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'Panama Papers' Group Strikes Again with 'Paradise Papers' (theguardian.com)
Long-time Slashdot reader Freshly Exhumed tipped us off to a new document leak that's just revealed massive tax havens used by the world's most wealthy and powerful people. An anonymous reader quotes the Guardian:
The material, which has come from two offshore service providers and the company registries of 19 tax havens, was obtained by the German newspaper Suddeutsche Zeitung and shared by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists with partners including the Guardian, the BBC and the New York Times. The project has been called the Paradise Papers.
It's the same group responsible for the Panama Papers, and the Guardian reports that in these 13.4 million new files, journalists have discovered:
It's the same group responsible for the Panama Papers, and the Guardian reports that in these 13.4 million new files, journalists have discovered:
- "How Twitter and Facebook received hundreds of millions of dollars in investments that can be traced back to Russian state financial institutions."
- "Aggressive tax avoidance by multinational corporations, including Nike and Apple."
- "Extensive offshore dealings by Donald Trump's cabinet members, advisers and donors, including substantial payments from a firm co-owned by Vladimir Putin's son-in-law to the shipping group of the US commerce secretary, Wilbur Ross."
- "The tax-avoiding Cayman Islands trust managed by the Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau's chief moneyman."
"The publication of this investigation, for which more than 380 journalists have spent a year combing through data that stretches back 70 years, comes at a time of growing global income inequality," reports the Guardian. "Meanwhile, multinational companies are shifting a growing share of profits offshore -- €600 billion in the last year alone -- the leading economist Gabriel Zucman will reveal in a study to be published later this week. "Tax havens are one of the key engines of the rise in global inequality," he said."
Now that tax avoidance is proven to work we should all do it. It's irresponsible to pay money when you don't have to. You don't send an extra $100 to your cable provider just because, do you?
Fuck all.
Are we still talking about Hillary Clinton? I kind of feel like she is not important anymore. I mean, she is not the president and never will be. We have already poured something like 100 million dollars into investigating her and Bill Clinton and all we got out of it was a lie about a blowjob. Seems to me we should just let it go, let her retire and move on with it already.
The Rep control both houses and the white house. But yet I keep reading how the US is supposidely run by leftist liberals and that they somehow keep the right from doing reforms.
Explain how that works.
Do you know how the Primaries work in the USA? How do you rig primaries? They are run by the states.
Voting is run by the states. The candidates and campaigns and everything else including and plain ol' deciding whether or not to go along with the vote, is run by the party. Why do you think Hillary "won" all those instances where they kicked out Bernie supporters or pretended not to hear them when anything came up that was to be decided by voice?
The DNC rigged their primaries for Hillary. I don't agree with Bernie's crazy views or policy, but I would have voted for him over Trump, and he would have won the election over Trump.
The DNC torpedoed itself in its attempt to stage a coronation for Hillary. The fact that any voter is loyal to the DNC after that is worrying. It's almost a one party system now.
Gun control will happen when the wealthy fear for their lives.
Did you really write that? You included in your own post a quote indicating the "NO taxes" claim is horseshit.
Tariffs are for people that don't have a clue how economics work. Your phone, your food, your car, your clothes are all cheap because you get them from wherever the cheapest source in the world is delivered to you without interference from the government. It doesn't help pay taxes, it never could, and even if it did all the things taxes pay for would cost more to begin with so you'd never get "more" out of that revenue to begin with.
BTW Britain, France, and plenty of other places use VATs and hey look at all the tax avoidance while Apple's profits go to Ireland! You are on top of the Dunning-Kruger effect in economics if you think VATs or Tarrifs have anything to do with tax avoidance or evasion.
Judging from the size and scope of Donald Trump & Family's dealings with shady overseas "investors" and "stakeholders", it seems like he may be the real globalist among recent presidents. I mean, he's surrounded himself with people who either straight up lie (Sessions, etc) or have terrible memories (Sessions, etc) when it comes to meetings with oligarchs, Russian con men, pro-Kremlin "lawyers", etc.
Has there been a single member of the Trump cabinet who does NOT have some shady business deal or a history of meetings with Russians? Maybe Betsy DeVos, but her brother is a war criminal who can't set foot in the United States and maybe Rick Perry, who may be the stupidest man ever to set foot in the White House.
You are welcome on my lawn.
You actually think Julian Assange, who is an Australian, living in the U.K., inside the Ecuadorian embassy under Ecuadorian asylum, and has been holed up there without being able to leave for nearly five years, and is a world-famous individual, is a Russian spy?
Literally none of those things indicates either Russian OR spy.
Not to mention the fact that almost everything Wikileaks published is of undisputed authenticity. Even the Clinton e-mails had DKIM signature verification.
Even if Assange were a Russian operative, despite there being literally 0 evidence whatsoever, none of that has anything to do with the fact that the things Wikileaks has published about U.S. politics are real. You want to focus on the messenger to ignore the message.
If you are one of those who praises tax avoidance as a laudable life goal, you are a freeloading, coat-tail riding maladroit.
The biggest value of the data dump is that an otherwise closed doorway into a strange world in which the 1%ers exist is suddenly thrown open to show that monetary enrichment dissolves any and all notions of patriotism and shared values.
Sociopaths will continue to praise their own legal proprietary, and imbeciles will continue to cheer on their beloved sociopaths, but those who try to live and excel while doing their share to make their own lives and the world they live in better get chumped again and again by an evil breed. This data dump helps to see this much clearly.
It is not about some phoney notion that tax avoidance is somehow laudable; it is about exposing corruption.
I deny that I have not avoided attaining the opposite of that which I do not want.
From TFA: "Ross, a billionaire and close friend of Trump, retained holdings in Navigator after taking office this year. The relationship means he stands to benefit from the operations of a Russian company run by Putin's family and close allies, some of whom are under US sanctions.
Of course the Commerce Secretary wouldn't have much say in trade regulations, would he?
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
Leaks indicating that a democratic country that has a government accountable to its public is corrupt and is using the security apparatus to spy on its own citizens or destabilise nominally friendly foreign regimes: News.
Leaks indicating that a corrupt oligarchy run by the former head of the security apparatus who uses intimidation as a tool to keep himself in power is using the security apparatus to spy on its own citizens or destabilise nominally friendly foreign regimes: Not news.
If your defence is 'Russia is as bad as us!' then you're in a pretty depressing place.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
TFA mentions that Donald Trump's close friend and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross "stands to benefit from the operations of a Russian company run by Putin's family and close allies, some of whom are under US sanctions."
The link it provides is also pretty damning: https://www.theguardian.com/ne...
I suspect real Americans take a dim view of a high administration official who maintains financial ties to companies being sanctioned by the US government.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.