to do the same thing
in other Words, yawn.

Re: So what happened, or will happen?

[Anonymous Coward]

I am not sure life is "the wolf of wall street "...

But maybe you should be.

Re:So what happened, or will happen?

[DarkOx]

When everyone evades taxes, no taxes are collected.

Evasion is a crime where you do not pay taxes lawfully owed. What most of these people are doing is 'avoidance' where you take steps within the rules to minimize the taxes owed. Frankly anyone who does not engage in tax avoidance is a fool. If you have money you want to give away pick a good charity many of them will do more good for society per dollar than government will! Letting government collect even one penny more than they are due is irresponsible.

What liberals don't understand (or maybe they do) is that a complex tax code is inherently unfair. The more wealthy you are the greater the influence you can probably get in terms of rule writing, the more resources you can expend on avoidance and the bigger the pay off. Basically the more funny little rules you right to try and use tax policy as a social engineering tool and make it less 'regressive' the more the super wealthy will find ways to game the system. Right down to the form of paying people wages they could not possibly live on without the earned income credit.

Income and wealth taxes are fundamentally a bad idea. After a 100 years of trying its time to admit that. We should institute a national sales that applies to all transactions, include financial instruments, and currency exchanges. Next define a VERY SMALL range of goods an services lower economic classes disproportionately spend on. Make filing entirely optional, set single inflation adjusted gross income hurdle, people below that amount can file a statement saying they earned less than a the hurdle amount and request an sales tax rebate for what they spent on the defined goods.

A system with so few rules will be essential impossible to game. The only people who will have any wiggle room are the folks who don't make much in the first place so the degree to which they can evade will be small.

Re:So what happened, or will happen?

[bloodhawk]

a reasonable portion of the accounts are being investigated by various countries for tax fraud and other money laundering violations. I would expect over the coming couple of years there will be some significant prosecutions from it as while hiding money in an offshore account is not strictly illegal. misreporting income on tax is as is not declaring assets during various court cases.

Re: So what happened, or will happen?

[Anonymous Coward]

You do realize that making tax avoidance illegal is really quite simple. In actual fact personal \ non company individual declarations of international assets is becoming more and more common place and issuing untaxed income sources with various tarrifs and regulations especially with the digitization of currency and banking is as simple as supplying official tax summaries and then having the recipient country issue the outstanding tax.

On the opposite end of the spectrum should you send monies to countries without such regulations they could issue an export tarrif (which places like Australia are now considering) though in my view any of this its all too little too late as the systemic damage is already done. What needs to happen to any form of tax avoidance past or present needs to be followed up and outstanding fees need to be paid.

Any offenders who have been found breaking laws need to have those assets given to the holding state or split in half. It may seem unbalanced but if we are ever to have justly working economies again this form of financial tricky needs stoped.

On the otherside setting up flat taxes for all of income brackets because its over taxation of the rich which causes the issue in the first place.

Re:So what happened, or will happen?

[Anonymous Coward]

A prime minister has already resigned, a ton of other public officials too.

Re: So what happened, or will happen?

[jmac_the_man]

You do realize that making tax avoidance illegal is really quite simple.

Tax avoidance tautologically can't be made illegal because tax avoidance simply means "using legal means to minimize a tax bill." Once you start concealing assets (or lying about their nature to get them taxed at a lower rate), you're committing tax fraud, which is already illegal.

Re:So what happened, or will happen?

[drinkypoo]

It does, however, drastically alter the morality of the situation. The responsibility for the objectionable act shifts from the perpetrator to the lawmakers.

No, no it does not. "They didn't stop me" is not a defense for shit behavior.

If this is such a widely repugnant act, then lawmakers would be negligent to allow it to remain legal.

Very good. The lawmakers are negligent. You don't get a cookie, but you do get to wake up.

On the other hand, perhaps it's not pigeons, but rats.

Poisoning rats kills birds, cats, dogs. Are you new? That's why you trap them.

In this case, the lawmakers would be fully justified to allow the killing of such plague-bearing pests, regardless of how much you might love the little furballs.

