British Prime Minister David Cameron said on Tuesday (Apr 5) he had no personal offshore funds as he faced growing pressure over the so-called Panama Papers, which raised questions about his family’s financial affairs.
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But while launching Labour’s local elections campaign on Tuesday, Mr Corbyn told reporters: “It’s a private matter in so far as it’s a privately held interest, but it’s not a private matter if tax has not been paid”.
The files link nine of the country’s most prominent families, including a relative of leader Xi Jinping, who is General Secretary of the Communist Party, head of the Military Commission and president, to secret offshore companies, mostly based in the British Virgin Islands.
Iceland’s Prime Minister Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson speaks during a parliamentary session in Reykjavik, April 4, 2016.
According to Time, Chan has no less than six shell companies under the management of Mossack Fonseca, the Panama-based law firm from which the documents leaked.
Panama’s president, Juan Carlos Varela, said his country would cooperate with “whatever government and whatever investigation” resulted from the scandal.
Meanwhile, governments in the U.K., France, Belgium, Australia and Mexico have pledged to investigate the information for possible cases of tax evasion. This includes at least a dozen current and former world leaders and several people with close ties to Vladimir Putin.
Messi wasn’t the only public figure to get caught up in reports on the tax fraud leak.
A spokesperson for Argentina’s Macri said the president had never owned a stake in the firm he was linked to. In 2010, a new law went into effect that would have required him, as a member of Parliament, to declare his part of the ownership as a conflict of interest. This is a hack, ‘ said Fonseca, 63, at the company’s headquarters in Panama City’s business district.
Although having an offshore account or company in a tax haven does not necessarily imply the account holder or owner is involved in illegal activities, it is well understood that these vehicles are often used to hide assets from authorities (avoiding tax payments) and money laundering.
Pictured above is the home page of the official website of Mossack Fonseca law firm in Panama.
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Data gathered from the documents contained information on 214,488 offshore entities with connections to more than 200 countries and territories, spanning from the 1970s to the end of 2015.
