Treasure Islands by Nicholas Shaxson, 2011, Excerpts
Tax havens are about artificially manipulating paper trails of money across borders. The general idea is that by adjusting its internal prices a multinational can shift profits offshore, where they pay little or no tax, known as Transfer Pricing, or Mispricing. Transfer Pricing is one of the most important reasons that multinationals are multinationals and why they usually grow faster than smaller competitors. Anyone worried about the power of global multinationals should pay attention to tax havens. This system has effected the greatest transfer of wealth from poor to rich in history.
Obama: “biggest tax scam on record”
Company part-owned by Jared Kushner got $90m from unknown offshore investors since 2017
First tax havens blacklist published by EU
Panama Papers: Leaks spur global
investigations
Tax Havens in the News
EU puts Cayman Islands on tax haven
blacklist
18 Feb 2020
The European Union has added the Cayman
Islands, a UK overseas territory, to its tax havens blacklist. As well as the
Cayman Islands, additions this year include Panama, Palau and the Seychelles.
Oxfam said the EU's move was "encouraging" but many more places
should be blacklisted, such as the British Virgin Islands, deserve to be added
to the list, as do some places within the EU. "While it is encouraging
that the Cayman Islands has finally been added to the blacklist, the list
itself still proves wholly inadequate."
The great American tax haven: why the
super-rich love South Dakota
14 Nov 2019
In the past decade, hundreds of billions of
dollars have poured out of traditional offshore jurisdictions such as
Switzerland and Jersey, and into a small number of American states: Delaware,
Nevada, Wyoming - and, above all, South Dakota. Super-rich people are choosing
South Dakota, which has created the most potent force-field money can buy - a
South Dakotan trust. A South Dakotan trust protects assets from claims from
ex-spouses, disgruntled business partners, creditors, litigious clients and
pretty much anyone else. It won't protect you from criminal prosecution, but it
does prevent information on your assets from leaking out in a way that might
spark interest from the police. South Dakota has no income tax, no inheritance
tax and no capital gains tax. A decade ago, South Dakotan trust companies held
$57.3bn in assets. By the end of 2020, that total will have risen to $355.2bn.
Company part-owned by Jared Kushner got $90m from unknown offshore investors since 2017
10 Jun 2019
A real estate company part-owned by Jared
Kushner has received $90m in foreign funding from an opaque offshore vehicle
since he entered the White House as a senior adviser to his father-in-law Donald
Trump. Investment has flowed from overseas to the company, Cadre, while Kushner
works as an international envoy for the US, according to corporate filings and
interviews. The money came through a vehicle run by Goldman Sachs in the Cayman
Islands, a tax haven that guarantees corporate secrecy. Cadre’s foreign funding
creates conflicts of interest for Kushner as he performs his work for the US
government. Much of the money came to the Cayman Islands vehicle from a second
offshore tax haven, while some came from Saudi Arabia.
Crown Dependencies try to shake off EU 'tax
haven' tag
20 Dec 2018
Britain's Crown Dependencies are home to
76,000 companies - one for every third person living there. The Isle of Man has
26,000 registered companies, more than double the 10,000 people working in the
island's financial services sectors. These companies will now have to prove
their presence in Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man is not merely a
tax-dodging exercise, to justify why they should benefit from the low or
non-existent tax rates paid on their profits in the islands. EU attention on
the islands sharpened after the 2017 release of the Paradise Papers, where
Jersey and Isle of Man were the focus of major revelations. Jersey's finance
sector provides about 40% of the island's national income. Apple's Irish
subsidiaries were managed from Jersey between 2015 and 2016. The island's 0%
corporate tax rate for foreign companies enabled Apple to avoid billions in tax
around the world.
Deutsche Bank offices raided in connection
with Panama Papers
29 Nov 2018
Police in Germany have raided the offices of
Deutsche Bank in connection with the Panama Papers revelations and as part of
an investigation into alleged money laundering. About 170 police officers,
prosecutors and tax inspectors searched six Deutsche Bank officers in and
around Frankfurt. The Panama Papers, published by the Guardian and a consortium
of international journalists in April 2016, revealed how offshore tax havens
including the British Virgin Islands were used to hide billions of dollars.
Records from the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca were the basis of the
Panama Papers investigation and included more than 10m documents. The
revelations caused protests in several countries and led to the resignation of
heads of state, including in Iceland and Pakistan. Anti-corruption groups
welcomed the raid in Frankfurt and said it was a “nail in the coffin of the
opaque offshore world”.
First tax havens blacklist published by EU
05 Dec 2017
The European Union has published its first blacklist of tax havens,
naming 17 territories including Saint Lucia, Barbados and South Korea. A
"watchlist" of 47 countries promising to change their tax rules to
meet EU standards has also been issued. The "grey list" includes
several with UK links, including Hong Kong, Jersey, Bermuda and the Cayman
Islands, as well as Switzerland and Turkey. The lists follow the leaking of the
Panama Papers and the Paradise Papers, revealing how companies and individuals
hid their wealth from tax authorities around the world in offshore accounts.
Paradise Papers leak reveals secrets of the
world elite's hidden wealth
05 Nov 2017
The world’s biggest businesses, heads of state and global figures in
politics, entertainment and sport who have sheltered their wealth in secretive
tax havens are being revealed this week in a major new investigation into
Britain’s offshore empires. The details come from a leak of 13.4m files that
expose the global environments in which tax abuses can thrive – and the complex
ways the wealthiest corporations can legally protect their wealth. The material
was obtained by the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung and shared with
partners including the Guardian, the BBC and the New York Times. At the center
of the leak is Appleby, a law firm with outposts in Bermuda, the Cayman
Islands, the British Virgin Islands, the Isle of Man, Jersey and Guernsey. In
contrast to Mossack Fonseca, the discredited firm at the center of last year’s
Panama Papers investigation, Appleby prides itself on being a leading member of
the “magic circle” of top-ranking offshore service providers.