Wrong. Poison is stupid.

Re:So what happened, or will happen?

[OakDragon]

New AC here

Not sure exactly why, but this was hilarious to me.

Re:So what happened, or will happen?

[silentcoder]

Actually no - they are all criminals - even if they are unlikely to be prosecuted. Failure to report a crime is itself a crime.
It's already been revealed that this is the same organisation which handled the funding for Noriega, funneled the money for the Iran/Contra scandal, hides money for drug cartels and warlords around the world - it's a massive money laundry.

If we assume a best-case scenario - that the politicians and bankers and investors whose names are in there were not themselves profiting from it, they were nevertheless mixing their money into the laundromat for the most evil scum of earth. They knew where the dirty money was being laundered -and instead of reporting it and letting the authorities use that to shut down some of those evil bastards, they used the evil bastard's laundromat to avoid paying taxes.

Not only did they fail to report a crime (money-laundering is a crime) which they had intimate knowledge of, they made use of the same service used for this criminal enterprise which for any non-elite would be considered a severely aggravating circumstance. It's one thing to tell a judge "I didn't report the crime because I feared for my life" and quite another to tell him "I didn't report the crime because I thought I could make money by staying quiet".

Re:So what happened, or will happen?

[silentcoder]

>We have plenty of perfectly legal domestic tax shelters.

It's more than that - what the Panama company mainly provided was truly anonymous shell corporations. Generally the ownership of a company is a matter of public record so hiding funds in one is difficult. Creating a shell company is also nothing bad in and off itself. When however that shell company's ownership is secret - that's a problem. You can't know whose money it's handling, who to tax - or how that money was made (lots of these leaked names belong to nefarious gun runners and drug cartels and the like - even politicians hiding bribe money).

The main reason there are so few American names on the list is because unlike most countries America lacks decent regulation to prevent forming shell companies anonymously - in general it's laws here are as lax as Panama's. It's criminals and elites from countries where such laws DO exist that used this company to cash in on Panama's lax regulation but US regulations are generally no better. Why would an American criminal who wants to launder his money go and pay a Panama legal firm to create his shell company when he can get one from Delaware or Las Vegas (the worst of a bad bunch) for a 25 dollar registration fee without submitting a single document ? No identification, not so much as a false social security number...

Re:So what happened, or will happen?

[silentcoder]

Not so long ago it was legal in America to force black people to go to the back of the bus -that doesn't mean it was not repugnant to do so.

Not so long ago in my home country of South Africa it was legal to throw somebody in jail for having sex with somebody of a different race. That doesn't mean it wasn't repugnant every time it was done.

When the government does something evil - even though it may be legal (and likely is - since they make the laws) it's still evil, and this is no less true of private citizens.

Re:So what happened, or will happen?

[silentcoder]

The trouble is- most people can't - we get taxed BEFORE we earn. These avenues are available ONLY to those who have the kind of incomes that you earn BEFORE you are taxed - like corporations or stock investors and the like.

In other words - it's impossible to benefit from this unless you are *already* rich - if you earn a salary, your taxes are deducted before you get your paycheck.

The biggest regressive factor in modern taxation is this:
Poor people pay tax, get the leftovers and have to pay their expenses out of that.
Rich people get money, pay their expenses and only get taxes on the leftovers.

To then allow them to avoid even the little they are due in a way that is not POSSSIBLE unless you happen to be in the second category is flagrantly corrupt and should be illegal.

Re:So what happened, or will happen?

[silentcoder]

>Some of them are hiding their wealth to protect their families.

Nobody minds that... the thing is though, that problem only exists because the kidnappers and extortionist are able to hide THEIR money... through the exact same services actually.

Bloody hell Noriega himself got funded through these lawyers - as did the contras during the Iran/Contra scandal...

Let me put it this way: if this leak had happened before Reagan died, he would have been on trial for high treason (as he should have been in the first place) and with aggravating circumstances for getting Oliver North to take the fall for him.

Re:So what happened, or will happen?

