Panama Papers include top military contractor Triple Canopy Fusion
“The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists will release on May 9, 2016 a searchable database with information on more than 200,000 offshore entities that are part of the Panama Papers investigation. The database will likely be the largest ever release of secret offshore companies and the people behind them. The data comes from the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca, one of the top players in the offshore world, and includes information about companies, trusts, foundations and funds incorporated in 21 tax havens, from Hong Kong to Nevada in the United States. It links to people in more than 200 countries and territories. When the data is released, users will be able to search through the data and visualize the networks around thousands of offshore entities, including, when possible, Mossack Fonseca’s internal records of the company’s true owners. The interactive database will also include information about more than 100,000 additional companies that were part of the 2013 ICIJ Offshore Leaks investigation.
While the database opens up a world that has never been revealed on such a massive scale, the application will not be a “data dump” of the original documents – it will be a careful release of basic corporate information. ICIJ won’t release personal data en masse; the database will not include records of bank accounts and financial transactions, emails and other correspondence, passports and telephone numbers. The selected and limited information is being published in the public interest. Meanwhile ICIJ, the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung which received the leak, and other global media partners, including several new outlets in countries where ICIJ has not been able to report, will continue to investigate and publish stories in the weeks and months to come. The Panama Papers investigation revealed the secret offshore dealings of world leaders and other politicians as well as criminals and celebrities. It exposed the role of big banks in facilitating secrecy and tax evasion and avoidance. And it showed how companies and individuals blacklisted in the U.S. and elsewhere for their links to terrorism, drug trafficking and other crimes were able to do business through offshore jurisdictions
Infamous for exposing the multi-billion dollar tax avoidance scandal known as the Luxembourg Leaks, or LuxLeaks, two whistleblowers and a journalist began trial on Tuesday for allegedly violating trade secrets and other theft charges. Although Transparency International has called for a dismissal of their case, Luxembourg does not consider the defendants to be whistleblowers. In November 2014, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) revealed hundreds of major corporations had secured secret deals from Luxembourg, allowing them to hide billions of dollars in taxes. Pepsi, IKEA, Burberry, AIG, Heinz, Coach, Procter & Gamble, JP Morgan, FedEx, Deutsche Bank, Abbott Laboratories and nearly 340 other companies were caught channeling hundreds of billions of dollars through Luxembourg in order to evade paying billions in taxes between 2002 and 2010 luc
Panama Papers: Süddeutsche Zeitung’s (SZ) Claims “National Security,” Press Plays Dead Tim Durusau. Important
Has the time come to consider criminalising tax avoidance and making boards and senior officers liable for prison sentences, asks former ATO Assistant Commissioner, John Passant. By John Passant, a former Assistant Commissioner of Taxation, former tax academic and is currently a PhD candidate in the School of Politics and International Relations at the ANU. This is an edited version of a speech he gave at the National Law Reform Conference at the ANU on 15 April. You can follow John on Twitter @JohnPassant. Originally published at Independent Australia
In a speech in 2013, Barack Obama labelled inequality “the defining challenge of our time”.
