[Closed] The Panama Papers.

I must have missed the bits in that report about paedophiles and lizards.

Of course he's not far off the mark.. people just prefer to put their fingers in their ears cos they're uncomfortable with the news that their creepy uncle has been found with 1000s of indecent images of children on his laptop (metaphorically speaking)

It's hardly news is it?
Rich people using offshore accounts to hide their wealth, and keep it away from Government tax authorities. I thought that was pretty common knowledge.

Powerful people have dodgy dealings with secretive bank shock horror probe.
Well colour me surprised.

Silly me, I'd forgotten all about the fact that between them, the City of London and Jersey deal with most of the world's offshore banking.

Bloody handy things Crown Dependencies.

Just don't mention arms deals or Saudi Arabia...

(Or the other thing Jersey is famous for)

Or the other thing Jersey is famous for

Cows?

Dodgy bank helps dodgy people hide their dodgy money....

This surprising how?

[quote=jivehoneyjive ].
(Or the other thing Jersey is famous for)

[img] [/img]

What's he done?

Milk?....Toffee?.......Bergerac?.

Or the other thing Jersey is famous for

Cows?

.

That's what they want you to think Jersey is famous for...

Royals?

[quote=jivehoneyjive ](Or the other thing Jersey is famous for)sleeves?

Keeping nets for the scouse?

OP. Curious as to why you think this has anything to do with the stuff @jive posts. This is a straightforward leak of legal documents which shows (allegedly) Putin has hidden a lot of money, the President of Iceland used an offshore trust to disguise a shareholding in his wife's business, Lionel Messy and his father have an offshore trust for image rights (as I certain do many EPL players). I'd wager Russell Brand has a similar arrangement for his youtube channel earnings for example. None of this is a great surprise.

If you have a lot of money/assets its legal to put them into an offshore trust. Happens all over the world. They are then sheltered from inheritance tax, protected in a divorce or just wayward family members squandering them.

Just because they're legal, doesn't necessarily make them right, or.... Moral.

If you have a lot of money/assets it's legal to put them into an offshore trust

... always assuming you are declaring your income to the authorities for tax purposes of course...

...and it seems that money laundering and hiding bribery payments may also not be legal.

It's hardly news is it?

Nah, it'll all be forgotten about this time tomorrow.

Just because they're legal, doesn't necessarily make them right, or.... Moral.

Define moral

There are hundreds of millions of people whose religion reckons that sex before marriage, abortion and homosexuality are all deeply immoral - what should be done about them?

[i]"Those are my principles, and if you don't like them... well, I have others." - Marx[/i]

relating to, or concerned with the principles or rules of right conduct or the distinction between right and wrong; ethical:

There is one definition for you fanny, why am I not surprised you come rushing to defend the indefensible.

What I don't understand is what makes people crave such enormous wealth?

It seems there are plenty of examples of illegal tax evasion and fraud amongst the 11million doccuments.
These guys scumbags are only the 4th largest such firm, imagine what the rest get up to

Thread title is a bit of a tabloid click bait effort. Money laundering and tax evasion are not evidence of VIP child abuse rings. And not even news.

Bravo to Drac for a very clever reply earlier btw 😀 Closer link to a @jive story than the OPs link!

"Western politicians have huffed and puffed about clamping down on offshore havens but in reality their collective breath would not have knocked over a little piggie’s straw house let alone bastions of vested interest. It is thanks to investigative reporters, whistleblowers and unprecedented international media collaboration that the matter is being

A part of the problem is the distinction between crooks and non-crooks - from the Guardian:

Are all people who use offshore structures crooks?
No. Using offshore structures is entirely legal. There are many legitimate reasons for doing so. Business people in countries such as Russia and Ukraine typically put their assets offshore to defend them from “raids” by criminals, and to get around hard currency restrictions. Others use offshore for reasons of inheritance and estate planning.

I don't know about you, but someone who uses an offshore structure to avoid paying inheritance tax sounds like a crook to me. A lot of this is about working within the letter of the law, but against the spirit of the law.

When the rich can hire much better accountants and lawyers than the governments can, the distinction between legal and illegal becomes almost meaningless.

Mods, since you've locked the thread with the useful thread title, and the Panama papers are going to be in the news cycle and worthy of comment for a week or so, if you're determined that this is the thread in which it is done would you mind retitling the thread to something relevant please?

And, in answer to MSPs post on that thread

MSP - Member
Wonder how many of our own rich and elites this will hit, The focus initially seems to have been the traditional enemies of the west, Putin and middle east dictators, but now some "westerners" seem to be being named.

Given the organisations involved on analysing the data and publishing stories from it, they would be hunting out "western" targets long before the usual suspect list of the putins and despots of the world. If the data was rammed with cabinet ministers and senators those are the names we'd see first.

