5 Apr 2016 4:53 pm
This is why the rich say the poor need to pay more taxes, because the rich refuse to pay any.Massive Document Leak Reveals the Hidden Offshore Wealth of the World’s Elite
A massive leak from one of the world’s top offshore services companies has exposed the hidden wealth of the world’s elite, including world leaders, politicians, businesspeople, and celebrities from more than 200 countries.
The “Panama Papers” leak, which includes roughly 11.5 million documents comprising nearly 40 years of day-to-day data, came from the Panama-based law firm Mossack Fonseca, the world’s fourth-largest offshore services company and a top creator of the shell companies used by wealthy to hide their assets.
Their clients, whose offshore holdings in 21 tax havens have been revealed by the leak, include 12 current and former world leaders and another 128 politicians and public officials from more than 50 countries.
The documents demonstrate how Mossack Fonseca has helped its clients launder money, avoid sanctions, and evade taxes — though it’s worth noting that the company denies any wrongdoing and has never been accused of, or charged with, any crimes.
Also, as the Guardian points out, not everyone who uses offshore structures is a criminal, though many are, and having or using an offshore company is sometimes a perfectly ethical and logical way to conduct certain types of international business transactions.
The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, comprising some 370 journalists from 107 media organizations in 78 countries, including the Guardian and the BBC, have spent a year analyzing the leak, which was originally obtained by the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung. The identity of the source has not been revealed.
World leaders of note whose assets and dealings have been exposed by the leak include Russian President Vladimir Putin, whom the Guardian has linked to some $2 billion in wealth, as well as Pakistani prime minister Nawaz Sharif, Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko, King Salman of Saudi Arabia, and Iceland’s prime minister, Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson, who is already facing calls for a snap election over the leak.
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And what about the hidden wealth of Americans? Stay tuned, apparently:
Sheesh!