Panama Papers: Mossack Fonseca leak reveals elite's tax havens | Hacker News Reader

Panama Papers: Mossack Fonseca leak reveals elite's tax havens

bbc.com

1,373 pointsG5ANDY435 comments

Selected quote:

"The ICIJ findings include evidence that:

- Offshore companies linked to the family of China's top leader, Xi Jinping, as well as Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, who has positioned himself as a reformer in a country shaken by corruption scandals

- 29 billionaires featured in Forbes Magazine's list of the world's 500 richest people

- Icelandic Prime Minister Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson and his wife secretly owned an offshore firm that held millions of dollars in Icelandic bank bonds during the country's financial crisis

- Associates of Russian President Vladimir Putin secretly shuffled as much as $2 billion through banks and shadow companies

- New details of offshore dealings by the late father of British Prime Minister David Cameron, a leader in the push for tax-haven reform

- Offshore companies controlled by the Prime Minister of Pakistan, the King of Saudi Arabia and the children of the President of Azerbaijan

- 33 people and companies blacklisted by the US Government because of evidence that they have done business with Mexican drug lords, terrorist organisations like Hezbollah or rogue nations like North Korea

- Customers including Ponzi schemers, drug kingpins, tax evaders and at least one jailed sex offender

- Movie star Jackie Chan, who had at least six companies managed through the law firm"

Leo Messi too, who had already been caught on another scandal by Spanish Tax Office.

Not Leo messi, but the company who operates his money. The recent case that Spanish tax office opened against him was in regards to a payment that has happened when he was 17 year old...I doubt that messi at 17 yo was the one who was dealing with his taxes

He was not 17 when he set up another shell company in Panama:

Mega Star Enterprises, the offshore company owned by Messi and his father at least as far back as 2013, is not mentioned in the Spanish government’s 2014 and 2015 indictments against the pair. The leaked records show Messi signed at least one document reflecting his ownership of Mega Star

http://indianexpress.com/article/sports/football/panama-pape...

For what it's worth, being featured in these documents is not in and of itself evidence of any wrongdoing.

There are entirely lawful and legitimate reasons for making use of offshore company structures.

Yeah, hiding a conflict of interest might be illegal, but "tax planning" is by definition legal.

Save for the deposit minimums in the 6 figure region....

I'd replace wrongdoing with illegal. If you ask me, if you're a billionaire and you're not willing to pay taxes and spend 0.0001% of your wealth on the expertise to reduce your tax bill by 99%, in legal ways that 99.99% of the rest of the population doesn't engage in, then by all means that's wrongdoing to me and I think most would be with me on that.

Of course it's not necessarily illegal.

What about non billionaires? These arrangements aren't overly expensive and are very much suitable for perfectly "ordinary" people.

My friend was/is engaged in tax evasion that HMRC have now declared as tax evasion and they'll be taking all that money for the last 5 years, thank you very much.

He/she said the same thing as you are saying now.

The difference between you and the billionaires is that they can afford to make an offer, a la google to the UK.

You are just going to be completely screwed when they come knocking on the door.

The cost isn't in setting them up. The cost is in defending the structures in court when some tax authority feels you're "cheating" the game. Tax authorities lose plenty of cases however, so as long as you didn't do anything illegal and you can afford great lawyers to see a case through, you're good.

That's what shits me. If it's smart, viable strategy, why not make it available by default for every citizen with a basic tax framework instead of something only available to the wealth to push further ahead?

yearly costs can be quite high, including attorneys fees that come with regular government scrutiny

It's an arms race. As corporate income tax receipts dry up countries change their policies. Very wealthy, naturally international companies not only have more resources to compete, they also have the ability to play hard ball and leave the country entirely (see tax inversions of pharmaceutical companies from America to Europe) bringing not just the lost corporate tax, but the income tax on salaries as well.

Because the average citizen doesn't donate nearly enough money to politicians' campaigns.

I think what OP meant is that there are reasons for companies to be off-shore which are totally above board.

A common reason that investment funds are in off-shore tax-havens is because they have lots of international investors. If the fund was say in the US all the investors would have to file tax documents in the US even if they weren't US based, by being based in a tax haven it means investors only have to file local tax paperwork and not paperwork in a second country.

Is that really true? I am not a US citizen but I have an account with a US broker. I just need to file a single form once in a while declaring my foreign tax status and that's it. This can hardly be the reason why it is absolutely necessary to have offshore holdings.

(Of course, I have to pay taxes at home for any profits and there are supposed to be mechanisms that ensure I do...)

If you deal in volatile markets with questionable rule of the law and weak property rights (e.g. Russia or much of the Middle East), then the ownership and its transfer is often structured with offshore companies.