Stoner +1, I avoided this thread as its title suggested bullying.

The Guardian are reporting this as though it's almost entirely about Putin, although even they admit his name does not appear anywhere in any of the documents.

Not to say I'm a Putin supporter, but it's very poor sensationalist tabloid-esque nonsense. Actual heads of state mention explicitly in the documents get a cursory mention, but the rest reads like anti Russia/ Putin propaganda...

The thing about reporting this stuff as mainly about Putin is that he and his mates couldn't give a *. They will ensure it's barely reported in Russia, and even if it is they'll just say that they have done an investigation and no wrongdoing was found.
No more that a shrug and a "* you" is required.

(reported MSPs post so mods see it)

Bravo to Drac for a very clever reply earlier btw Closer link to a @jive story than the OPs link!

Cheers.

if you're determined that this is the thread in which it is done would you mind retitling the thread to something relevant please?

[s]We're not determined of anything so I'll think we'll just leave it, if that's Ok with you.[/s]

Spotted the closed thread now, I had no idea what you meant, so I'll alter the title.

As I understand it Putin is sly enough to have nothing in his own name, If there's any thing of his devolved fortune left untouched I suspect there maybe more sanctions on the way.

It's hard to take any politician serious on this one tho, Cameron's own inheritance was stashed offshore for him.

Money laundering and tax evasion are not evidence of VIP child abuse rings. And not even news

Although not as emotive a VIP child abuse rings, money laundering and tax evasion are just as illegal and actually take place in the real, non-tabloid, world.

So this IS news despite all the cynical put downs on STW.

I just hope somebody takes a good look at these documents and if anything illegal can be proved, they have a good try at taking the *unts down.

Although I won't hold my breath.

Apparently this is 40 years worth of docs relating to dodgy dealings. I reckon they will drip feed this out over the next few months and there is plenty more dirt to come.

If you have a lot of money/assets its legal to put them into an offshore trust.

So far only MPs named are Tory's, and lots of donors to all parties.

Cameron might be worried that is empty promises to clamp down have been exposed as blatant lies, I'm sure he's worried that further revelations could damage he and his privileged chums, still at least one name on the list might have cheered him up....

the only British politicians so far named are Lord Ashcroft, Tory peer Baroness Pamela Sharples and former Conservative MP Michael Mates

That'd be the same Lord Ashcroft that grew up and lived in the not even remotely offshore-ish Belize, and had the bulk of his assets and business activities there?

I tell you what, these revelations are mind blowing! 😀

According to wiki he only spent a few years in Belize, born and educated in the UK, it seems he infact owns most of Belize
Holds a dual British passport and spent at least five years saying he was registered in the UK, whilst he used this company to create shell companies to hide his wealth from the UK tax inspector...

I can't believe there's surprise about Putin's inclusion in the list.

For a man who claims to own very little it's been well known for quite some time that his late 20 something daughter (supposedly a student / researcher) has controlling interests in investments worth in excess of $1B.

Craig Murray has an interesting point to make, it will be interesting to see what comes out in the future.

https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/

"The leak is being managed by the grandly but laughably named “International Consortium of Investigative Journalists”, which is funded and organised entirely by the USA’s Center for Public Integrity. Their funders include

Ford Foundation
Carnegie Endowment
Rockefeller Family Fund
W K Kellogg Foundation
Open Society Foundation (Soros)

among many others.
Do not expect a genuine expose of western capitalism. The dirty secrets of western corporations will remain unpublished.

Expect hits at Russia, Iran and Syria and some tiny “balancing” western country like Iceland. A superannuated UK peer or two will be sacrificed – someone already with dementia"

Im not a huge fan of the Guardian, but I hardly see them being played like puppets if there's data in front of them to get stuck into.

meh, all those funders and their contributions are listed on their website, which puts them several steps above the tax havens and their patrons

theyve also investigated and been quite critical of some of their own funders, including Soros

actually youre right they are only going after the really nasty world leaders

[img] [/img]

Wonder if they've got anything from KPMG?

[img] [/img]

Anyhoo, here's a couple of other shady types:

[img] ?w=620&q=55&auto=format&usm=12&fit=max&s=2b66d8702cd1f88b2e43ca5e28123f3f[/img]

[img] [/img]

Wonder how much money relating to arms trafficking and the intelligence services is handled offshore?

Are the Cayman Islands better than Panama for legal tax avoidance?

Asking for a friend....

panamas possibly a bit compromised at the moment

definitely Cayman

Id like to think its the begining of the end for the tax havens, but itll never happen even if everyone of them was aggressively pursued, theyd only set up on the moon or mars, still it might be the driver for humanity to expand into the stars 😉

great interactive here

https://panamapapers.icij.org/the_power_players/

Several trillion dollars of untaxed income as a result of it being hidden away in fake companies, benefiting heads of state, film stars, sports stars, our beloved Prime Minister's father?
Nah, it'll all be forgotten about this time tomorrow.