[GameboyRMH]

Those rules only apply to workers though. Board members and executives get ludicrously hyper-rewarded with all the money that was saved from so carefully paying workers only exactly what they must be paid to not quit. Why don't the rules apply uniformly to all employees? Board members and executives aren't that productive or hard to replace.

Re: So what happened, or will happen?

[GameboyRMH]

That's basically what he's saying and he may be right. Capitalism only rewards one broad skillset when you think about it - business skill. You can be a genius at anything you like, even if it's in demand, but without the ability to "be a good salesman of yourself" to summarize the GP's post, you'll never make good money doing it.

I like to think about what the world would be like if success were based on some other random skill that has little in itself to do with being productive. Doing yo-yo tricks, maybe. The best yo-yo-ers would be billionaires and those who are hopeless at it would be poor, and we'd all just accept it I guess.

I think I could make six figures in such a world, when I was a teenager I could do loop-de-loops, the sleeper, walk the dog, rock the cradle and probably some others I can't remember.

Re:So what happened, or will happen?

[Anonymous Coward]

CEO's and the board of directors are suppose to work for the benefit of shareholders.
However the compensation, raises, and bonuses for the top are always "because they can afford it".
That is the problem. It was NOT like this 20 or 30 years ago. Study after study shows this.

Remember, for publicly traded companies COE's, VP's and the BOD are EMPLOYEES.. Just like the other employees.
If they rake in millions or billions while rank and file who actually perform useful work get scraps it is not effective corp governance.
It is theft and fraud.

Re:So what happened, or will happen?

[Anonymous Coward]

"There is absolutely nothing out there that says that if an employer wants to keep more money for himself and believes that he can continue operating his company and holding onto his employees without giving raises"

But.. They are NOT a 'employer'!
That is the problem.
They are employees of publicly traded companies. CEO's VP's and the BOD are all just employees. Just like the janitor, the front desk lady, and all the legions of worker bees that actually create value.
It is not their job to take as much money as they possibly can from the company they are employed by.
It is their job to increase shareholder value.
Taking more money out of the company to line their own pockets while simultaneously under-investing in their workforce does nothing but reduce shareholder value.

Re:So what happened, or will happen?

[Anonymous Coward]

Stock investments aren't taxed for a very good reason -- they're the blood of the economy. Many crucial businesses would simply cease to exist if they didn't have stock holders. Our modern luxuries are available because of our bustling stock market.

As much as they complain about living in squalor, the US lower class are living like kings compared to MOST of the planet. They're just not keeping up with the Johnsons, so to speak. This is thanks to the stock market. Now, if assholes want to "hide" their money in there, contributing to the economy, helping business take chances and thrive on the private dollar, let them. It's money better spent than Congress sitting around trying to figure out whether all the extra money should go to Haliburton or Boeing this year.

You've got to realize -- playing "peek-a-boo" with a stock in a daytrade atmosphere is heavily taxed. You only get tax breaks for long-term investments -- the kind that Small and Medium businesses depend on.

Re:So what happened, or will happen?

[Anonymous Coward]

Your series of responses is very well written and, (to your additional credit), does not bash others in the conversation- no matter how inane they seem to be.
Please post more often W_W !

Re:So what happened, or will happen?

[Anonymous Coward]

A CEO seldom adds benefit to the company, most CEO's could be replaced by chimpanzees.

Re:So what happened, or will happen?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Legal" doesn't mean much when you're purposely taking advantage of loopholes to avoid paying what you owe in taxes, effectively screwing over hundreds of millions of people in countries that you benefit largely from existing in. Take, take, take, and never give a cent in return... that's the motto of these criminal scumbags. People are always going to find loopholes... I think the INTENT of laws should bear more weight in circumstances like this. Do you seriously think that since "oh, it's technically legal" that everybody involved in this should just get off scot free? How many hundreds of millions of lives have been impacted by the greed of these criminals? To be honest, with the gigantic numbers of lives impacted here, this should be considered a crime against humanity and these people should just be put to death and their wealth redistributed among the communities that were stolen from.

Re:So what happened, or will happen?

[Sarten-X]

The fact that it is legal is what is being taken exception to. People want it to not be legal!

That's all well and good, but that should be done through a petition to the government or changes in voting practices, not defamation and harassment of law-abiding citizens.

By your reasoning, if an online game has a technical issue that can be exploited to your advantage, it is "Totally not cheating" to use that exploit, because the game lets you do it--even if that exploit basically makes it so you cannot lose.

That depends on the rules. If the rules say that you cannot do something (like, for instance, hacking the game's server), then it's cheating. If instead the rules permit such behavior (like, for instance, using a particular item in particular circumstances to greatly amplified effect), then it's not cheating. You may not like another player for doing something you couldn't, but your anger has no moral basis.

There are actually games that have put this philosophy into practice. One example that comes to mind is Kingdom Of Loathing. There is a perfectly-valid technique in the game that allows one to amass lots of currency quickly, and it's a valid and encouraged part of the game. There have been bugs in the game in the past that allowed players to instantly get the maximum amount of currency, and that was allowed as well, though there were subsequent changes to mitigate the economic damage. On the other hand, there have been players who actually hacked the game's database, and those accounts were suspended.

Most offshore account providers have prohibitive minimum deposit values to make use of them, making them effectively unusuable by nearly everyone but the already wealthy. This makes them unfair...

It's very clear that you don't know what you're talking about. "Offshore accounts" usually cost under $1000 to set up, plus ongoing maintenance costs. They're usually just corporations founded in a foreign country with a foreign bank account, doing foreign business. However, if you need your money to be accessible domestically, you'll be paying income tax to bring the money into the country, which probably will outweigh the benefit for a small scale.

I've known several folks near the Canadian border who maintained separate bank accounts, just to avoid dealing with any exchanges.

Thinking that everyone should cheat, and that by not cheating you are just dumb or something, is so unethically minded I dont even know where to begin.

You could begin by explaining why everyone must share your particular sense of morality.

Re: So what happened, or will happen?

[Anonymous Coward]

You can most certainly make "Tax Avoidance" illegal. In a ideal world Fiat (look up the term not the car brand) is supposed to be taxed 100% of the time. Reducing tax / minimising tax or receiving tax credits is the offical way of reducing your Tax bill. Moving money from one border to another to avoid tax which is what is happening can be criminsalised especially with the way technology is these days. For example, Ireland we all know why Apple moves their money to Ireland. Implement a tariff system to quash that and tax avoidance no longer.

Re:So what happened, or will happen?

[Anonymous Coward]

It is a bit worse in the US than in other countries because of US stupid voting system which favours two parties. And people are stupidly afraid to "lose" their vote. So they vote for the "less evil" party. But republicans and democrats are so similar that in any other country they would be considered the same party. So there is nothing to be lost not voting for one of them. Some of voters are so confused that they think that having only two (essentially the same) parties is a sign of advanced and stable political system. Well, stable it is, but advanced? ... Hardly.

But still, you are not right. If enough people would care they could create an "anti-corruption and fair tax" party and push it through. But nothing like that happens because almost all people do not care enough to act. At most they complain on the internet. Well, at least they are spreading the word about the problems. So it is not completely in vain.

Re:So what happened, or will happen?

[GameboyRMH]

Then you should be angry at lawmakers, not somebody who happens to have better circumstances than someone else.

Less eloquently written as "Don't hate the player, hate the game," the criminal's creed.

Re:So what happened, or will happen?

[peawormsworth]

It's nice to know when, say, a CEO lets his/her employees go because there's not enough money (and yet there's many millions in offshore accounts).

As if any employee ever believed the crap they were told when they were let go.

I heard some good bull myself, but I just knew I did not want to be where I was not wanted... and that was enough to accept it.

Time to find the American names!

[Anonymous Coward]

Y'all are goin' down!

Re:Time to find the American names!

[Anonymous Coward]

There's no "down" to go. Having double irish offshore corporations is a badge of honor in the US, not a crime.

Re:Time to find the American names!

[slew]

Y'all are goin' down!

