Medium By ICO Services
Finally. A new leaked set of documents — not as big as Panama Papers, though — hit the Internet, and as expected, the WWW goes frenzy.
In this article, we’ll brief you about the leaked documents — what you need to know and what’s going on moving forward.
In the beginning…
The leaked documents were hinted by someone on Reddit 16 days before the official leak date (November 5, 2017.) At the release date, the media dubbed the set of documents as Paradise Papers.
The documents are originating from a law firm, Appleby, which offices are in Bermuda, the Cayman Islands, the BVI, the Isle of Man, Jersey and Guernsey (hence the name, Paradise Papers.)
Just like the Panama Papers, Paradise Papers reveals the information on some of the world’s largest corporations, country leaders, public figures, musicians, political figures, and so on.
The documents were obtained by Suddeutsche Zeitung (just like the leaked documents last year, Panama Papers) and shared by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ,) with nearly 100 media groups, such as the BBC and The New York Times, investigating the papers and publishing the stories related to those.
The stats
The size of the documents is massive: 1.4 TB of data consisting of 13.4 million of documents, dated from 1950 to 2016. It’s not as big as the Panama Papers (2.6 TB,) but the impact is as profound as its predecessor.
Both leaks are much bigger than the rest, namely Offshore secrets in 2013 (260 GB,) Luxembourg tax files in 2014 (4.4 GB,) HSBC files in 2015 (3.3 GB,) and WikiLeaks in 2010 (1.7 GB.)
Who’s who?
The ICIJ reported at least 31,000 clients found in the documents are either U.S. citizens or have U.S. addresses — more than any other countries. However, there are some big names mentioned in the documents.
The global authorities are now still analyzing the documents, but here are some of the most important public figures of the world. Here are some of them:
· Queen Elizabeth II
· Bono (U2)
· eBay founder Pierre Omidyar
· Madonna
· U.S. Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross
· …and more names, worldwide.
What follows the released papers
It seems that the leak triggers series of events. In essence, the Paradise Papers leak leads to:
1- Stronger push toward transparency;
2- Name shaming
3- The revelation of tactics used for offshore asset protection
Let’s discuss each.
1 — Stronger push toward transparency
The current push to put offshore secrecy to an end is deemed as not enough. Authorities of the world use Paradise Papers data to catalyze a more stringent decision making toward tax transparency.
Please allow us to remind you once again, that using offshore structures aren’t illegal (although these are often considered as “unethical.”) However, as the structures can also be used by wrongdoers, organizations and the media urge authorities to clamp down on not only tax evasion (illegal) but also tax avoidance (legal.)
2 — Charges against “the bad guys”
The Paradise Papers reveal names and other personal profile, which can be used as the ground for investigative actions.
India, for example, quickly formed a panel of government officials to investigate the individuals and companies mentioned in the Panama Papers. There are 700 names mentioned in the Papers who are Indians.
3 — Name shaming
Very similar to what happened in the aftermath of Panama Papers leak, Paradise Papers releases public figures and celebrities’ offshore financial activities for the reason that we would think as name shaming.
For example, Queen Elizabeth, who allegedly has invested millions of dollars offshore (as revealed in the Papers,) was suggested by British politician Jeremy Corbyn to apology to the public.
You can expect more public figures name shaming coming up in the near future.
4- The revelation of tactics used for offshore asset protection
U2 leader Bono invested in a shopping mall in Lithuania using a Malta-based company. Here’s how the structure works: He setup a company in Malta, a low-tax jurisdiction, for the purpose of acquiring EUR 5.8 million-worth of shares in a Maltese company called Nude Estates. Nude Estates bought a Lithuanian mall, Ausra back in 2007. In 2012, the business was transferred to a company in Guernsey, assumed to be for lowering the taxes.
Malta’s effective corporate tax is at 35 percent, with many applicable deductions that can effectively bring it down to 0 to 5 percent. Guernsey, on the other hand, tax companies at zero percent.
This is one of the several examples revealed in the Papers of how asset owners use offshore structures to lower taxes, legally…
READ FULL ARTICLE HERE… (medium.com)
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