@kimbers the end for "tax havens" - what about Ireland and Luxembourg ? Under pressure from the EU Ireland finally agreed to end its triple-Irish zero tax deals but not for 4 more years !!! Junker personally negotiated dozens of similar deals and he's been rewarded with the Presidency of the EU.

The garphic above - children involved in offshore companies owning property in uk - of course when you introduce property taxes of 5% but company transfers are 0.5% people are going to buy properties in companies unless you do something to prevent it. Labour didn't think of it and the Tories closed the loophole.

CFH 😉 Panama is easily the "best" choice vs Cayman

Russia put on the most expensive Winter Olympics ever with facilities costing the government many many times originalmestimates. Money paid to private companies after contracts signed off by government officials. The whole thing is a disgrace but its hardly a Panama revelation is it ?

Oh there he goes again..."Ireland...blah...blah..Luxembourg...blah...blah...Junkers...blah...blah...blah..."

Bored already Jamba.

Of course, you probably already know why we don't know whether it's taxed or not don't you?

I suppose with this Panama thing, one has to ask oneself why someone needs to head there to hide his of her cash. Nowhere offers the level of secrecy and opacity of Panama, despite it not exactly being next door to a fair chunk of the world, nor offering the relative safety of say, British-dependent tax havens such as Jersey or the Isle Of Man.

Nope, when it comes to secrecy and ethically dubious methods of wealth management, no one can beat Panama. So, when you're wondering whether it's all above board or not, ask yourself why the person whose methods of wealth management you're judging: "Why Panama then matey?"

You get a free hat when you open an account?

(I keep mine on my parcel shelf)

Oh there he goes again..."Ireland...blah...blah..Luxembourg...blah...blah...Junkers...blah...blah...blah..."

Bored already Jamba.

You would think someone of jambas claimed background and knowledge would have known about the European savings directive.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/european-union-savings-directive-countering-cross-border-tax-evasion

The company said it..

has never been charged with criminal wrong-doing.

Is that not the Lance Armstrong defense?

I have never been caught taking drugs...

Ashcroft has claimed its all made up nasty lies 🙄

What company or organisation do you think this is?

- Headquarters registered in Jersey for tax avoidance purposes.
- 600 branch offices owned and controlled by a Bermuda holding company for the same reason.

RBS? BAe Systems? Barclays?

Nope, it's HMRC.

It really is laughable. Corrupt from the very top.

Yup from the very top, Nothing illegal obvs 😕 , just a depressing state of affairs..
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-35961422

the Panama papers are going to be in the news cycle and worthy of comment for a week or so,

I don't think it was meant this way, but that sounds rather tired and jaded ie: no-one's surprised, we all reckon this stuff goes on anyway and have tolerated it for years - and it'll disappear off the front pages after a couple of weeks of fear for some...

Maybe I'm just getting old and cynical but I'm just not surprised they've been able to find a link to our own PM. There's surely something on Osborne too, they've just not found it yet, and probably Blair as well...

Read Plato's Republic, written around 300 BC and you'll see that the idea that power appears impossible to deal with without it corrupting people, has been around for ever.

Ben - what's the source for the HRMC stuff? Ironically amusing, if true, but I might be being thick here but why would government department need to do what you claim?

- Headquarters registered in Jersey for tax avoidance purposes.
- 600 branch offices owned and controlled by a Bermuda holding company for the same reason.

RBS? BAe Systems? Barclays?

Nope, it's HMRC.

Eh? - got a link?

Read Plato's Republic, written around 300 BC and you'll see that the idea that power appears impossible to deal with without it corrupting people, has been around for ever.

I think Plato has it arse about face. Power doesn't corrupt - only the corrupt can gain power (or - "if you want to get ahead, be a ****")

It's not HMRC directly.

They outsourced they management of their buildings to Mapeley for 20 years. Without checking where they were based!

Private Eye have been banging on about it for years, but as they don't do online here's the guardian from 6 years ago:

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2010/apr/08/revenue-tax-offshore-millions-avoidance

thx, that makes a little bit more sense

Don't they employ quite a few staff as contractors too?

Yes, It's the usual trick of selling off assets then renting them back again.

Oldie but a Goldie:

[img] [/img]

[img] [/img]

[img] [/img]

Brinks Matt theft proceeds laundered as well 😆 they would work for anyone this lot

Facetious, I know but every time someone says Panama, I hear David Lee Roth.