Forget Panama: Why Corporations And The Rich Love US Tax Havens
Why the Panama Papers Are a Feminist Issue
UK Regulator widens inquiry into UK firms' links with Panama Papers taxhavens
Tax crackdown comes with risk that shell firms will fall through the cracks
France backs defendant as LuxLeaks trial starts
Tax crackdown comes with risk that shell firms will fall through the cracks
France backs defendant as LuxLeaks trial starts
10 Tax Havens In The World - What They Are And Who Goes There
Thanks to Delaware’s strict corporate secrecy laws, more than 285,000 companies are registered, for tax reasons, at a two-story building in Wilmington—more than any other address in the world. Among them are holding companies belonging toHillary Clinton and Donald Trump
Louis Armstrong performing for his wife in Giza, Egypt, 1961
BHS Hit By VAT Demand Days Before Collapse The schemes used by big foreign pharmaceuticals to pay the lowest tax in Australia
ATO asks multinationals to 'please explain' on profit shifting
EU referendum: OECD warning of 'Brexit tax' sparks row
IFS Report: The changing composition of UK tax revenues
Barely more than half of UK adults pay income tax, says report
Consequences of Inequality: Top 1% will pay a third of tax by 2020 after rise in personal allowance to £12500
Effective rate of UK income for those earning more than £2 million has declined from 43.2% in 2012/13 to 39.7% in 2015/16
What the UK Companies Act 2006 says about the keeping of a register of shareholders
The Great Ponzi Scheme of the Global Economy
Revolving Doors: US Treasury anti-laundering head to join HSBC
Brazil Prosecutor Vows to Keep Petrobras Corruption Probe on Course
BHS is a victim of shareholder greed
Philip Green: Blair gave him a knighthood, Cameron gave him a job
LuxLeaks whistle-blower Antoine Deltour deserves protection
Sheltering Foreign Profits From US Taxes Is No Big Feat
Shares in BHS parent company Arcadia Group were held by Jersey based Taveta Investments (No. 2) Limited
Ireland, taxation and multinationals
Government pressure driving HMRC's scatter gun approach to criminal investigations
IFS criticises 'ad hoc' tax policies
Taxing the rich
Dennis J. Ventry, Jr. (UC-Davis),Stiches for Snitches: Lawyers as Whistleblowers, 50 U.C. Davis L. Rev. ___ (2017): This Article challenges the prevailing wisdom that ethics rules forbid lawyers from blowing the whistle on a client’s illegal conduct. While a lawyer is not free to disclose confidential information in every jurisdiction for every legal violation, the ethics rules in all jurisdictions permit disclosure of confidential information pertaining to a client’s illegal activities under certain conditions. Proving the lie of the prevailing wisdom, this Article examines a high profile case in the state of New York that ruled a lawyer whistleblower violated the state’s ethics rules by revealing confidential information to stop his employer-client from engaging in a tax fraud of epic proportions. The Article argues that the court undertook a deficient analysis of New York ethics rules pertaining to permissive disclosure of confidential client information.
Forbes: Get Published And Win An A In Tax Law, by Kelly Phillips Erb:
That’s right, I said, “Win an A in Tax Law.” My popular contest for law and paralegal students is back. So let’s get right to the good stuff…
Forbes: Get Published And Win An A In Tax Law, by Kelly Phillips Erb:
That’s right, I said, “Win an A in Tax Law.” My popular contest for law and paralegal students is back. So let’s get right to the good stuff…
Here’s how it works: simply write a guest post for consideration on the site about a hot tax policy issue. I don’t mean a news or legal summary. I want a policy post: tell me what the issue is and why it matters. In other words, pick a topic and take a position. ...
New York Times: Rich People Are Living Longer. That’s Tilting Social Security in Their Favor, by Neil Irwin:
Social Security is designed to ensure that no workers go penniless in old age and also as an equalizer between rich and poor. It is structured to give more generous retirement benefits to low-income people, given the taxes they pay during their working years. ...
Interview with Card and Krueger. Very good, goes well beyond previous coverage of their work and ideas
CITY JOURNAL: “Did New York City mayor Bill de Blasio run a pay-to-play money laundering operation out of City Hall? It’s looking that way.”
Come back Mayor Mike, all is forgiven!
PRESIDENT OBAMA, VP JOE BIDEN, AND FORMER CLINTON ADVISOR PAUL BEGALA DEEM SECRETARY OF STATE JOHN KERRY UNPATRIOTIC.
Shot: “See, I think we should look at people who are trying to avoid U.S. taxes…Isn’t that unpatriotic?”
—Paul Begala, then-co-host, CNN’sCrossfire, August 1, 2002, segment titled,“Corporations Establishing Off-shore Tax Havens Called Unpatriotic; Will Hillary Run for President in 2004?”
