2016-04-04 The Panama Papers: world reacts to huge offshore tax files leak, The Guardian. (Has links to related postings)

Slow progress on tax havens and offshore banking.   We started following the issue more seriously in June 2013.

In 2015 the CRA report about KPMG Canada sending its clients to offshore tax havens helped heighten awareness that we plebeians are footing the tax bills while the wealthy are doing their share, gorging themselves, enjoying the generosity of the plebes.

Then KA-BOOM!   a huge leak.   Many thanks to a courageous soul who is talked about in – –

• UPDATE:   2016-04-04   How reporters pulled off the Panama Papers, the biggest leak in Whistleblower history. Wired Magazine.
• UPDATE:   2016-04-05 Panama Papers, from Amy Goodman, Democracy Now. Interview with the journalists who orchestrated the leak.

 

http://www.theguardian.com/news/live/2016/apr/04/panama-papers-global-reaction-to-huge-leak-of-offshore-tax-files-live

The biggest-ever leak of secret information involves 11m documents from Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca. Here’s how the story is being covered around the world.

By Peter Walker and Aisha Gani    – – –  continued below.

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RELATED:

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, from his letter of Mandate to the Minister of National Revenue:

Invest additional resources to help the CRA crack down on tax evaders and work with international partners to adopt strategies to combat tax avoidance. http://pm.gc.ca/eng/minister-national-revenue-mandate-letter#sthash.EBMEhZH9.dpuf

(Sandra)  Canadians need to be informed and vocal in the international drive to clean things up.  Be relentless in vocalizing support.

Also encouraging: I recall listening to Mark Carney, Governor of the Bank of England, talking with an influential audience in the UK. Carney was very clear on the need and intention to go after offshore banking and tax havens.  (Some of them are offshore the U.K.)   I cannot find the video or any text of such a statement by him.   Will search again when time permits.

The Panama Papers: how the world’s rich and famous hide their money offshore, The Guardian  

*** Important to Canadians:   2016-03-08 Canada Revenue offered amnesty to wealthy KPMG clients in offshore tax ‘sham’, CBC. IMPORTANT VIDEO.  ***

2016-04-05   LeadNow leads the way on ACTION re Panama Papers (Facebook, Twitter)

2016-01-30 Tories (Britain) lobbying to protect Google’s £30bn island tax haven

2015-12-01 Baltasar Garzon considers it crucial that the financial (offshore banking) and arms flows to ISIL be investigated, and he seeks change in law to prosecute global corporations.

2015-11-27 Switzerland sentences tax evasion whistleblower Hervé Falciani to 5 years in prison.  Leaked HSBC client files exposed $255B stashed offshore, including $4B in accounts tied to Canada

2015-11-22   Offshore Banking and ISIS.

2015-09-09 KPMG Offshore sham deceived tax authorities, CRA alleges. Multi-millionaire clients paid virtually no tax in Isle of Man scheme, court documents show

2014-05-02   Canadians’ use of tax havens grows to $170B

2013-06-14   G8 Tax Evasion Proposals: Stephen Harper Blocking Progress On International Deal, Critics Say. Huffington Post

Very Important to understanding:   A Game as Old as Empire.  Video   http://tv.naturalnews.com/v.asp?v=2128A432935C07DE8A298E6C66234D54

Steven Hiatt leads a discussion on A Game as Old as Empire: The Secret World of Economic Hit Men and the Web of Global Corruption.

The authors tell how multinational corporations, governments, powerful individuals, banks, other financial institutions, and quasi-governmental agencies operate to enrich small elites and corporate coffers while often impoverishing masses of people and creating debt and dependency that economically enslave countries for generations. Editor Steve Hiatt, who has worked as an editor and writer for several Bay Area companies, including Apple Computer, Netscape, Progressive Asset Management, and Stanford Research Institute, talks this evening with two of the book’s contributors, Antonia Juhasz, who writes of “Global Uprising: The Web of Resistance” and Ellen Augustine, who writes on “The Philippines, the World Bank, and the Race to the Bottom” –

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Now,  continuing – –

The Panama Papers: world reacts to huge offshore tax files leak, The Guardian

http://www.theguardian.com/news/live/2016/apr/04/panama-papers-global-reaction-to-huge-leak-of-offshore-tax-files-live

Note:  Go to the URL.   Updates are posted.  Although by today (April 5th), they have not posted re the grilling that David Cameron, Prime Minister of the UK, is taking over his father’s offshore activities since the 1980’s.

Afternoon summary  (April 4)

Here’s a quick summary of reaction so far since the first reports based on the Panama Papers were published by news organisations around the world:

• Reports from 107 news organisations around the world have been chronicling information contained in a massive cache of files from the Panama-based law firm Mossack Fonseca. These were initially leaked to German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung.
• In the UK, the Guardian and the BBC have led reports on the 11.5m files, described as the biggest leak in history.
• A big element of the Guardian’s first-day coverage related to claims of great wealth swirling around Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, much of it connected to a close friend of his, Sergei Roldugin, a cellist.
• Russia’s government has dismissed the reports as unfounded and based on “Putinophobia”.
• Iceland’s prime minister faces a vote of no confidence after the files disclosed offshore holdings linked to him and his wife. He has said there is “nothing new” in the reports, but walked out of a TV interview when quizzed on it.

British tax investigators have written to the Guardian and others, seeking the files so they can investigate possible offshore tax evasion.

• Downing Street has refused to comment on information in the files showing David Cameron’s father, Ian, used offshore techniques to avoid paying UK tax.
• Ukraine’s president, Petro Poroshenko, faces calls for investigation from MPs following allegations about his offshore dealings.
• Mossack Fonseca has said it cannot comment on individual cases, but says it is a “responsible member of the global financial and business community” and has broken no laws.

 

We have more reaction from Russia. The Kremlin has dismissed revelations contained in the Panama Papers as “Putinophobia” and said that journalists investigating the Russian president’s financial affairs had “found out little new”.

Dmitry Peskov, Putin’s spokesman, said the publication of leaked offshore files from the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca was designed to “destabilise the situation in Russia ahead of elections”.

The Guardian reveals how Peskov’s wife, Tatiana Navka, a former Olympic ice skater, was the registered beneficial owner of a secret offshore firm. Peskov has denied this.

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