The leak however suggests the legit offshore cases are drop in the bucket in this overall money laundering business. Kind of like with file sharing, many would argue we need it primarily to get our latest Ubuntu ISOs and other legit uses, but we all know it's a lie.

Dunno. Netflix is cheap, I've only benefitted from filesharing swarms to get Linux ISOs in the past few years.

I believe it depends on the nature of the investment and your relationship with the US. For example I believe in your situation you'd have to pay US taxes on dividends from US companies.

> in legal ways that 99.99% of the rest of the population doesn't engage in

This finally sounds like an industry that's ripe for disruption—Tax Loopholes For Everyone!

This x1000. It's the perfect opportunity for a startup: nation/globe sized potential, something people are willing to pay for, and accomplishes a public good: eliminating the inequality in taxation and making the effects of the tax code more readily transparent. (Though if you're too successful at that they'll rework tax systems to be more sane and less vulnerable to this kind of thing, which I would count as a victory.)

The opportunity will become more stark as taxes on high earners go up.

Eliminating inequality of taxation means flat tax instead of progressive tax. That would require either substantial reduction of the government expenses or substantial raise of the taxes for low incomes. That probably won't be very popular.

The problem isn't (just) different rates for different incomes; it's how people of lesser means are less capable of setting the complicated structures that can make them technically owe less money under the definition of taxable income used by the tax code. A flat tax doesn't change that.

The only "fair" tax type is VAT for humans.

Buying a SUV -> You pay 10,000 USD in taxes. Buying bread -> You pay 0.01 USD in taxes.

We could get rid off income tax at all and just increase the VAT to ~20 - 50% depending on the type of the product. This way it is almost impossible to cheat. Solving taxation for corporations still an issue though.

For what it's worth, it's hard to see a Land Value Tax as being unfair, it's extremely hard to hide your taxable assets, and it works well for people as well as corporations.

Land-value taxation has much better incentives. Income taxes provide an incentive to be "poor", while land-value taxes provide an incentive to not use valuable space.

Land Value tax can be extremely cruel if you happen to be poor living in a neighborhood that suddenly became popular. You are basically forced to sell your home (also not in the best of positions - you need to sell fast and can't wait out for the peak price) and move out because you can not afford to live next to some rich person. While income tax and VAT are proportional to what you earn and consume, and can vary easily with income/consumption level, changing housing is much harder, and can put people in very bad situations through no fault of their own.

I would say that this argument seems to imply that no neighborhood should ever grow (for its existing residents would be priced out.)

This, however, is a fallacy-- the higher valuation of the land implies a larger return on the land, consistent with increasing the amount of people who can live there. (i.e. replacing a small house with an apartment building.) This allows more people of modest means to live in this neighboorhood, instead of less.

Compare to the Palo Alto model, where land never appreciates in taxable value-- people are able to stay in their home, but only those who were lucky enough to buy at the right time. The overall capacity of the city does not grow, and people are priced away from buying into the city.

VAT is crazily regressive because those who make the least spend far larger proportions of their income buying stuff for it.

Most countries with VAT end up with complicated rules for exemptions for basic goods as a result, to try to balance it better.

It is not complicated to me:

- food, books, medicine, ... -> lower VAT

- cars, luxury items -> higher VAT

This is a dramatic over-simplification that ignores what is actually a cascade of exemptions that leads toward a similar tax-law morass that we already have.

Now, define "luxury items", while considering e.g. that in the UK there's VAT on things like tampons (though at the reduced 5% rate), while e.g. imported luxury meat is zero-rated because its food.

It's an incredibly complicated tax to apply, because the rules tend to grow to deal with more and more corner cases.

For example: Are jaffa cakes cakes or biscuits? It took a lengthy court case to determine that they are in fact cakes for the purpose of UK VAT [1] [2].

The reason for this case was that cakes are exempt from VAT as food no matter what, while biscuits are zero-rated in the UK only if they are not covered in chocolate. In the latter case they are considered confectionery, which is standard rated. Here's more on the complexities of this classification [3].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaffa_Cakes#Categorisation_as_...

[2] http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/manuals/vfoodmanual/VFOOD6260.htm

[3] http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/manuals/vfoodmanual/VFOOD6200.htm

I agree with you, when it comes to applying law to real life it is usually lengthy and pricey process. We should just use a better legal system where these things are not up in the air. You can complicate life with broken legislation, just to keep lawyers busy. You could also just ask: do we need a lawyer to determine that jaffa cakes are cakes or biscuits, or we can pick one and go with it.

On the other note on VAT categories: how about collecting data and letting machine learning decide what is a luxury item? We have excellent clustering algorithms that can find clusters in data human has no chance to find. Lets apply that to purchasing habits and figure out what sort of clusters we have out there, and lets decide how much VAT you pay based on that.

