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Paradise papers - leaked document trove show Trump officials, Queen Elizabeth's offshore tax dodges
While you were doing whatever you were doing last Sunday, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists - the same that brought you the Panama papers less than two years ago revealed itself to be in the possession of a 13.4 million leaked documents on tax dodgers.
A trove of 13.4 million records exposes ties between Russia and U.S. President Donald Trump's billionaire commerce secretary, the secret dealings of the chief fundraiser for Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the offshore interests of the queen of England and more than 120 politicians around the world.
The leaked documents, dubbed the Paradise Papers, show how deeply the offshore financial system is entangled with the overlapping worlds of political players, private wealth and corporate giants, including Apple, Nike, Uber and other global companies that avoid taxes through increasingly imaginative bookkeeping maneuvers.
One offshore web leads to Trump's commerce secretary, private equity tycoon Wilbur Ross, who has a stake in a shipping company that has received more than $68 million in revenue since 2014 from a Russian energy company co-owned by the son-in-law of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
In all, the offshore ties of more than a dozen Trump advisers, Cabinet members and major donors appear in the leaked data.
The new files come from two offshore services firms as well as from 19 corporate registries maintained by governments in jurisdictions that serve as waystations in the global shadow economy. The leaks were obtained by German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung and shared with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and a network of more than 380 journalists in 67 countries.
[...] The most detailed revelations emerge in decades of corporate records from the white-shoe offshore law firm Appleby and corporate services provider Estera, two businesses that operated together under the Appleby name until Estera became independent in 2016.
At least 31,000 of the individual and corporate clients included in Appleby's records are U.S. citizens or have U.S. addresses, more than from any other country. Appleby also counted clients from the United Kingdom, China and Canada among its biggest sources of business.
Keep your eyes peeled for more articles as they are published by various news outlets:
- Russia funded Facebook and Twitter investments through Kushner associate
- US Commerce Chief Tied to Russian Shipping Venture, U.S. Commerce chief Ross kept holdings in Russian-tied firm - reports
- Glencore's Role in Paradise Papers "Documents cover Glencore in Congo, Australia and shipping unit"
- Paradise Papers: Queen's private estate invested £10m in offshore funds
- Revealed: Justin Trudeau's close adviser helped move huge sums offshore
- The wealthy men in Trump's inner circle with links to tax havens: chief economic adviser Gary Cohn, secretary of state Rex Tillerson, treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin, vice-chairman for supervision at the Federal Reserve Randal Quarles, friend and former adviser to Trump Carl Icahn, new US ambassador to Russia Jon Huntsman, ambassador to India Kenneth Juster and others
- Offshore Trove Exposes Trump-Russia Links and Piggy Banks of the Wealthiest 1 Percent
- Bono used Malta-based firm to invest in Lithuanian shopping centre
- Paradise Papers: leaks show 'one rule for rich and another for rest'
- The Paradise Papers Data Dump: What's Been Reported So Far
- Paradise Papers: Biggest data leak reveals trails of India's corporates in global secret tax havens
(Score: 4, Informative) by Thexalon on Monday November 06 2017, @02:17PM (18 children)
Why does Queen Elizabeth need tax dodges? She isn't legally required to pay a dime in taxes (at least in the UK), she just does so as a courtesy and show of solidarity with her subjects.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by ledow on Monday November 06 2017, @03:08PM (17 children)
They aren't tax dodges, as such.
They're investments in legitimate things that return more money because they don't pay certain taxes.
There's nothing "illegal" there. There's not necessarily any tax being deliberately worked around. But the investment fund are saying "If we do this one in the UK, we get 5% back, if we do this one in the Bahamas, we get 5.5% back on the same risk, and they're both legal". It's almost a duty on the investment funds to then invest in the one with the greater return.
Notice that nobody is suggesting the Queen is actually deliberately avoiding tax. Her investment fund managers have just invested in a fund that happens to be off-shore. There's a big difference.
And, as you point out, she doesn't AVOID paying tax... she actually volunteers to do so when she doesn't need to!
The problem is - as with all the Starbucks etc. debacle - it's not that it's ILLEGAL to do these things. The problem is that it it's quite sensible if you have the capability to do so, and the laws are written such that you're allowed to do so. If people don't want others investing in off-shore investments like this, they should make them illegal, or tax the arrangement appropriately. That they don't is the problem. Not that someone chooses to utilise it to their advantage.
(Score: 1, Disagree) by khallow on Monday November 06 2017, @04:00PM (9 children)
Actually, I'm quite comfortable with "people" being completely unable to outlaw or tax these arrangements. It helps create sensible tax and investment policies in a country when they have to compete with other countries.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by NewNic on Monday November 06 2017, @07:18PM (6 children)
Unfortunately, that competition is a race to the bottom and at the bottom, the state is unable to pay for the basic necessities of running a country.
lib·er·tar·i·an·ism ˌlibərˈterēənizəm/ noun: Magical thinking that useful idiots mistake for serious political theory
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday November 07 2017, @02:13AM (4 children)
What are "basic necessities" again? Payouts to the right corporations? Or is it going to be a litany of expenses that make up a small fraction of a country's budget?