Only a few Americans (apparently 211, none particularly newsworthy).

Don't forget as an American, if you are trying to hide your money from the tax man, you have to be much better at it because of the FATCA rules... Probably all the people caught so far have been lulled into complacency by the ineptness (or corruptness) of their own governments to track and tax the wealth of their native illuminati...

As I understand it, Mossack Fonseca is a Panamanian law firm (why it was called the Panama Papers) and Americans generally don't create Panamanian shell companies because you can mostly create such shell companies right here in the good ole' U S of A. AFAIK, Delaware, Nevada, Wyoming don't require beneficial ownership declarations for LLCs and there may be others. Also given the current information sharing arrangement between the USA and Panama govt, it would be better to set up your shell company in some other country (like Belize or Isle of Man) and use a local law firm.

eventually, doesn't all of this lead

[turkeydance]

to an INSHORE account or two?

Re:eventually, doesn't all of this lead

[Sarten-X]

Not really. The point of having an "offshore account" is to keep money somewhere financially better than one's own country, primarily to avoid taxes.

For instance, let's say I'm going to be making a large transaction, such as selling a luxury yacht and buying a bigger one, but I live in a country where such a transaction would be taxed heavily. It is financially beneficial for me to set up a shell company in a foreign country, sell that company my current yacht (for a small-but-legal price), then have that shell company sell the yacht and collect the income. Taxes on the income would be paid, but at the low rate of the foreign country. Then the shell company can borrow money from me to buy the new bigger yacht, and pay me a small amount in interest on that loan, which conveniently works out to be exactly the cost of renting the yacht to me, so it's a legitimate practicing business.

The foreign company can then also hire crew for the boat, under a contract with another company (possibly from a third country) to provide labor, so my crew doesn't have to be subject to my own country's labor laws.

The fun part is that not only is this legal, but in the United States, it's a First Amendment right. Courts have upheld that you have the right to decide (except for discrimination) who you will do business with as a matter of free expression, summarized in the common suggestion to "vote with your wallet". If I choose to sell my yacht to a foreign company at a huge loss, that's my choice. From then on, it's entirely a foreign business, and my home country's laws have virtually no effect.

Now, eventually if I want to sell my yacht and bring my money back home, that's another matter... then my country's laws can have an effect, and I can be taxed heavily, but if I don't need the money, then there's no reason to move it from its foreign tax haven.

Re:eventually, doesn't all of this lead

[rmdingler]

Not really. The point of having an "offshore account" is to keep money somewhere financially better than one's own country, primarily to avoid taxes.

Quite right, but they are also used as safe havens for folks with more than one pile of money needing a stash haven.

Let's say you are Head of State (or even a VIP) in a nation where it's possible you'll be deposed one day. Keeping all your wealth in a domestic account, or in accounts abroad that can be frozen, doesn't seem like the safest plan for your retirement. Welcome to the allegedly secret, offshore banking industry!

Re:eventually, doesn't all of this lead

[MightyMartian]

Which explains why the leaders of China and Russia, while apparently all but destitute, appear to have many wealthy relatives. It's pretty clear that a number of even larger nations are using offshore havens to squirrel away significant amounts of money.

Of course, there is more than one kind of haven as well. Vancouver and London are cities that are becoming notorious for the number of people from Russia and China buying up real estate. The amount of real estate being bought up in Vancouver by Chinese nationals, many of which who do not even live here, is becoming a significant political issue. London, of course, is home to many properties owned by Russian oligarchs, again looking for a way of protecting their wealth. The amount of financial activity going on with these property schemes is actually distorting real estate prices in these two markets.

A lot of this is happening now, I think, because the more traditional place for oligarchs, criminals and the more generically wealthy to hide their cash (ill gotten or otherwise), Switzerland, was forced, largely by the US, to end the practice of secret bank accounts. When that happened, it forced many people to look elsewhere, and that is how these other somewhat lesser known tax shelters have become so popular.

Re:eventually, doesn't all of this lead

[rmdingler]

I recall an heated conversation about the fate of hide-your-money banking when the Swiss banks were opened up, after centuries of hoarding the secretive wealth of the rich and infamous.

