Developing Tax Avoidance Story

[Jacob]

A big leak of off shore accounts involving all sorts of people just happened: http://www.icij.org/offshore/secret-files-expose-offshores-global-impact

A cache of 2.5 million files has cracked open the secrets of more than 120,000 offshore companies and trusts, exposing hidden dealings of politicians, con men and the mega-rich the world over.

The secret records obtained by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists lay bare the names behind covert companies and private trusts in the British Virgin Islands, the Cook Islands and other offshore hideaways.

They include American doctors and dentists and middle-class Greek villagers as well as families and associates of long-time despots, Wall Street swindlers, Eastern European and Indonesian billionaires, Russian corporate executives, international arms dealers and a sham-director-fronted company that the European Union has labeled as a cog in Iran's nuclear-development program.

Some Canadian coverage on the CBC: http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2013/04/03/offshore-data-leak.html

Apparently it's headline news in several countries.

It will be interesting to see what, if anything, comes of it.

[viper37]

Enquête will have a dedicated report on this story tonight on SRC.  I figure the equivalent from CBC will soon run its own story on this.

[citizen k]

One wonders how and why this sudden (and timely) leak of documents occurred. If we were a tinfoil-hat-wearing conspiracy theorist we might suspect that this is a staged coup to create a witch-hunt against all offshore capital (legitimate or illegitimate) - and an attempt, as with Cyprus, to push money out of banks and into circulation (pushing the velocity up) as all other monetary policy 'tricks' have failed. While 'offshore' is synonymous with 'tax cheat', there is nothing illegal in moving assets offshore. In fact, as Simon Black notes, given that there is going to come a time, likely soon, that retirement savings will be targeted; diversifying abroad is one of the sanest things you can do to protect yourself against the real criminals.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-04-04/mapping-witch-hunt-worlds-offshore-bank-account-holders

[fhdz]

I certainly hope that people who are using offshore accounts legitimately are left alone and that people who are using it to evade taxation get what's coming to them.

[citizen k]

I certainly hope that people who are using offshore accounts legitimately are left alone and that people who are using it to evade taxation get what's coming to them.

If only that distinction wasn't usually lost on the villagers with the pitchforks.

[Sheilbh]

I certainly hope that people who are using offshore accounts legitimately are left alone and that people who are using it to evade taxation get what's coming to them.

There was a part of me that felt sorry for the Russians in Cyprus. I imagine a lot of that money was acquired dodgily, but I also suspect a big chunk was perfectly legal and just Russians looking to keep their money somewhere with the rule of law that the Kremlin couldn't reach if things went badly.

[Jacob]

There was a part of me that felt sorry for the Russians in Cyprus. I imagine a lot of that money was acquired dodgily, but I also suspect a big chunk was perfectly legal and just Russians looking to keep their money somewhere with the rule of law that the Kremlin couldn't reach if things went badly.

Yeah.

[fhdz]

I certainly hope that people who are using offshore accounts legitimately are left alone and that people who are using it to evade taxation get what's coming to them.

There was a part of me that felt sorry for the Russians in Cyprus. I imagine a lot of that money was acquired dodgily, but I also suspect a big chunk was perfectly legal and just Russians looking to keep their money somewhere with the rule of law that the Kremlin couldn't reach if things went badly.

Yes, I guess I was thinking more of US/Western European citizens when I was writing that.

[Admiral Yi]

There was a part of me that felt sorry for the Russians in Cyprus. I imagine a lot of that money was acquired dodgily, but I also suspect a big chunk was perfectly legal and just Russians looking to keep their money somewhere with the rule of law that the Kremlin couldn't reach if things went badly.

Why would a legit Russian with legit money park it in dodgy place like Cyprus when there's plenty of other countries to park it in?

[Baron von Schtinkenbutt]

There was a part of me that felt sorry for the Russians in Cyprus. I imagine a lot of that money was acquired dodgily, but I also suspect a big chunk was perfectly legal and just Russians looking to keep their money somewhere with the rule of law that the Kremlin couldn't reach if things went badly.

Why would a legit Russian with legit money park it in dodgy place like Cyprus when there's plenty of other countries to park it in?

For starters, those other countries are much more inclined to assume a Russian who wants to deposit a shitload of cash offshore is not legit.

[Sheilbh]

Why would a legit Russian with legit money park it in dodgy place like Cyprus when there's plenty of other countries to park it in?

How's Cyprus any more dodgy than any other banking centre? I certainly don't think their oligarchs seem any dodgier than the ones we have in London.

Off the top of my head Cyprus has a similar script, similar religious culture, it's in the EU (and the Euro), it's got sun so you can mix business and pleasure and they've got an English legal system (which Russians love for some reason).

Why do all the French secret bank accounts seem to be in Switzerland, the English in the Channel Islands and the Americans in the Caribbean?