The second part is an interesting idea, but I would be wary of using AI for deciding taxation rates. But maybe I'm old fashioned :).

Laws are supposed to be somewhat stable though, so having to update tax systems based on evolving patterns of what rich people are doing kind of breaks that.

The classic UK example is dried fruit. If it's bought in the cake decoration department it's 0% VAT, from the home brewing department 20% VAT.

Also for some items such as gift baskets the food is 0 rated but the basket/bowl is rated at 20% and the VAT is proportionally allocated. (I can't remember if it's cost or sales price)

Another advantage is that most people don't have to file taxes anymore. VAT is handled by companies.

Personally, I think we should also tax land owners. Likewise, this does not affect most people.

Now, fend off the numerous attempts to have goods moved to a different category. We have enough trouble with "prepared food is taxed but raw food isn't".

Inflation is a fair tax, it taxes money.

Actually it's a tax to being far from the central bank. The further you are the longer the price signal from the printed money will take to reach you.

Inflation is cancer.

The problem is how the printed money is distributed.

Central banks convert it into debt with interest, this is bad.

Paying it as wages or a national dividend would get it to the leaves where it benefits people, then communities, then society and then banks.

I argue inflation is not bad just how the printed money is distributed.

+1 because you're right about the importance of distribution.

My family are inflation "refugees". It's bad in of itself.

I agree that the distribution of the money is the worse part of the printing press. Giving money to soup kitchens is not as bad giving it to upgrade your military equipment. But, lets not kid ourselves. The central bank is a very powerful instrument of control. The powerful are hardly going to relinquish it!

I agree in theory, but in practice, it's impossible unless the entire world agrees on the same VAT rules, otherwise shopping across country barriers is bound to happen.

"Inequality" here is a weasel word, because it sounds bad without further argumentation.

The argument for progressive taxation is that the same tax rate is a far lesser burden on someone who makes more than on someone who makes less. If one agree with that, then progressive taxation would seem to be fairer. Of course "fair" is entirely subjective.

the government will always "need" more money

I agree it is a weasel word. If you argue for progressive taxation, you should not say it eliminates "inequality" - you should say inequality is awesome. You can't argue both for equality in taxation and progressive tax at the same time - they are contradictory by definition.

Probably wouldn't work. Tax "loopholes" are available for everyone - that is everyone who earns enough to use them. They aren't free, and if you need to spend $1000 to save $100 on your taxes (and have your money locked in several shells of corporations who knows where) that's not what you'd do. The reason not everybody does it is it just not worth it for most people except those having real lot of money (and usually not needing them right away but wanting to invest them long-term) or those who gotten their money by means other than legal.

You will like this story ;)

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crickhowell-welsh-town-...

I do, actually! Thanks for sharing it :-)

There are still reasons to use shell corporations that are entirely legitimate, and have no moral issues whatsoever.

Since you used the plural: care to name two?

To reduce amount of tax paid and to obfuscate ownership to reduce the amount of tax paid?

Right - no one ever said the Panama Files were interesting simply because they revealed the existence of overseas shell corporations.

It's the revelations of undeclared assets that make the disclosures interesting.

Rest of the population doesn't engage in these ways because it's not worth it for them - they do not pay enough taxes to warrant it. Some people, however, pay lots of taxes - so much that it may make sense for them to spend money and go to great length to somewhat reduce their tax bills. They most probably still pay much more tax than average person - just not as much as they could be paying if they didn't use these ways. And there's nothing wrong with that. You could send extra money to your state anytime too, and you probably don't - so why should they?

It's not worth it because the cost of obtaining the expertise to do it is higher than the taxes.

> it's not worth it for them - they do not pay enough taxes to warrant it

Not only do they pay a larger portion of their fortune, that money makes a much bigger difference to them (us, why do I say them?) in our everyday lives.

> They most probably still pay much more tax than average person

They probably pay much less than what they should. They benefit from from an organized state much more than the average person.

This is so true, otherwise businesses would be flocking to set up in low regulation, low tax countries like Somalia.

Larger businesses disproportionately benefit from law-and-order and infrastructure.

I don't think it is true. Large corp can afford their own security force and infrastructure (and if you study the history of colonial corporate conquests, that's exactly what they have been doing). Small business or average consumer can afford none of this. Big corp can build their own protected bubble amid a desolated and decaying country, but if you are outside the bubble, you are in trouble.