Panama-ha-ha 😮

Ben, HMRC has 160 offices in the UK that it rents from a commercial series of landlords- at rather more than arm's length.
The Department is based in Whitehall, not Jersey. Oh, and doesn't exist as a commercial organisation, so has no profit taxes to pay. It is part of the civil service!
The relevant sections of crown estate, the buildings, were sold off many years ago by an idealogically challenged government to several property companies including at least one profit making off-shore registered entity.
But hey, lets not let the facts get in the way of a good story.

Wrecker- Contractors? er, no.

And finally, HMRC does not write tax law. The politicians do that. And they cut the budget, year after year. Close offices. Lay off staff. you'd almost think that they didn't want the organisation to actually be an effective tax police force. HMRC now has [u]half [/u]of the staff from just a decade ago. And is entering a programme of office closures that will see 145 offices close and at least another 10,000 staff depart permanently.
Does anyone else think that there might be an agenda behind this?

Does anyone else think that there might be an agenda behind this?

Tax Office is being automated / taken online. The days of paper tax returns are behind us and you simply don't need the same amount of staff.

Bringing the Referendum into this membership of the EU is the biggest cause of lost tax revenue to us, billions amd billions per anum. I am sure you are bored of hearing about it @dead, much more convenient if its just swept under the carpet

Brinks Matt theft proceeds laundered as well they would work for anyone this lot

Brinks-MAT is pretty small time in the bigger picture... how are organizations like Al-Qaeda and ISIS funded?

What about the 9/11 hijackers?

Being as records go back to the 70s, there may be further light shed on the activities of the BCCI (Bank of Credit and Commerce International)

[url= http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/sociopolitica/sociopol_globalbanking118.htm ]The Dirtiest Bank of them all[/url]

The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 and the resulting strategic importance of neighboring ****stan accelerated the growth of B.C.C.I.'s geopolitical power and its unbridled use of the black network. Because the U.S. wanted to supply the mujahedin rebels in Afghanistan with Stinger missiles and other military hardware, it needed the full cooperation of ****stan, across whose border the weapons would be shipped.

By the mid-1980s, the CIA's Islamabad operation was one of the largest U.S. intelligence stations in the world.

"If B.C.C.I. is such an embarrassment to the U.S. that forthright investigations are not being pursued, it has a lot to do with the blind eye the U.S. turned to the heroin trafficking in ****stan," says a U.S. intelligence officer.

The black network was a natural outgrowth of B.C.C.I.'s dubious and criminal associations.

The bank was in a unique position to operate an intelligence-gathering unit because it dealt with such figures as,

~General Noriega

~Saddam Hussein

~Ferdinand Marcos

~Peruvian President Alan Garcia

~Daniel Ortega

~Contra leader Adolfo Calero

~Arms dealers like Adnan Khashoggi

Its original purpose was to pay bribes, intimidate authorities and quash investigations.

[url= http://www.nytimes.com/1991/08/11/weekinreview/the-world-offshore-banking-s-umbrella-shields-more-than-bcci.html ]THE WORLD; Offshore Banking's Umbrella Shields More Than B.C.C.I.[/url]

Who presides over more Tax havens than any other entity on earth?

Oops, forgot this bit:

[b]From interviews with sources close to B.C.C.I., TIME has pieced together a portrait of a clandestine division of the bank called the "black network," which functions as a global intelligence operation and a Mafia-like enforcement squad.[/b] Operating primarily out of the bank's offices in Karachi, ****stan, the 1,500-employee black network has used sophisticated spy equipment and techniques, along with bribery, extortion, kidnapping and even, by some accounts, murder.

The black network - so named by its own members - stops at almost nothing to further the bank's aims the world over.

The more conventional departments of B.C.C.I. handled such services as laundering money for the drug trade and helping dictators loot their national treasuries.

[b]The black network, which is still functioning, operates a lucrative arms-trade business and transports drugs and gold. According to investigators and participants in those operations, it often works with Western and Middle Eastern intelligence agencies. The strange and still murky ties between B.C.C.I. and the intelligence agencies of several countries are so pervasive that even the White House has become entangled.[/b]

Here's the link to the original TIME article so you know it's not just loony stuff:

http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,973481,00.html

Who presides over more Tax havens than any other entity on earth?

Keeping the other thread open would have been smarter.

BCCI has been extensively banged on about for two decades. It's hardly a little known topic

😀

@dead thanks for answer on the other thread, I won't mention Ireland again for .. a while

BCCI has been extensively banged on about for two decades. It's hardly a little known topic

BCCI has been extensively banged on about for two decades. It's hardly a little known topic

Can you find another thread mentioning it?

Do allegations that funds from the Al-Yamamah deal between the UK and Saudi Arabia were used to fund Al-Qaeda in the run up to 9/11 have relevance today?

Who funds, arms and trades with ISIS anyhoo?

Can you find another thread mentioning it?

Al-Q was funded by OBL who was independently wealthy, he didn't need any deals with anyone