The Paradise Papers reveal:
· Millions of pounds from
the Queen’s private estate has been invested in a Cayman Islands fund.
· Extensive offshore
dealings by Donald Trump’s cabinet members, advisers and donors, including
substantial payments from a firm co-owned by Vladimir Putin’s son-in-law to the
shipping group of the US commerce secretary, Wilbur Ross.
· How Twitter and Facebook
received hundreds of millions of dollars in investments that can be traced back
to Russian state financial institutions.
· The tax-avoiding Cayman
Islands trust managed by the Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau’s chief
moneyman.
· A previously unknown
$450m offshore trust that has sheltered the wealth of Lord Ashcroft.
· Aggressive tax avoidance
by multinational corporations, including Nike and Apple.
· How some of the biggest
names in the film and TV industries protect their wealth with an array of
offshore schemes.
· The billions in tax
refunds by the Isle of Man and Malta to the owners of private jets and luxury
yachts.
· The secret loan and
alliance used by the London-listed multinational Glencore in its efforts to
secure lucrative mining rights in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
· The complex offshore
webs used by two billionaires to buy stakes in Arsenal and Everton football
clubs.
04 Apr 2016
Authorities across the world are being spurred into action after a huge
leak of confidential documents revealed how tax havens are used to hide wealth.
Eleven million documents were leaked from the secretive Panamanian law firm
Mossack Fonseca. They show how the company has helped some clients launder
money, dodge sanctions and avoid tax. The company says it has operated beyond
reproach for 40 years and has never been charged with criminal wrong-doing.
Since the first revelations late on Sunday a number of investigations have been
launched by Austrian, Dutch and Australian authorities.
The documents feature 12 current or former heads of state, and at least
60 people linked to current or former world leaders. The files reveal a
suspected billion-dollar money laundering ring involving close associates of
Russia's President Vladimir Putin. Iceland's Prime Minister, Sigmundur David
Gunnlaugsson, is also shown to have had an undeclared interest linked to his
wife's wealth. By Monday morning, 16,000 people in Iceland had signed a
petition demanding his resignation, and a large protest was expected in
Reykjavik later. The leaked documents also show that Ian Cameron, the late
father of UK Prime Minister David Cameron, was a Mossack Fonseca client. Also
mentioned are the brother-in-law of China's President Xi Jinping; Ukraine's
President Petro Poroshenko; and Argentina's President Mauricio Macri. China
appears to be censoring social media posts on the document leak, which has
named several members of the country's elite.
Panama papers: China leaders' relatives
named in leaks
04 April 2016
Mossack Fonseca website.
Data Security blurb on the Mossack Fonseca
website.
Your information has never been safer than with Mossack Fonseca's secure
Client Portal. To ensure we can provide our clients with the most secure and
up-to-date protection available, we house all of our servers in-house. Our
Client Portal encryption certificates use the most powerful secure socket layer
(SSL) encryption commercially available today. Mossack Fonseca has always
provided our clients with the most secure technology available and we join the
95% percent of Fortune 500 companies as well as the world's 40 largest banks
who rely on this technology to keep
client information protected.
France's President Hollande: Eradicate tax
havens
10 Apr 2013
French President Francois Hollande has called for
"eradication" of the world's tax havens, a response to the tax
scandal that has shaken his presidency. France's ex-Budget Minister Jerome
Cahuzac has been charged with fraud over a secret Swiss bank account. Mr
Cahuzac admitted last week that he had hidden about 600,000 euros (£509,000;
$770,000) in a Swiss bank account, causing shock in France. He has now been
expelled from the Socialist Party for lying about his financial affairs. Mr
Hollande said "tax havens must be eradicated in Europe and
worldwide".
Leaks reveal secrets
of the rich who hide cash offshore
03 Apr 2013
Millions of internal records have
leaked from Britain's offshore financial industry, exposing for the first time
the identities of thousands of holders of anonymous wealth from around the
world, from presidents to plutocrats, the daughter of a notorious dictator and
a British millionaire accused of concealing assets from his ex-wife. The leak
of 2m emails and other documents, mainly from the offshore haven of the British
Virgin Islands (BVI), has the potential to cause a seismic shock worldwide to
the booming offshore trade, with a former chief economist at McKinsey
estimating that wealthy individuals may have as much as $32tn (£21tn) stashed
in overseas havens.
Cyprus Crisis Reveals
Shadowy World of Tax and Money Laundering Haven
26 Mar 2013
Tax havens: Super-rich 'hiding' at least
$21tn
22 Jul 2012
A global super-rich elite had at least $21 trillion (£13tn) hidden in
secret tax havens by the end of 2010, according to a major study. The figure is
equivalent to the size of the US and Japanese economies combined. The Price of Offshore
Revisited was written by James Henry, a former chief economist at
the consultancy McKinsey, for by the Tax Justice Network. Mr. Henry said that the super-rich move money around
the globe through an "industrious bevy of professional enablers in private
banking, legal, accounting and investment industries.” The three private banks
handling the most assets offshore are UBS, Credit Suisse and Goldman Sachs.
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