We’re all shocked, right?
Sheesh.
In the files we have found evidence of Russian banks providing slush funds for President Vladimir Putin’s inner circle; assets belonging to 12 country leaders, including the leaders of Iceland, Pakistan and Ukraine; companies connected to more than 140 senior politicians, their friends and relatives, and to some 22 people subject to sanctions for supporting regimes in North Korea, Syria, Russia and Zimbabwe; the proceeds of crimes, including Britain’s infamous Brink’s-Mat gold robbery; and enough art hidden in private collections to fill a public gallery.
??
What’s the betting this will lead to calls for more restrictions on what average people can do, restrictions which don’t touch all these corrupt ‘leaders’ one iota?
There are lots of perfectly sensible reasons to use the Caymans, Jersey etc in complex financial transactions, or as part of (legal) tax planning. However so far as I can see there is no legitimate reason for anyone outside South/Central America to use Panama. It’s completely corrupt, and nobody would risk putting their money there unless they were corrupt too.
David Moore,
Good luck finding anyone to take that bet. Whatever ‘think of the children’ law gets passed won’t affect the criminals.
If global tax revenues are say 1/4 of global GDP and corruption is equal across all sectors of economies then a quarter of the people exposed should be government officials. I’d like to have a bet though that less than a 1/4 are not on government payrolls.
BBC was creaming itself in referring to “the wealthy”.
Even the great wise one to the point.
Is Russia a courageous state?
Seriously, given that Armand Hammer benefited massively from striking deals with the Soviets in the 1920s and 30s, is there any sense that there will be actions taken against the Armand Hammer foundation in LA and its art museum?
oh, by the by…there is an exhibition of Russian paintings at the National Portrait Gallery which consists of paintings stolen by the Soviets from the owners who had purchased the said paintings. Will the Grrentards be protesting?
I find it quite irritating when the BBC dedicates many minutes of its news programmes to advertising future BBC content.
“assets belonging to 12 country leaders, including the leaders of Iceland”
Or going by the example they showed – the leader of Iceland’s wife rather than the man himself. I expect there will be an avalanche of suggestions that all the wealth uncovered is untaxed and a sleight of hand over actual ownership of interests as highlighted above.
Iceland? That is a surprise. Although the Scandinavian countries have had strong Communist parties.
Speaking of which, is it the Prime Minister or is it the President – who has the distasteful and dubious distinction of being the first person in Iceland to get a degree in political science, and who is a long-standing member of the thinly-disguised Communist Party?
the proceeds of crimes, including Britain’s infamous Brink’s-Mat gold robbery; and enough art hidden in private collections to fill a public gallery
Does anyone really think Putin has connections with the Brink’s job? When you thieve wholesale, retailers of theft must look so petty.
But I certainly hope it turns out the Amber Room has been lining the inside of his bog.
BiND,
“A huge leak of confidential documents has revealed how the rich and powerful use tax havens to hide their wealth.”
“Rich and powerful” as in mostly, as Timmy points out, from places which we know are corrupt. But why do that when you can subtly infer “the 1%”.
I do get irritated by the hype around this sort of leak twattery. Putin? Pakistan? FIFA? I mean, this is like finding Oliver Reed’s receipts from Victoria Wine as a big expose of his drinking.
The only surprise is, what? Iceland? A few Bollywood actors? As a Brit, I’m supposed to give a fuck about what goes on in a foreign country with less famous people than Belgium? You journalists honestly think that’s a story that’s going to keep yourself in jobs?
FFS
What David Moore said.
Plus, why is the BBC running this as their front story? What’s the British interest here? I clicked on their link thinking it would be about British citizens or at least western leaders, instead it’s – as you say – a story about Russians stashing their loot overseas. This is about as much a revelation as the sun rising in the East.
I like the way the BBC and Guardian journalists refer to the wealth as a pejorative, conveniently ignoring the fact that compared to more than 90% of the world’s population they have the wealth of Croesus.
“Iceland? That is a surprise.”
Indeed. That’s the only part of this story that falls in to the dog bites man category.
I like the way the BBC and Guardian journalists refer to the wealth as a pejorative, conveniently ignoring the fact that compared to more than 90% of the world’s population they have the wealth of Croesus.
I pointed this out to some friend-of-a-friend on FB the other day, who appeared to be a bit of a demented socialist. Started ranting about the 1% who hold all the wealth, and I pointed out that if he is writing in native English on Facebook in 2016 he’s among the wealthiest in the world and easily in the top 1% wealthiest of all people throughout history. What he meant – and I also pointed this out – was he was in the top 0.9% and was complaining the other 0.1% had more money than he did.
I’ve only skimmed the coverage so far but on the face of it the BBC’s headline article made even the Guardian look objective. At least the Guardian’s explainer page notes that offshore structures are legal and there are legit reasons to use them. Read the BBC article and you’d be forgiven for getting the impression that all the rich people in the world use them and it’s all illegal.
ISTM it has more to do with political instability than tax evasion. If you thought you would lose everything with a change of government, you’d try to hide your money too.
And le cerise sur le gateau this morning was the Murph himself on R4 Today, joining in the mutual masturbation session. At one point he actually admitted that although British firms were dong nothing illegal it had to be stopped anyhow.
This is going to run and run
Apparently Cameron’s dad has an inheritance tax avoiding structure call “Blairmore Holdings” – irony free of charge.
Also Lionel Messi with all his woes about his dodgy tax affairs in Spain also is involved.
There’s a lot more to come it seems…
Looks like mass hacks, sorry ‘leaks’, are OK again. They were evil acts after the UEA ClimateGate scandal, but thankfully no longer.
> Looks like mass hacks, sorry ‘leaks’, are OK again. They were evil acts after the UEA ClimateGate scandal, but thankfully no longer.
Yes, I had an argument about that on The Register’s forums back when the HSBC leak happened. There was a hell of a lot of overlap between the people who were hailing the leaker as some sort of hero and the people up in arms over the Orwellian trampling of privacy that was the… er suggestion that your GP’s records could be centralised.
S2: welcome back 🙂
You can just imagine the spreading puddle of warm urine that Ritchie leaked when he found this out today.
Hey, BIW. Thanks.
Firewalls, eh? Tsk.
Just tried posting this to Jolyon Maugham’ s blog on Panama Papers but didn’t appear. I don’t know if he moderates or whether just blocks differing viewpoints like Mr. Murphy
“Not even ICIJ is saying that all the corporations in question are Panamanian. In fact, several of the headline stories openly mention BVI companies. MF is a law firm which also does incorporations around the world. They have offices around the world. The only consistent Panama element is that the HQ is in Panama.”
Mr. Maugham kindly responded and posted it for me. Trying to work out technical details.