I'd take your concerns seriously, if the costs of what I consider "basic necessities" were anywhere near the actual budget of an actual developed world country. Sure, roads, police, functional military, education, yep, yep, yep, all that important stuff, are needed. but that might be half the budget, but probably less. Why are we going to crack down on our economic freedoms merely because the state got greedy and spends well in excess of what it is needed for?
(Score: 2) by NewNic on Tuesday November 07 2017, @04:01PM (3 children)
There are tax haven islands where you can see this in action. They are great places to put your money and great places to live, if you are wealthy, but they don't have the tax revenue to provide those things that you describe as basic necessities.
lib·er·tar·i·an·ism ˌlibərˈterēənizəm/ noun: Magical thinking that useful idiots mistake for serious political theory
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday November 07 2017, @04:47PM (2 children)
What would be an example of this? Not seeing them myself. There's not a lot of need for a road system or police on a small island, for example.
(Score: 2) by NewNic on Tuesday November 07 2017, @06:13PM (1 child)
You don't see them, because you don't want to see.
But how about education? I saw a documentary about a British territory which is a tax haven and they don't have the money to properly fund education for kids.
Also, better not get ill on those islands if you are poor, because health care for those people without the funds to pay is somewhere between non-existent and ineffective.
lib·er·tar·i·an·ism ˌlibərˈterēənizəm/ noun: Magical thinking that useful idiots mistake for serious political theory
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday November 07 2017, @06:44PM
I kinda was hoping for evidence at some point. Just because education isn't being "properly funded", doesn't mean that they don't have the money.
I notice that most British territories [wikipedia.org] which happen to be tax havens have no such trouble funding education, such as Bermuda, Anguilla, British Virgin Islands, and Cayman Islands. Of the remaining two which have any sort of offshore banking activity, Montserrat is an active volcano and the Turks and Caicos Islands are seriously corrupt [telegraph.co.uk].
(Score: 2) by realDonaldTrump on Tuesday November 07 2017, @07:15AM
Folks, our tax code is a giant, self-inflicted, economic wound. Outdated, complex, and extremely burdensome, with billions of hours wasted on paperwork and on compliance. So we're doing a giant, beautiful, massive tax cut. The biggest in history. This is going to be the biggest tax cut and the largest tax reform in the history of our country. We're cutting the tax on our companies tremendously. And simplifying the taxes tremendously for every American. Under our plan, 95 percent of Americans will be able to file their tax returns on a single page without having to keep receipts, fill out schedules, or track endless paperwork. You'll be able to do your tax on a little card. Very easy. I saw one of those cards and I had to kiss it. I gave it a big, wet smooch. I love the cards! And you're going to love them, believe me. And our companies are going to start coming back to the USA. They're already coming back. It's gonna be great. #MAGA 🇺🇸
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 06 2017, @08:47PM (1 child)
This is why in the competition with other countries your [google.com] roads [google.com] are [google.com] a serious [google.com] contender in the number of potholes.
Hope your proud of your achievement, you pay $3B each year from your pocket [thehill.com] in repairs for the privilege. MAGA
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday November 07 2017, @02:15AM
(Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 06 2017, @04:00PM (4 children)
This guy gets it. I'm getting a little tired of Congress calling in all the CEOs and saying "Based on the laws that we wrote, you paid all the tax that you owed. We don't think that you paid the right amount."
Don't think they paid enough? Change the laws. YOU wrote them.
Then they get all "blah blah blah, the tax system is complicated and its hard to change." True story. Then again, whose fault is it? Who has the power to fix it? Stop bitching at the CEOs and get to work.
(Score: 5, Touché) by Thexalon on Monday November 06 2017, @04:02PM (3 children)
Actually, usually, the CEO's lobbyists wrote them, because they're just so helpful like that.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by ledow on Monday November 06 2017, @04:22PM (1 child)
So if someone is able to legally pay to convince others in power to give them a law that's helpful to them, does the problem lie with the people paying, the people lobbying, or the people who are able to be "bribed" into changing laws to suit random causes?
I know which one I'd be cracking down on.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 06 2017, @06:44PM
Yes
(Score: 5, Informative) by takyon on Monday November 06 2017, @04:23PM
When Lobbyists Literally Write The Bill [npr.org]
It's Common For Lobbyists To Write Bills For Congress. Here's Why [cpr.org]
Google's CEO: 'The Laws Are Written by Lobbyists' [theatlantic.com]
When Lobbyists Write Legislation, This Data Mining Tool Traces The Paper Trail [fastcompany.com]
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday November 06 2017, @10:09PM
On occasion, tax laws are written with advantageous options in them to encourage certain behavior... in this case, however, it seems to be the opposite: the advantage is to persons doing things we'd rather not have them do, but it's hard to change the status quo without stepping hard on wealthy toes.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 4, Informative) by c0lo on Monday November 06 2017, @11:21PM
And there's nothing to be ashamed for making money while in the position of secretary of commerce, by doing an undisclosed good business with an entity sanctioned by your own government [voanews.com].
It's just good business. [youtube.com]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford