Panama Papers
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Date | April 2016 |
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Exposed by | Daphne Caruana Galizia |
Interest of | Daphne Caruana Galizia |
Description | A huge (2.6TB) cache of confidential documents created by the Panamanian corporate service provider Mossack Fonseca that provide detailed information on more than 214,000 offshore companies, including the identities of shareholders and directors. Those identified include numerous wealthy and powerful political figures and organisations of many countries. |
2016 US Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders opposed the 2011 Panama Free Trade Agreement claiming he was worried it would increasingly allow wealthy Americans and large corporations to evade US taxes by stashing their cash in offshore tax havens.
Now with the release of the Panama Papers it appears he was right. They show that over 214,000 offshore companies are using Panama to evade taxes. That is unacceptable, and that has got to change.[1]
Contents
History
More than a year before the Panama leaks in 2016, the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung received documents related to Mossack Fonseca from an anonymous source.[2]
Responses
In a striking illustration of the maxim that the initial response to any event fixes the main outlines of the Official Narrative in the public mind, western media, almost wthout exception, majored on the names of Vladimir Putin (though struggling a bit because only "his cronies" were immediately implicated), Syria's Bashar al Assad, Iceland Premier Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson and Chinese prime minister Xi Jinping. The Sydney Morning Herald coverage was typical [3].
Policy makers including German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble and European Commission Vice President Jyrki Katainen said the leak will strengthen the resolve of governments to combat tax avoidance and evasion. In a statement reminiscent of Benjamin Netanyahu's notorious remarks in the immediate aftermath of 9-11, Wolfgang Schaeuble said: “Even though it’s not surprising, it helps us. It increases the pressure to halt abuse.”[4]
Noting that the papers were in the hands of commercially-controlled media funded by big money, Craig Murray cautioned "Do not expect a genuine expose of western capitalism. The dirty secrets of western corporations will remain unpublished."[5]
Edward Snowden described the leak as the "biggest leak in the history of data journalism".[6]
The Chinese Global Times observed that "...a powerful force is behind the Panama Papers" [7]
Secrets of the Super Rich
On 4 April 2016, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's Four Corners broadcast "The Panama Papers: Secrets of the Super Rich" which Craig Murray praised for having "named and shamed Australia’s biggest company and Australia’s biggest foreign investor. BBC Panorama by contrast found a guy who sold one house in Islington. The Australians also, unlike the BBC who deliberately and knowing hid it, pointed out that the corruption centred on the British Virgin Islands, and even went there. All in all an excellent job."[8]
A Panama Papers victim on Wikispooks
Title | Description |
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Louise Blouin | Canadian magazine editor. WEF/Global Leaders for Tomorrow 1993 |
Related Quotation
Page | Quote | Date |
---|---|---|
Australian Broadcasting Corporation | “The Australian Broadcasting Corporation shamed the BBC by putting out a Four Corners documentary on the Panama leak that had real balls. In stark contrast to the BBC, the Australians named and shamed Australia’s biggest company and Australia’s biggest foreign investor. BBC Panorama by contrast found a guy who sold one house in Islington. The Australians also, unlike the BBC who deliberately and knowing hid it, pointed out that the corruption centred on the British Virgin Islands, and even went there. All in all an excellent job.” | April 2016 |
Related Documents
Title | Type | Publication date | Author(s) | Description |
---|---|---|---|---|
Document:Appleby launches legal action against ICIJ’s UK partners | Article | 18 December 2017 | Gerard Ryle | "This is a potentially dangerous moment for free expression in Britain" – Gerard Ryle |
Document:Jeremy Corbyn's speech to the United Nations in full | Speech | 8 December 2017 | Jeremy Corbyn | Jeremy Corbyn at the United Nations in Geneva upstages Theresa May at the European Union in Brussels |
Document:Was EU Tax Evasion Regulation The Reason For The Brexit Referendum | Blog post | 26 September 2017 | Josh Hamilton | The EU's new anti-abuse measures coming into force in 2019 would tighten up restrictions on UK-based intermediaries that take part in off-shoring and tax avoidance, of which Britain is a global leader |
File:THE PRICE OF OFFSHORE REVISITED.pdf | paper | July 2012 | James S. Henry | Study on the "offshore" private banking market. |
References
- ↑ "Bernie Sanders on tax havens"
- ↑ "About the Panama Papers" by Frederik Obermaier, Bastian Obermayer, Vanessa Wormer and Wolfgang Jaschensky, Süddeutsche Zeitung
- ↑ "Panama Papers leak exposes how Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping's friends hide money" - Sydney Morning Herald 4 April 2016
- ↑ "China, Pakistan Push Back on Offshore Revelations as Syria Named" - Bloomberg 5 April 2016
- ↑ "Corporate Media Gatekeepers Protect Western 1% From Panama Leak"
- ↑ "Twitter: Edward Snowden". Twitter. Archived from the original on April 3, 2016. Retrieved April 3, 2016.Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css must have content model "Sanitized CSS" for TemplateStyles (current model is "Scribunto").
- ↑ Powerful force is behind Panama Papers - Global Times 5 April 2016
- ↑ "A Chink of Aussie Light"