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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?
China charges 20% vat on everything, along with hefty tariffs on Western imports. Mexico charges 17% tariffs and then gives 100 % tax break to most local companies, which includes the vat. Most of Europe has 15-20% vats , combined with corporate taxes, even if companies operate outside of the nation. America needs to do a 0 corporate tax on American made goods/services (start at 50% and raise to 80% by 5 each year ). Keep 35% corporate tax on.foreign goods and apply a 20% vat on everything esp imported goods/parts/services. This will put a stop to this BS.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Fuck all.
Wake me when we will actually do something about it.
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.
> i avoid with cash payments. i don't evade, unless TurboTax does.
You're not just guilty of evasion, but the *felony* variety.
If you accept cash payments and intentionally don't file a return showing those payments, that's misdemeanor tax evasion. When you file a return which says "total income... Under penalty of perjury" which you know does not accurately include those cash payments, that's FELONY tax evasion.
https://www.irs.gov/compliance...
Common tax avoidance methods include 401k, IRA, HSA, and FSA.
Hillary is irrelevant. Nobody gives a shit.
Meanwhile, yet another member of President Traitor's cabinet is found to be directly connected to Russia.
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.
Did you really write that? You included in your own post a quote indicating the "NO taxes" claim is horseshit.
Are they going to release the source material to the public so that we can find anything that the 380 journalists "accidentally" missed or forgot to report in their zeal to be completely unbiased and impartial while on the payroll of major news organizations?
Last time they did release a complete searchable database of the leak - https://panamapapers.icij.org/..., https://offshoreleaks.icij.org... - so there's every reason to believe they'll do the same this time.
Indeed, last time after the full release there was no indication that the journalists had failed to be unbiased or impartial in their initial reporting. So there's zero grounds for you to be suspicious this time.
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.
Here's the thing that most people don't get:
The modern elites are not nation-bound anymore. They live on yachts in international waters, fly around the world in private planes (or state-owned ones) and have their money in several different tax heavens and jurisdictions so that no amount of sanctions or other problems can shut them down.
If you honestly think any of them care about your country or my country or whatever todays "axis of evil" is, you are a complete idiot. The only thing they care about is money and power, which is why they have it. If you focus your entire life around the question of "how do I get more money?" then you have a much higher chance of making it than us normal people who are burdened with ethics, friends (real friends, not just useful contacts) and a soul or whatever you want to call that piece of humanity inside of you.
We have a brilliant example in my home country, which has been ruled for over a decade now by a person whose only demonstrated skill is how to get and keep power.
Really, all of this is so clear to anyone with three working brain cells, as they're not even trying to hide anything anymore. The only question we all should be asking ourselves is how to shut down this global robbery.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
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.
I am a tax corporate attorney. My job is to ensure that a Fortune 500 company does not pay more tax than legally owed. When operating internationally, half the game is just making sure you don't get hosed and end up getting double-taxed by two different jurisdictions or not being allowed to use a big loss you have suffered to offset a gain elsewhere- so when I say more than "legally owed" I do not mean more than technically owed after some complected scheme is executed.
These stories tend to confuse tax evasion, tax avoidance, and money laundering. While an offshore company may be used for any of those things, the mere use of an offshore company doesn't necessarily mean a company or person is engaging in any of them.
In my business, we use offshore companies as neutral third locations. For example, if we need to operate in a dodgy part of Africa, we likely don't want to form a subsidiary in that country because such countries often lack robust corporate law and because it can be very administratively burdensome to form a new company there. The Caymans offers robust corporate law, a functioning court system, quick setup, and quick dissolution. There are both tax and non-tax reasons not to use a U.S. company for that purpose. If we were to sell that subsidiary, a foreign buyer may not want to purchase a U.S. company with all of the administrative and legal burden that comes with owning one. Tax-wise, using a non-U.S. entity prevents that company from being taxed in both the U.S. and the operating country. It would still be subject to U.S. tax if it sends money to the U.S. parent, but it's usually possible to manage tax attributes and cash so that's not necessary.
A tax avoidance motive might be something like an earnings-stripping transaction where intellectual property is licensed to a low-tax country. However, the tax code hardly allows carte-blanche for doing transactions like this, and the time has long passed when you could just set up a Cayman company with no employees that holds all of your intellectual property. Large companies are audited every single year or are under a continuous audit program the IRS runs- nobody in the world of big business "gets away" with something- everything must be legally justified. As a result, the most aggressive tax avoidance transactions tend to be seen from medium sized privately held businesses and high net worth individuals- not large public companies.
For individuals without extensive business operations, offshore companies rarely offer any legal tax benefit. As an individual, you are still subject to worldwide taxation. Rules such as the personal foreign holding company rules in the tax code are specifically designed to prevent offshore companies from being used for personal tax avoidance.
You will find individuals who use offshore company for straight-up tax evasion. This is one of the things Paul Manefort was indicted for. Legally, you must declare offshore accounts- and he allegedly did not. Laws such as FATCA and foreign equivalents are making this strategy tougher to pull off because they require tax withholding on transfer to an offshore location if the individual refuses to provide information necessary to report the transaction to the tax authorities.
Finally, you will find offshore accounts used for money laundering. That is a very different type of operation from multinationals using them for a legal benefit. It's worth noting that not all offshore locations are created equal in this regard. Jurisdictions like the Caymans and Bermuda have extensive anti-money laundering laws that they do their best to enforce. As a result, most Cayman and Bermuda companies are subsidiaries of legitimate business. By contrast, a fortune 500 company would almost never use Panama for a subsidiary unless it was actually doing business in-country.
TLDR: Articles like this talk about offshore companies as if they are always illegitimate and treat tax avoidance, tax evasion, and money laundering as the same thing. There are both legitimate and illegitimate uses of offshore companies, and each of these things are separate phenomena.