- Title: 'Panama Papers' turn spotlight on tax evasion
- Date: 4th April 2016
- Summary: LONDON, ENGLAND, UNITED KINGDOM (APRIL 4, 2016) (REUTERS) (SOUNDBITE) (English) BGC PARTNERS, MARKET ANALYST, MIKE INGRAM, SAYING: "On the basis that turkeys never vote for Christmas, and supposedly many of these politicians are allegedly beneficiaries of these kinds of tax havens, then I suspect that a substantive move is actually going to be little to nothing. And I'm pr
- Embargoed: 19th April 2016 16:46
- Keywords: Panama Panama Papers offshore finance shell company Mossack Fonseca tax evasion document leak
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- Topics: Economic Events
- Reuters ID: LVA0054BYDEFB
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: Governments across the world began investigating possible financial wrongdoing by the rich and powerful on Monday (April 4) following a leak of documents from a Panamanian law firm which allegedly showed how clients avoided tax or laundered money.
The documents detailed schemes involving an array of figures from friends of Russian President Vladimir Putin to relatives of the prime ministers of Britain, Iceland and Pakistan and as well as the president of Ukraine, journalists who received them said.
While the "Panama Papers" detail complex financial arrangements benefiting the world's elite, they do not necessarily mean the schemes were all illegal.
The Kremlin said the documents contained "nothing concrete and nothing new" while a spokesman for British Prime Minister David Cameron said his late father's reported links to an offshore company were a "private matter".
Iceland's Prime Minister Sigmundur Gunnlaugsson could not immediately be reached for comment on the naming of his wife in connection with a secretive company in an offshore haven which brought opposition calls for him to resign.
Pakistan denied any wrongdoing by the family of Prime Minister Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif after his daughter and son were linked to offshore companies. Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has not commented on his reported offshore links.
Australia, Austria, Brazil, France and Sweden were among countries which said they had begun investigating the allegations, based on more than 11.5 million documents from law firm Mossack Fonseca, located in the tax haven of Panama. Banks as well as individual clients came under the spotlight.
Campaign leader and corruption expert Robert Palmer of Global Witness said the leak revealed an "unfair" arrangement for the rich and powerful.
"We need to investigate the individual cases where they've got people holding their money offshore. You know, some of it will be technically legal, I'm sure some of it won't be, but we need accountability. If you are a rich, powerful individual and you're not paying your taxes by having your money offshore, that is fundamentally unfair. It undermines our democracy but also means that we don't have the money that's needed for public services," he said.
The documents were leaked to the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) and more than 100 other news organizations. Mossack Fonseca has denied any wrongdoing.
But lawyer and tax specialist Jolyon Maugham said he expected an element of "criminality"to be involved.
"The fact that these revelations have emerged from Panama tends to suggest, and suggests strongly to me, that there is likely to be criminality involved. No one who's based in the UK has Panama as their natural choice for a tax haven. You have all the Channel Islands much closer, you have all the British Overseas Territories, all of which use UK law and are staffed very often by UK expats," he said.
"The advantage that Panama has is its particular secrecy laws, its ethical shortcomings, the ethical shortcomings of its professionals and some dodgy instruments that enable us to hide who really owns assets. Now those are big, big advantages if you're engaged in evasion, advantages that might cause you to want to switch from more natural tax havens without those advantages to Panama," he added.
Panama, part of the Central American isthmus, is among the world's most secretive offshore financial centres, a group that includes territories such as the Cayman Islands, Bermuda and the British Virgin Islands.
It has declined to sign up to global transparency rules which international organizations have been pushing in a bid to fight tax evasion, money-laundering and other criminality. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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