The Panama Papers: Hackers Reveal Law Firm's Many Tax Haven Clients

[Zkribbler]

We've had extensive ethics cleansing.

 

[The_J]

Greece...no suprise. I hope that'll explain a bit their financial situation ^^.

No Germans yet, but I guess not everything has yet been disclosed.

 

[Cheetah]

More is coming.

 

[CavLancer]

We've had extensive ethics cleansing.

Why cleanse moral and ethical perfection?

Okay, lets move along from our inherent American cultural superiority, shall we? On a purely humanitarian basis don't want to get that monumentally boring European inferiority complex stoked up.

 

[Cheetah]

Not all of Europe has actually been given their share of known corrupt politicians and businessmen hiding away money. We're still hoping!

Also, I'm sure there are a handful for you Americans anyway.

 

[Thorgalaeg]

Check out the video in this article from The Guardian about the Icelandic PM. They surprised him with questions about the whole fiasco and you can see his composure break and the panic set in.

The poor guy was not prepared for that. A spanish politician otoh would show perfectly immutable answering some nonsense/lies with a smile in his face. I think they learn to do it at the politics faculty.

 

[GoodSarmatian]

No Germans yet, but I guess not everything has yet been disclosed.

I found that pretty surprising too. One explanation is that Germans prefer Swiss banks for their money laundering since the working relationship goes back to Jewish gold teeth.

 

[CavLancer]

So no hope of finding Trump squirreled away a few bazillions before his bankruptcies. Dang...of course his supporters would just love him more.

 

[Cheetah]

So no hope of finding [...]

What? Again, just wait a bit. There will be new revelations daily for at least the next fourteen days.

There will be many more fishes to fry.

Edit:
The reactions have started: Putin claims all the journalists working on this are CIA agents out to tarnish Russia, the Icelandic Prime Minister are in emergency meetings with his own party and is refusing to resign while the opposition is preparing to throw him, and the French President is ready to investigate and prosecute anyone found to have hidden away money.

Meanwhile, the CEO of Norway's largest bank is doubling down and claiming he knew nothing!

And it's still only the first day!!

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Yeah, no Canada on the map either, but the wealthy here can just get major global accounting firms to aid them in evading taxes rather than going with secretive Panamanian companies: http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/kpm...-25-wealthy-canadians-document-says-1.3249468

Pretty much this. I can't speak for wealthy individuals but American companies are all too well known to shelter their money offshore in legal but shady ways. Everyone knows it is going on, who does it and how it is done (Hey let's transfer our profits to Ireland! --> Microsoft) and yet no one stops it or even tries.

 

[warpus]

Well let's hope that this gets some results.

I doubt it, this is just one company, there's probably a lot more out there which provide similar services to the overly rich.

If anything this leak is a sign and evidence that there is a big problem. But how to hunt down and take down all companies that provides services like this?

 

[ls612]

Much of what is in these documents is shady but legal. Should it be legal is a very good question for at least the western democracies involved in these leaks to be asking, but I'm not sure what people are surprised by. Everyone knows that people legally shelter money in various tax havens, the US has been trying to reduce the legality of it in the past few years but other places haven't.

 

[Takhisis]

Pretty much this. I can't speak for wealthy individuals but American companies are all too well known to shelter their money offshore in legal but shady ways. Everyone knows it is going on, who does it and how it is done (Hey let's transfer our profits to Ireland! --> Microsoft) and yet no one stops it or even tries.

Yeap, apparently Facebook, Inc. only manages and is liable for the Facebook website and services provided to US an Canada residents, everything else is done by Facebook Ireland. I checked the Terms and Conditions of the site last week.

Much of what is in these documents is shady but legal. Should it be legal is a very good question for at least the western democracies involved in these leaks to be asking, but I'm not sure what people are surprised by. Everyone knows that people legally shelter money in various tax havens, the US has been trying to reduce the legality of it in the past few years but other places haven't.

Yes, the problem is that this demonstrates that if you have enough money you don't have to pay taxes. David Cameron and his henchmen are all going on about how taxes are bad and the evil foreign corporations are fleecing the UK and then whoopsa, we find this.

 

[El_Machinae]

We can hope there're some ropes involved with these revelations. A good pruning might really benefit the planet ...

 

[Zelig]

Pretty much this. I can't speak for wealthy individuals but American companies are all too well known to shelter their money offshore in legal but shady ways. Everyone knows it is going on, who does it and how it is done (Hey let's transfer our profits to Ireland! --> Microsoft) and yet no one stops it or even tries.

Much of what is in these documents is shady but legal. Should it be legal is a very good question for at least the western democracies involved in these leaks to be asking, but I'm not sure what people are surprised by. Everyone knows that people legally shelter money in various tax havens, the US has been trying to reduce the legality of it in the past few years but other places haven't.

There's a fairly big difference between publicly using loopholes, and actively hiding your tax evasion.

 

[warpus]

Yeah, what the Icelandic PM did was definitely illegal, he had a legal obligation to report this, and he didn't.

 

[Takhisis]

Ah, yes, that's the other part. ‘Shady, but legal’. If you're legally required to disclose (not necessarily in public, but at least to the ethics board/state auditors/whatever) then, just by not disclosing you are committing a felony. It's so simple that many people seem to overlook it.

 

[warpus]

He says he's not stepping down, but there's already a large-ish demonstration in Reykjavik

Spoiler :

Live stream link, not sure how long it's going to stay up for
Link to video.

 

[uppi]

Much of what is in these documents is shady but legal. Should it be legal is a very good question for at least the western democracies involved in these leaks to be asking, but I'm not sure what people are surprised by. Everyone knows that people legally shelter money in various tax havens, the US has been trying to reduce the legality of it in the past few years but other places haven't.

There is little reason to use a shady law firm to set up a network of offshore companies if you do not have something to hide from somebody. Usually, not to the advantage of that somebody. Especially when politicians are involved, the legality of hiding money offshore does mean it is a good thing to do.

 

[civvver]

I doubt it, this is just one company, there's probably a lot more out there which provide similar services to the overly rich.

If anything this leak is a sign and evidence that there is a big problem. But how to hunt down and take down all companies that provides services like this?

The services the company provides aren't illegal. It's like when you pay someone in cash for a job under the 1099 amount or whatever. You aren't required to report what you paid them, they are required to report it on their taxes. Even if you know they intend to not disclose that income you didn't do anything wrong.