The leak of millions of documents from a Panamanian law firm has revealed the rich and powerful globally hiding their wealth offshore on a massive scale.
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Those named include Russian President Vladimir Putin’s associates, Chinese President Xi Jinping’s relatives, British Prime Minister David Cameron’s late father and stars such as Argentine footballing great Lionel Messi.
The allegations against Nordea appeared in a leak of more than 11.5 million documents from the files of law firm Mossack Fonseca, based in Panama.
Speaking at the White House, he said: “In the news over the last couple of days, with this big data dump coming out of Panama, we have had another reminder that tax avoidance is a big, global problem”. Mossack Fonseca, in a statement posted on its website on Monday, said media reports had “misrepresented the nature of our work”.
Founding partner Ramon Fonseca said the firm, Mossack Fonseca, which specializes in setting up offshore companies, had broken no laws and that all its operations were legal.
“We do not advise clients on how to operate their businesses”. ICIJ reports that a 2015 audit found that Mossack Fonseca knew the identities of the real owners of just 204 of 14,086 companies it had incorporated in Seychelles, an Indian Ocean archipelago often described as a tax haven.
“As usual, the first reaction of the Chinese government is to block the information from spreading”, Zhang said.
The head of Mossack Fonseca has denied any wrongdoing but acknowledged his firm had suffered a successful but “limited” hack on its database.
Chinese magazines featuring former Chinese President Hu Jintao and former Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao are displayed at a newsstand in Beijing, China, Tuesday, April 5, 2016.
Yesterday, millions of documents related to a law firm that helps people set up off-shore companies were leaked.
“So an investigation must take place, independent investigation, unprejudiced, to decide whether or not tax is owed”.
Credit Suisse CEO Tidjane Thiam, who is aggressively targeting Asia’s wealthiest for growth, said his bank was only after lawful assets.
The broad qualification for being a tax haven is to have a low or zero rate of income tax, which offers the rich to escape paying tax owed in their own countries.
France announced on Tuesday it would put the Central American nation back on its blacklist of uncooperative tax jurisdictions.
FIFA’s ethics committee said in a statement on Sunday that Juan Pedro Damiani, a member of the committee’s judgment chamber, was being investigated over a possible business relationship with fellow Uruguayan Eugenio Figueredo, one of the soccer officials arrested in Zurich a year ago.
Caldwell said the new program would impose more stringent penalties on companies that wait before reporting FCPA violations to US regulators. HSBC agreed in 2012 to pay $1.92 billion in fines, mainly for allowing itself to be used to launder Mexican drug money.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei, when asked if the government would investigate tax affairs of those mentioned in the Panama Papers, told reporters at a daily news briefing the ministry would not comment on “these groundless accusations”.
China’s online censors are restricting many search results and discussions on social media involving the terms “Panama Papers” and “Panama”.
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Short of that, Congress could immediately pass the bipartisan Incorporation Transparency and Law Enforcement Assistance Act, which would make information on shell corporation ownership available to tax administrators and law enforcement.