A villa in the jungle is not what I was talking about. Large corporations benefit from their customers being safe and secure, and from infrastructure to distribute their products. And the companies involved in "colonial corporate conquests" were huge, royally chartered monopolies, directly supported by their countries, and usually acting as their official representative; there was a symbiotic relationship between the monopoly and the state, quite the opposite from an independent existence.

Large, successful corporations virtually always get started only in well-run states, while fruit stands are set up everywhere.

>> Large corporations benefit from their customers being safe and secure

Same way as the small ones do. Maybe even more so - you can find a market for luxury cars even in most brutal dictatorships (in fact, many brutal dictators are known for their love of luxury goods, and so are their henchmen as soon as they are wealthy enough) but trying to establish a small business with stable clientele might be quite hard.

>> there was a symbiotic relationship between the monopoly and the state, quite the opposite from an independent existence.

If you look at the relationship between big banks or insurance companies or resource companies, and governments, "symbiotic relationship" is not a bad description of what is still happening. What is good for GM is still good for the country, and the country spending billions to fix the screwups of GM management is a living proof of it.

>> while fruit stands are set up everywhere.

Fruit stands - yes. Startups - not so much.

> you can find a market for luxury cars even in most brutal dictatorships

But you're unlikely to create a luxury car company in an unstable country.

> trying to establish a small business with stable clientele might be quite hard.

There are plenty of small businesses with stable clientele in Bangladesh, Haiti, Yemen, and pretty much every country in the world.

> "symbiotic relationship" is not a bad description of what is still happening.

I'm not saying it isn't. But you still can't have a large company in an unstable country, while you can easily have a fruit stand there. It is the large businesses that benefit disproportionately from the state.

> Startups - not so much.

Right, you probably need a stable country for startups, too. But most countries don't tax startups much anyway.

> But most countries don't tax startups much anyway.

Because they reasonably think that letting them grow a bit is more profitable.

"you can find a market for luxury cars even in most brutal dictatorships"

But can you find a factory for them?

This is not a smart example, since it assumes Somalia has no difference with developed countries except for low taxes. I'm sure if you try hard enough, you could find a better example of low tax countries and compare their business development with high tax countries. If, of course, your purpose is gain better understanding of the matter and not to try sounding witty for cheap without actually having any substance behind it.

As for actual Somalia tax rates, they are kind of hard to find, but we can go other way. Somalia's GDP [1] is estimated around $1 billion, while their state budget is around $200 mln. [2]. Which means in the country the government is about 20% of the economy. Which is pretty close to US figures, surprisingly. More over, if you look up in [2], you will find:

High tax burden with corruption and extortions exacerbates poverty and prevents economic recovery.

So would I believe you saying Somali has low taxes and low regulation, or Somalians who complain about high taxes and oppressive government? Who knows best? Please help me choose.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Somalia

[2] http://hiiraan.com/op4/2014/aug/56172/somalia_fiscal_budget_...

It's only legal because of corruption in the government.

I'm not sure what you mean by "corruption of the government", but it is legal because your money belongs to you, not government, and you have full right to do with it whatever you please, including investing them in ways that generate less tax income from the government. Banning that would require implicit assumption that your money do belong to the government and you are restricted in using them only in ways that benefit the said government. That would be corruption to me.

> They most probably still pay much more tax than average person - just not as much as they could be paying if they didn't use these ways.

It's about relative value vs absolute value. If you use 30% of your wages toward taxes but the next person use 12% of his to pay the same absolute amount, there is an issue that needs to be addressed.

In my experience, 30% would be extremely high and not at all common - if you look at full rate and not marginal rate. E.g. I am not 1%, but relatively well-paid employee, and my full federal tax rate has been around 13-15% (marginal, of course, quite higher). If I went to some lengths, I probably could shave off a percent or so off it, but that would require me to stash some money into places where they are not readily accessible, such as IRA or alike instruments. This is just not worth it for me. If I got much more money, to the point that I do not need any of the money for consumption and in fact can not consume them - e.g. if I were a billionaire - I would certainly use these and many other instruments, it would be stupid not to do so. But right now it is just not worth the trouble.

Could not agree more. Our society is based on the foundation that everybody does her/his own fair share, if the leaders of the world think it is not the way then lets just stop paying taxes and see how fast things change.

One funny thing about humanity, we used to pay 1/10 of our income that was enough for the "state", I am paying 65% (that is right) of my income to the sate right now and it is not enough, I have to pay VAT on everything on the top of that so that the government can spend it the most ridiculous inefficient way on projects that are at least questionable, yet many of the politicians just avoid paying taxes through these offshore tax havens. Do they know something we should too? :)

Where do you live that has a >65% top income tax rate? Because I quite like the sound of it. Or are you conflating other taxes and presenting an overall figure?

