“The British government has power to legislate in these countries, it happened in many instances”.
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Corbyn spoke after the British press published extensive stories about Cameron’s late father setting up an offshore account at a tax haven.
“That is the only crime that has been committed”, one of the founders, Ramon Fonseca, told AFP. “We have to achieve more transparency”, he added. “Each country (implicated) is responsible”. The prime minister said the company was actually his wife’s all along and that his 50 percent ownership was caused by an error by the couple’s bank.
Geoffrey Robertson QC, an worldwide human rights lawyer, said: “The British Empire has shrunk largely to a number of tax havens – treasure islands, as they are known”. The Swiss bank pleaded guilty in 2014 to federal charges that it illegally allowed some USA clients evade their taxes.
Panama has pledged to investigate the revelations, but France’s Finance Minister Michel Sapin said his country would still put it back on a list of countries that do not cooperate in tracking down tax dodgers.
Beijing refused to respond to “groundless accusations” that eight current or former members of the ruling party’s most powerful body concealed their fortunes through offshore havens, as well as relatives of Xi, who has overseen a much-publicised anti-corruption drive.
Pressed about his own taxes, Mr Corbyn said: “There is no problem with my tax affairs, they are very, very limited indeed”.
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.
“It’s not unique to other countries because frankly there are folks here in America that are taking advantage of this same stuff”.
The ICIJ said the files contain information about more than 214,000 offshore corporations, and its partner news organisations have been digging through the data for months.
Downing Street said Britain was “ahead of the pack” on tax transparency, BBC reported.
The Labour leader said this afternoon it was in Cameron’s “own interests” to explain “exactly what has been going on”.
“It wasn’t until day two that reports started to emerge gradually about China’s highest-ranking leaders, but… now all reports about the Panama Papers have been banned”, he said. “The unfairness and abuse must stop”.
“The point is they’re not independent territories, they are self-governing, yes, but they’re British Crown dependent territories, therefore surely there has to be an observance of United Kingdom tax law in those places”. Mossack Fonseca denies any claims of wrongdoing and says it has been a victim of data theft.
News reports based on an unprecedented leak of classified documents have, in very little time, dramatically exposed a secret world of the global elite, where large sums of money are quietly, anonymously, and apparently legally hidden and shuffled around with barely any governmental oversight.
In a statement issued Monday, Mossack Fonseca said: “Our industry is not particularly well understood by the public, and unfortunately this series of articles will only serve to deepen that confusion”.
Berenberg had replied that it only did business with clients who were “identifiable according to legal requirements” and whose origin of wealth was “plausible”.
The law firm further stated that “excluding the professional fees we earn, we do not take possession or custody of clients’ money, or have anything to do with any of the direct financial aspects” of their business operations.
Chinese state media also questioned the credibility of the reports and the motivation for the leak.
Beijing also moved to limit local access to coverage of the matter. This extends beyond the prime minister; it reaches parliament, it reaches Reykjavík City Hall, and it reportedly reaches hundreds of as yet unnamed Icelandic businesspeople.
Deputy economy minister Enrico Zanetti said all necessary checks will be carried out.
Sweden’s Financial Supervisory Authority has contacted authorities in Luxembourg for information related to allegations that Nordea, the Nordic region’s biggest bank, helped some clients set up accounts in offshore tax havens.
The U.S. Department of Justice, which has entered into settlements with some of the banks named in the documents over charges they abetted money-laundering and tax evasion, is reviewing the new material, according to Peter Carr, a Justice Department spokesman.
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The famous personalities drawn into the affair also included soccer star Lionel Messi of Barcelona and Argentina. But it’s not a private matter if tax is not being paid.