Unbeknownst to the majority of earners, there is a class of well-moneyed people who earn so much their biggest concern is in diversity of risk.

It turns out there were a number of nations willing to house secretive banking communities. Most of them are secretly happy about the Fonseca breach.

Re:eventually, doesn't all of this lead

[HornWumpus]

The recent openness of Swiss accounts is exaggerated. It only applies to accounts opened after about 1950, the Kennedy, Bush, Rockefeller and all other 'old money' numbered accounts remain secret and open for business. I'm sure they backdated the Clinton and Obama ones too. Just professional courtesy.

Re:eventually, doesn't all of this lead

[Anonymous Coward]

That is brilliant that the wealthy conservatives in your country have used the first amendment to bend people over and fuck them in the ass. And because they used the first amendment for that purpose the response from those plebes that are being fucked? --"America Fuck Yeah!"

Re: eventually, doesn't all of this lead

[Anonymous Coward]

Even if one has legitimate, earned money such practices are against the law of the country of residence. Emigrate to Panama and enjoy your wealth.

The big thing is that the documents indicate that the money taken out of domestic economies, which hurt markets, lower and middle classes, small business, etc, are accumulated by corruption and fraud by individuals who must not engage in any commercial affairs due to their involvement in governments.

Basically, siphoning of stolen money out of a country for laundering by corrupted officials and criminals is the best illustration of the Tragedy Of Common.

Re:eventually, doesn't all of this lead

[Anonymous Coward]

Transactions should be at arms length.
False valuations, False or non-existent Directors, and saying YOU were never in control of that bank account, so never declared it - are some of the reasons. Actually you are fully in control, except most countries tax authorities will not prosecute, because they can't actually PROVE anything - they hit a brick wall.

On the other hand they are in a race to reduce taxes for corporates, whereas only reducing taxes to 'full disclosure' entities would be smarter.
Countries could blacklist dead-end cutout companies - but they don't. Now the tax authorities have a partial list.

What this leak will show some directors never existed or round robin - cancel thenselves out= therefore some people were in control and failed to declare interests and pay taxes. That is illegal, and is pursued correctly could result in re-assessments and possibly jail time.

Re:eventually, doesn't all of this lead

[Anonymous Coward]

I remember when life was simple and screwing over the little guy was just about directly taking money from him without all these fancy overseas business mechanisms.

At least Philip Green still does things the old school way and just robs £400million directly from the pension pot so we don't have to have a postgraduate degree in finance to understand why he's an asshole.

Is this the FULL database?

[SuperKendall]

I had heard a panel of "journalists" was selectively editing out elements of the database to remove some records.

With the presidential race chock full of candidates who ALL may well be present in the data and thus possibly scrubbed by zealots, do we know if this is all of the data obtained?

Re:Is this the FULL database?

[Anonymous Coward]

Bullseye. Now instead of a Panamanian lawfirm completely gating my access to this information, I have an organization selectively gating access to this information in a manner that suits their interest. While I have no evidence to prove that its happening, it's always worrysome when an organization like this sets themselves up in a way that they can use public outrage as a tool.

Re:Is this the FULL database?

[Anonymous Coward]

> I had heard a panel of "journalists" was selectively editing out elements of the database to remove some records.
Please provide a reference so we can verify what you say.

Re:Is this the FULL database?

[Anonymous Coward]

While a conspiracy to edit out peoples names sounds good for the fantasy minded. In good old american reality, we just use Delaware, Wyoming, & Nevada for our 'offshore' banking needs. Which to me sounds more like a distopian sci-fi thriller than reporters editing the database.

In other news please closely follow how the copy / copies are being handled; rm -r just won't work here.

Re:Is this the FULL database?

[zedaroca]

They claimed this was the biggest leak of all. Yet, the full database they let us download is 35.7 MiB.

Re:Is this the FULL database?

[Required Snark]

This is not like Snowden's raw data dump. ICIJ are real "journalists" and are very ethical about what they publish.