He isn’t “conflating”, he clearly said this is the total paid to the government — i.e. all sorts of taxes. That you like the sound of it is, frankly, horrible.

It's horrible that I like the sound of a high-ish top rate of income tax? We haven't even stated the terms of what income level that tax rate is applied at, so your finding it horrible is either a total misunderstanding, or you object to the progressive nature of variable income tax outright. I hope it's the former, because I find the latter truly objectionable.

I find the idea of people dressing up simple theft as something other than it is, and in the ill-fitting trappings of a global social good, despite the fact that the institutions being financed by this form of theft were the largest non natural cause of death in the preceding century truly objectionable, too.

Letalone moving onto a particularly egregious sort of theft involved in modern taxation rackets where the burden approaches three quarters of the total earnings of any given individual. If you're cool with this how about I extort you for 75% of your income and then use it to finance a private mercenary company that runs around the globe destroying lives and property for ill-defined "geopolitical objectives"?

But I guess "I find x truly objectionable" is somewhat of a content free statement, unless we're just trying to farm moral outrage from our respective in-groups.

Taxation is obviously not theft, any more than charging for goods is. "75% of your income" is a very different thing than "75% of your income beyond a certain figure"; I have no problem with basic levels of income being absolutely tax-free. I don't agree with many actions undertaken by my government, including launching illegal wars which I have protested on the street against. That doesn't mean I don't think everyone is entitled to a certain level of wellbeing, paid for by the general economy.

After taxation, what is your actual income? Is it not enough?

> Taxation is obviously not theft, any more than charging for goods is.

The difference between charging for goods and services vs taxation is that you are unable to choose not to patronise the state. A mugger charging you 75% of your income for the privilege of leaving his dark alley with your throat unslit is providing the same choice to you as the state is with regards to taxation. You are not free to refuse to be a customer of the state, any more than you are free to refuse to be a customer of said mugger.

The only factual mathematically definable difference between theft and taxation is that taxation is legal, and hey presto, it's the agency that writes the laws which defines this difference. Nice trick if you can find idiots naive enough to fall for it, and they are fortunately not in short supply.

If taxation is not theft, then the holocaust, or any killing by any state in all of history, is by definition not murder, because the difference between the murder and state sanctioned killing is the same as the difference between theft and taxation, one is technically illegal, and that is all.

> 75% of your income" is a very different thing than "75% of your income beyond a certain figure"

It is indeed, and you appear to not have grasped what OP actually says, so let's put it here so you can reconsider your position;

>> I am paying 65% (that is right) of my income to the sate (sic) right now

Not "I touch the 65% tax bracket at the top of the progressive income tax schedule which the state I am resident in has declared", but "I am paying 65% (that is right) of my income" period.

So yes, it is nearly three quarters of this person's income, being taken against their will, to support an institution which is not just incompetent, but actually hugely, enormously viciously destructive and damaging to the world at large, to the extent that it is the largest non natural cause of death in the preceding century.

> I don't agree with many actions undertaken by my government, including launching illegal wars which I have protested on the street against.

And worse yet, you actually know just how terrible the actions of the state are, to the extent that you have taken to the street protesting it, and yet you still feel the need to speak up in a public forum about how the idea that these parasites forcibly rob people of nearly three quarters of their earnings makes you feel warm and fuzzy on the inside?

Think long and hard about this.

> That doesn't mean I don't think everyone is entitled to a certain level of wellbeing, paid for by the general economy.

Even if you granted that "everyone is entitled to a certain level of wellbeing" (and frankly, that's an enormous can of worms right there that I'm not even going to dip a toe into at this point in time) that is an end, not a means. Conflating the end of social welfare with the means of theft does not necessarily follow at all.

> After taxation, what is your actual income? Is it not enough?

After theft, without theft avoidance, my income is about 25% of the original also. Could I do more and live a better life with the other 75% that is instead being stolen from me to finance demonstrably ineffective local social programs coupled with heinously disgusting foreign policy objectives? Is that what you mean by "Is it not enough?" Because if so, no, it's not enough.

Frankly, I'd give up almost all of the rest of it to avoid having given any of it to those parasites to begin with, and this is a constant drain on my motivation for economic activity in general, knowing how much of my earnings will go to finance activities that make me violently ill if I think too hard about them.

I see that you have some very strong opinions :).

I will comment on the Holocaust analogy say that yes, it was technically legal in the German state since it was sanctioned by the State. That does not mean it was right. The German state was misusing its authority, being hijacked by a dictator and his deranged coterie of supporters.

There has to be some arbitrator of Justice, to settle disputes and create laws and we decided to create institutions to do just that. These institutions are not perfect, and sometimes they may be hijacked. Like Hitler and the German state, or Stalin and the Soviet Union. These institutions are by no means perfect or efficient but there is a need for their existence.

