Panama Papers

[Seattleite]

WHO CALLED IT?

 

...

 

*AHEM*

 

So, there was an enormous leak recently that shows an enormous tax evasion conspiracy. We are talking about an actual, formal conspiracy involving massive numbers of powerful people. Only instead of a smoke-filled back room, it's probably a teleconference between people in office buildings dozens of floors above ground. They're getting together, setting up companies specifically to help them evade their taxes, and conspiring with corrupt national leaders to help. It is so crazy that one address in the Cayman Islands has 18,000 businesses registered to it. Tax dodging is revealed to be a 20 trillion dollar industry, a figure that doesn't surprise me one bit, and we still only have info from the FOURTH largest offshore legal firm.

 

The Panama Papers are 11.5 million documents spanning from 1977 to 2015, so we don't have all the information yet as journalists are still pouring over them. The point of this thread (aside from me gloating about how much I called it) is to discuss it as new information comes to light.

[Vapymid]

There is no conspiracy. They don't need to get together to create these companies. Quite the opposite, they dont't want the others to know of them...

 

But a lot of these companies are used for legitimate purposes or where there is no other practical way to run an international or a domsetic business because the local legislation - either fiscal or civil - is so screwed up.

 

But, yes - all the people in power are corrupt. No surprises there... Corruption is what drives countries, be it the US, UK, France, Nigeria, Russia - the principle is the same everywhere.

 

Regards

[Seattleite]

Do you understand the legal definition of the term "Conspiracy"? Because that is still legally a conspiracy. You can't claim that $20 trillion in tax evasion, between a corporation that only exists to set up shell companies for tax evasion (fourth largest, there are three larger ones), the corporations and individuals it helps evade taxes, and the government figures that assist in this and often evade taxes themselves through this system, isn't a conspiracy. Please, take a moment to read a couple articles on the matter. There's a dozen of them a Google search away, this story is inescapable at the moment.