ICIJ is publishing the information in the public interest.

The new data that ICIJ is now making public represents a fraction of the Panama Papers, a trove of more than 11.5 million leaked files from the Panama-based law firm Mossack Fonseca, one of the world’s top creators of hard-to-trace companies, trusts and foundations.

ICIJ is not publishing the totality of the leak, and it is not disclosing raw documents or personal information en masse. The database contains a great deal of information about company owners, proxies and intermediaries in secrecy jurisdictions, but it doesn’t disclose bank accounts, email exchanges and financial transactions contained in the documents.

With the online database, if there were any political figures in the US who had an offshore connection it would be all over the headlines by now. It is possible to search by country, so it is easy to find people or companies in a particular jurisdiction.

ICIJ is a very sophisticated organization and they use advanced big data techniques to create the database.

We believe in open source technology and try to use it as much as possible. We used Apache Solr for the indexing and Apache Tika for document processing, and it’s great because it processes dozens of different formats and it’s very powerful. Tika interacts with Tesseract, so we did the OCRing on Tesseract.

... Then we put the data up, but the problem with Solr was it didn’t have a user interface, so we used Project Blacklight, which is open source software normally used by librarians.

... We had the data in a relational database format in SQL, and thanks to ETL (Extract, Transform, and Load) software Talend, we were able to easily transform the data from SQL to Neo4j (the graph-database format we used).

So there was a lot of data analysis and not much "selectively editing".

Re:Is this the FULL database?

[DarkOx]

ICIJ is publishing the information in the public interest.

Forgive me if I don't trust anything other than a public vote to decide what is in the public interest.

Hackers who target this organization and 'liberate' this sort of information are criminals and should be treated as such. If they are going to do it though I really feel that the more 'responsible' disclosure would be dumping ALL the data online so everyone gets to see rather than setting up some news organizations to be gatekeepers and giving them the opportunity to decide what everyone is suppose to thing.

Re: Is this the FULL database?

[Anonymous Coward]

Bullshit, do your criminals use delware? What about dual citizenship people, do they use Delaware? That list has been scrubbed of US names.

C&D

[ewhac]

...despite a "cease and desist" order issued by the law firm.

There is no such thing as a cease and desist order, except when it comes from a competent court of appropriate jurisdiction. A C&D letter from a law firm is nothing more than a formal request to stop doing something -- granted, a sharply worded, hostile, threatening request, but a request nonetheless.

Now we will see if any US accounts

[Anonymous Coward]

Now we will see if the conspiracy theories are correct and US accounts have been edited out, or if there's US accounts in there somewhere

Re:Now we will see if any US accounts

[HornWumpus]

There is no conspiracy. US tax law enforcement just require them to be behind another proxy.

There are no doubt US assets in the pile, but they will never know because the US tax dodger has a corporation in Monaco that owns the corporation in Panama.

The people with money directly in this pile are from nations that aren't really trying to catch tax cheats or honest people (maybe one in the lot, maybe). Take that for what it's worth if many people from your nation are on the list.

Re: Now we will see if any US accounts

[Anonymous Coward]

Did no one read why JD released this info? If there was a filter, it was the major news outlets who thought it wasn't worthy of attention. Economies only work if there is re-circulation of money; where do you think the "1%" came from?
This all may be legal, but that itself is the insulting fact. And yes, people who don't have these options who pay ALL of their taxes should be pissed.

Look for the word 'Transparency'

[Anonymous Coward]

FFS, how many American celebrities, bankers, businessmen, politicians, lobbyists, even drug dealers, crooks and so on are there? Yet the only Americans listed on it, are companies offering Panama based Fund Management, i.e. the perfectly legal corporate structure!

So yeh, it obviously has been scrubbed of American data which makes it will be NSA sourced.

Watch for the word 'Transparency' in the discussions, as if the fix for uneven corporation tax is more surveillance of everyone. 5 eyes politicians will be all screaming for "transparency", and get a consensus on the need for "transparency", then they'll hand over SEPA banking data to the NSA. (SEPA will become compulsory at the end of October, it replaces SWIFT transfers and is controlled by the German banks in Frankfurt.... handy the leaks went to a German Newspaper! Coincidence I'm sure, doesn't *every* Spanish speaking country leak in perfect English to German Newspapers??? NOT!)