> will comment on the Holocaust analogy say that yes, it was technically legal in the German state since it was sanctioned by the State. That does not mean it was right.

Quite, that was not my implication, you seem to have assumed that my equating the refusal to label taxation as theft with the refusal to label state sanctioned killing as murder means that I am in favour somehow of state sanctioned killing.

The opposite is in fact true, my equating the two is to show that I strongly disapprove of both, and view objecting to the characterisation of either as theft and murder respectively based purely upon legal sophistry as fundamentally useless hair splitting which does not change the nature of the subject under discussion one iota.

> There has to be some arbitrator of Justice, to settle disputes and create laws and we decided to create institutions to do just that.

Dispute resolution and law are certainly things for which there is a demand, I do not grant that the only means by which these things may be provided is via the modern westphalian nation state.

> These institutions are by no means perfect or efficient but there is a need for their existence.

Well, we certainly agree that they are enormously imperfect and inefficient, however on the second one we part ways, so I'll let you make your case; why is there a need for their existence? What is one good or service which the provision of has proven utterly intractable outside the infrastructure of a forcibly imposed land monopolising human farming modern westphalian nation state wielding political authority as defined in Michael Huemer's book on the subject, The problem of political authority?

> The difference between charging for goods and services vs taxation is that you are unable to choose not to patronise the state.

I agree with you on this for persons, that membership in the state should be voluntary and accessible. Currently people are forced into state membership and discriminated against when they seek alternative state memberships based on birthplace, parents, and other factors which would typically be considered bigotry.

However, this argument breaks down entirely when applied to corporations. Corporations do have voluntary membership in states; nobody is obligating a corporation to make use of the services of any state. Beyond a certain size, corporations basically have complete freedom to operate within whatever states they choose, making use of the services of that state. And when you consider that the vast majority of income for the rich comes from such corporations, and furthermore that one of the easiest ways to change which state(s) you are a member of is to operate through a corporation, the separation between corporations and rich individuals becomes unimportant. Maybe you are unable to choose not to patronize the state, but the very rich are not so limited. If anything this is a very strong argument for progressive taxation: the rich are patronizing the state more by choice than the poor and therefore it's fairer to charge them more taxes.

> So yes, it is nearly three quarters of this person's income, being taken against their will, to support an institution which is not just incompetent, but actually hugely, enormously viciously destructive and damaging to the world at large, to the extent that it is the largest non natural cause of death in the preceding century.

This would be a more persuasive argument if the governments to which this money was going were not run by the same people who are evading the taxes. Most, if not all, of the wars in the last 50 years have been caused by corporate interests. The difference between government and corporations is that at least in representative democracies, the governments must make enough pretense of doing good to keep getting elected (with plenty of help from corporate funding and other forms of corruption). Tax avoidance means that less money must go through this pretense; it's easier to justify spending less money on schools when the government has less money.

> Frankly, I'd give up almost all of the rest of it to avoid having given any of it to those parasites to begin with, and this is a constant drain on my motivation for economic activity in general, knowing how much of my earnings will go to finance activities that make me violently ill if I think too hard about them.

Okay, so why don't you act on your beliefs instead of stating them ineffectually? I doubt many people are enforcing the citizenship or taxation laws of Somalia right now. You can probably opt out of patronizing a state by moving there. If you really think that being forced to patronize a state whose actions you don't agree with is unfair to you, there are ways to stop patronizing states.

>Taxation is obviously not theft, any more than charging for goods is.

Pretty sure when you force or coerce someone to buy something they do not want, it is illegal and immoral. And if the value of the item is significantly less than the price paid, it is theft in all but the most pedantic ways.

That sounds like "advertising" and "capitalism" to me - not that I entirely disagree with your opinion.

Not paying taxes is leaching. Tax dollars pay for the infrastructure that holds society together. If it wasn't for tax dollars, the society in which you derive your income wouldn't exist.

You are provided access under the condition that you put your fair share in when you profit from what is provided. We have a democratic process to determine who can and at what rate they should contribute back.

What right do you have to steal but not give back? If you feel so strongly in regard to your opinions about tax, why haven't you left society to rely on your bootstraps alone?

> Not paying taxes is leaching. Tax dollars pay for the infrastructure that holds society together. If it wasn't for tax dollars, the society in which you derive your income wouldn't exist.

This chain of reason justifies North Korean concentration camps. You are simply throwing out a bunch of justifications for terrible things because you state that the things which those terrible things encase are the infrastructure that holds society together, and grant no possible conceivable alternative for how that infrastructure may be provided, when in fact you simply neglect to acknowledge there is no infrastructure that exists at all that has not been provided with organisational structures outside the modern nation state, period.