Double-shot: “President Obama suggested it’s ‘patriotic’ for well-off Americans to pay more in taxes, bringing back an argument then-Sen. Joe Biden first made before the 2008 election.”
—“Obama brings back Biden pitch, suggests tax-paying ‘patriotic,’” Fox News, August 4th, 2012.
—Headline atop article by Richard Pollock, the Daily Caller
Jane Gravelle (Congressional Research Service) presentsPolicy Options to Address Corporate Profit Shifting: Carrots or Sticks? at NYU today as part of its Tax Policy Colloquium Series hosted by Daniel Shaviro and Chris Sanchirico
IRS, Tax Gap Estimates for Tax Years 2008–2010
On Luxembourg’s contribution to financial instability
Contextualizing Financial Corruption: Financialization and the Criminogenic Structures of Finance Capitalism
The role of financial secrecy jurisdictions in undermining gender justice and women’s human rights
Corruption Wasting Human Rights
The Anatomy of the Cayman Islands Offshore Financial Center: Anglo-America, Japan, and the Role of Hedge Funds
Hiding proceeds of corruption and IFFs through the abuse of Law – the extractive industries example
Tax Haven Networks and the Role of the Big 4 Accountancy Firms
Illicit financial flows after ‘Panamania’: Seizing the moment
Iceland: The ‘offshorisation’ of an economy
On the trail of Scottish LPs
Laws for Nothing and Ores for Free? A Case Study of Tax Planning in the Finnish Mining Sector
The State Administration of International Tax Avoidance
Tax Cheats Stick Honest Taxpayers with a $406 Billion Annual Tax Bill
How Barclays turned a $10 billion profit into a tax loss
Delaware's $1 Billion Opacity Industry Gives U.S. Onshore Haven
RBS reveals £1bn loss and Swiss inquiry into Coutts subsidiary
Tax avoidance is denying the world's forgotten children a future
Swiss Regulator Probes Coutts in International Investigation (
Vatican auditors close 5,000 'suspect' bank accounts after investigation finds secret slush funds used for possible insider trading and tax evasion
The City of London is so Criminogenic That It Boggles Even Its Banking Apologists
Liberia: Africa's unknown tax haven with much to lose
US Tax Gap Estimates for Tax Years 2008–2010
SNP MP slams Dundee HMRC office closures
IRS, Tax Gap Estimates for Tax Years 2008–2010
On Luxembourg’s contribution to financial instability
Contextualizing Financial Corruption: Financialization and the Criminogenic Structures of Finance Capitalism
The role of financial secrecy jurisdictions in undermining gender justice and women’s human rights
Corruption Wasting Human Rights
The Anatomy of the Cayman Islands Offshore Financial Center: Anglo-America, Japan, and the Role of Hedge Funds
Hiding proceeds of corruption and IFFs through the abuse of Law – the extractive industries example
Tax Haven Networks and the Role of the Big 4 Accountancy Firms
Illicit financial flows after ‘Panamania’: Seizing the moment
Iceland: The ‘offshorisation’ of an economy
On the trail of Scottish LPs
Laws for Nothing and Ores for Free? A Case Study of Tax Planning in the Finnish Mining Sector
The State Administration of International Tax Avoidance
Tax Cheats Stick Honest Taxpayers with a $406 Billion Annual Tax Bill
How Barclays turned a $10 billion profit into a tax loss
Delaware's $1 Billion Opacity Industry Gives U.S. Onshore Haven
RBS reveals £1bn loss and Swiss inquiry into Coutts subsidiary
Tax avoidance is denying the world's forgotten children a future
Swiss Regulator Probes Coutts in International Investigation (
Vatican auditors close 5,000 'suspect' bank accounts after investigation finds secret slush funds used for possible insider trading and tax evasion
The City of London is so Criminogenic That It Boggles Even Its Banking Apologists
Liberia: Africa's unknown tax haven with much to lose
US Tax Gap Estimates for Tax Years 2008–2010
SNP MP slams Dundee HMRC office closures