I just checked myself

[tommeke100]

I don't seem to have an offshore bank account :'( Guess I'll remain poor.

The website is acting funky

[Anonymous Coward]

When I go to offshoreleaks.icij.org, a disclaimer dialog pops up that locks up my browser. I can't click the "I agree" box. The browser stops responding and pegs the CPU at 25% (one full core). Not sure what's going on with that site but I'm not going back.

Dear Law Firm

[Kozar_The_Malignant]

I'll respond to your Cease and Desist Order with a Fuck Off and Die Order.

Re:Dear Law Firm

[LordWabbit2]

I prefer a "Go fuck yourself" directive (with illustrations, or maybe just a link to goatse)

Re:Dear Law Firm

[Thud457]

Ahh citing Arkell v. Pressdram, I see.

related - see figure 1 -- This should really be properly codified via the RFC process

Here you go moron

[SuperKendall]

As per usual, the AC is the only one too utterly retarded to use Google for four seconds.

Not sure what good the link will do you since you probably aren't capable of digesting full paragraphs.

Re:Here you go moron

[Anonymous Coward]

Hi SuperKendall, you make the claim then post the link *with it*. It's not up to us to verify *your* claims. Now as to your link it says apropos your claim is "What we won't get is personal data or records of bank accounts and financial transactions, emails and other correspondence, passports and telephone numbers."
And that's all it says. Probably be illegal if it did publish them, no?
Let's remove 'personal data', 'emails and other correspondence, passports and telephone numbers' because they're not going to release these to the public (serious breach of ethics if they did and legally dangerous to them I guess).
That leaves 'records of bank accounts and financial transactions' withheld which is curious. But perhaps they know better than you? Perhaps you should dig a bit further ie. contact the reporters doing the work before assuming "they're all in this together and against us". Because if you phone/email them, they will tell you (I've done it before; not for this story but when verifying facts. used to be part of my job fyi.).

Meanwhile in the US

[Art Challenor]

Romney (last election cycle) pretty much admitted to using tax havens. I'd be surprised if Clinton wasn't using offshore accounts, or a very similar tax dodge. Trump - hell yes!
Once again behaviour that is outrageous and totally unacceptable in most of the world is just expected "business-as-usual" in the US

Re:Meanwhile in the US

[Anonymous Coward]

Most of the world being where? Tibet?

Re:Meanwhile in the US

[loonycyborg]

It was always totally acceptable for everyone except the minority concerned about inequality and cronyism, aka commies. So they decided to do this leak to cause a rift between Russian commies and commies from the rest of the word. Divide et impera.

Re:Meanwhile in the US

[Anonymous Coward]

As I understand it, wealthy Americans generally hide their money in Nevada or Delaware - due to the legal loopholes in those states. I would LOVE to see a data dump from those places! Bye bye, Clinton, Trump et al.

First Seach

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm guessing everyone is searching for themselves first time around. Pleased to report I only come up once :D

Well done

[Anonymous Coward]

People are tired of politicians and super wealthy and powerful people pretending they are just like us, as they get away with everything (Hillary Clinton) yet we get thrown in prison because we exercise our rights to free speech or freedom of the press.

I don't want anybody to talk about how "legal" it is to have the accounts and in the same breath talk about how illegal it is to release it, because it's perfectly legal to release it, in Letter of the law and in Spirit of the law.

Freedom of the press.

Power to the people.

I wonder

[Anonymous Coward]

If Johnny Doe is really Justice Department.
Especially since the Americans in the papers seem like they were vetted.

Who needs off shore when you have a foundation?

[Anonymous Coward]

I heard people talking about the Clintons and hoping they would get jail time over it. The conversation then turned to the Clinton Foundation and that their "bribe" money is hidden in the open, so to speak; they able to hide donors with donations made from out of the country.