> What right do you have to take from us but not give back?

What right do you have to take from us, the people who do not wish to be subject to your theft, and not give back? I want nothing from the state except its utter annihilation. By choice, I take nothing from the state, and never will.

That line of hyperbole also justifies ignoring any value or good the state can and has provided.

If that infrastructure can be provided without the state, why hasn't it?

You are positing a hypothetical system that exists without taxes against a real, concrete system that exists and you take part in everyday. That system right now is dependant on taxes and you're throwing it out for a nebulous ideal world that is stateless and exists only in your head.

> I want nothing from the state except its utter annihilation. By choice, I take nothing from the state, and never will.

Do you drive on public roads? Enjoy protection from crime by the police? Enter buildings and eat at establishments that are inspected for your safety? Ever have to use the state to uphold a private contract? Have you used a telephone, cellular or landline?

Do you use the internet?

How can you realistically say you take nothing from the state and never will?

If you are as serious as your rhetoric, there are virtually stateless places in the world where you can actually live out your dream of taking nothing from the state. Areas of Somalia are among them.

You can reasonably argue that the government is involved in issues that are not free rider problems, but I've never heard a reasonable alternative solution to the necessary problems that government does address. Do you have one to contribute?

Yes. David Friedman covers this quite well in "The Machinery of Freedom":

http://daviddfriedman.com/The_Machinery_of_Freedom_.pdf

(warning: direct PDF link)

>Not paying taxes is leaching.

Not paying at all and expecting society to still support me, yes that is leaching. But thinking I shouldn't be forced to pay to blow up innocent children or to subsidize the break down of traditional families... how is that leaching.

> But thinking I shouldn't be forced to pay to blow up innocent children or to subsidize the break down of traditional families...

We live in a republic, show your disapproval of these policies to your representatives. There are people with similar opinions, I am one of them, and hopefully the change will gain momentum.

> how is that leaching.

The same arguments are piggy-backed upon by people who are morally opposed to all taxes. Hijacking issues that many people are opposed to, such as funding unpopular wars, is a convenient way of promoting an ideology.

Depending on your definition of income tax you check 2 numbers:

- the lower number that you as a person pay (strictly the personal income tax) - the higher number, combining what the company pays + what you pay after your income.

I am a contractor so I get a breakdown how much was spent on taxes and if get 100 EUR from a company the tax deduction is 65 EUR. (Obviously, the % depends on your actual income).

Combine this with VAT and you see that your actual contribution to the government is in the 70%-80% range.

You can check out the rates here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tax_rates

I still remember how bad I felt for the peasants in primary school when we learned that they had to give 1/10th of their income to the state, and later another 1/10th to the church.

Thanks for the explanation. Are you taking into account the lower rates, though? For example, where I am, there's a personal allowance meaning one can earn £10,000 and not pay a single penny in income tax. The basic rate (which ends at a value substantially above the average salary) is only 20%. I'm guessing you're not in the UK, so it's going to be harder for me to compare situations. I don't think it's fair to combine income tax with VAT since that (mostly) applies on goods you choose to buy, rather than a percentage of your earnings.

You can go to different countries for having lower tax rates, in my experience it is never going to be less than 35 - 50% for the amount of money I make.

I am not sure how is it not fair to combine VAT + income tax to understand how much you are actually paying to the government. Goods I "choose" to buy includes: food and clothing, I am not sure how much it is a choice or just a necessity. Buying a flashy car is a choice, buying bread or a medicine is not so much.

That's why I added the "(mostly)"; where I live, most food is exempt from VAT, which is as it should be. I agree that clothing is a necessity, so should also be exempt, but only up to a reasonable limit - and then things get a bit too complicated.

VAT is definitely a problematic tax because it tends to hit the poorer harder, but that doesn't affect the fact that it would be possible to pay almost none of your income as VAT, or you could pay millions in VAT; it's very different from actual income tax.

In the UK where you are from, the top marginal rate is 13.8% employer NI (make no mistake, that money comes out of your pocket), 2% employee NI, and 45% income tax. Grand total = 60.8%.

So you're not far off.

Usually it'll go something like: sell product, pay VAT (easily 20% in many countries), take EBT and pay some form of corporate income taxes, then take those profits and pay them out as dividends and pay dividend taxes, or retain earnings and pay for cap gains tax. Or alternatively skip the first step and say you're paying VAT taxes which raises the costs of all your consumption. The end result can be quite high on paper. But then, there's lots of other factors that have nothing to do with Panamanian shady tax loopholes, that create a different reality from the top 'tax rate tables' people like to quote from wikipedia.

Anyway, for actual rates paid, just look at the tax revenues in a country in a given year, then look at GDP and take its percentage. It'll give you a pretty decent proxy for average effective tax rates, iirc in the US it's a little under 30%, on average. That's nothing to complain about. Of course some people pay more, and we call those people rich and some people filthy rich. Frankly, I couldn't care less about that but that's me.

>by all means that's wrongdoing to me and I think most would be with me on that.

Well, for what it's worth, I don't agree with you.

People are obliged to pay the tax they are legally obliged to pay, and that's it. It doesn't matter how rich or poor you are. Billionaires are not obliged to voluntarily pay more than they are required to. And neither is anybody else. And it really is not a coherent position to claim otherwise, in my view.

As I said on Reddit, it might not be illegal, but it is proof that the system is even more lopsidedly in favor of the wealthy than we thought.

There's a lot of noise being made over the number of documents, but I'm not seeing anything actually interesting about this. Offshore banking has been extremely common for a very long time and isn't illegal in and of itself. The hidden funds need to be provably originating from from an illicit source.

That's where the actual journalism comes in.

Also, in some cases hiding money offshore is indeed illegal. One example that immediately comes to mind is for individuals holding public office in Iceland.

Ok, I'll bite. What do you think Vlad Putin's legit source is for his billions? His paycheck? Sometimes you don't have to know all the details. Somtimes the mere fact of a bank account with billions in it is enough to know, with certainty that a politician has his/her hand in the till and is a corrupt bastard.

I pick on Vlad, there's plenty more to choose from. Now the evidence exists to remove doubt from the accusation of corruption for, it would seem, a lot of politicians.

Jackie Chan - Wealthy movie star. Plenty of good explanations for why he'd engage in offshore banking with his very large, legitimately gained, fortune.

That's the difference.

I'm sure Putin's cash is ill-gained but I'm extremely doubtful it will be exposed in these docs. The NY Times has a story that he straight-up murdered a guy on American soil. That probably won't stick either.

> The NY Times has a story that he straight-up murdered a guy on American soil.

This seemed extremely unlikely to me, so I Googled it. If you mean this story:

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/03/us/mikhail-lesins-strange-...

it doesn't say anything even remotely like Putin straight-up murdered a guy (a scumbag who has spent his life associating with and/or making enemies of other scumbags) on American soil.

In fact it doesn't even straight-up say he was murdered at all, by anyone:

    The police [in the US] continue to treat Mr.
    Lesin’s as a natural death

and:

    Neither the F.B.I. nor the Justice Department
    has taken a role in the investigation [...] 
    suggesting that it was being investigated as 
    an untimely death but not a federal crime.

Alexander Litvinenko's death [1], on British soil, was definitely murder, though. According to the investigation, the Russian state was involved. Obviously, Putin didn't actually do the deed himself, but it seems more likely than not that he ordered it, or at least knew about the order.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_of_Alexander_Litvine...

Right -- No one disputes that Putin has been associated with all kinds of unseemly stuff. It's just that, at this juncture, there nothing beyond pure speculating tying him to Mikhail Lesin's untimely demise.

In other words: "He's a bad guy you know -- he's capable of anything" isn't, in my book, sufficient reason to believe that he was actually involved somehow.

Sorry for nitpicking, but: in Russian language Vlad is the short form for Vladislav, not Vladimir.

Really? I did not know that. I guess here the Vladimirs put up with the contraction to Vlad as they're among the barbarians. ;-) Good to know though, thanks.

plenty of Vladimirs go by Vlad. Source: used to live in Russia

Never heard that someone named Vladimir shortened their name as Vlad. Live in Russia for 30 years. Most of the times you can call Vladimir as Vova. If you tell that your name is Vlad, everyone will think that you are Vladislav.

Right. It isn't the "offshore company structures" which are themselves illegal. Or even owning offshore assets, per se.

It's owning assets you haven't declared to tax authorities that's illegal.

And where does one look for evidence of these holdings?

Offshore law firms. For example.

>Icelandic Prime Minister Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson and his wife secretly owned an offshore firm that held millions of dollars in Icelandic bank bonds during the country's financial crisis

Also, a quarter of Iceland's cabinet apparently holds offshore companies.

A country that actually jails its bankers for their crimes may be deeply interested in this information. popcorn time

> British Prime Minister David Cameron, a leader in the push for tax-haven reform

There was a load of rhetoric in 2011 about offshore/tax reform, but very little in the way of action since then. As with tradition in Cameron's brand of "Compassionate Conservatism", it's a depressingly cynical slight of hand and nothing more.

How much is he able to influence the British Virgin Islands? As they seem to be one of the top havens for years.

If he is, and being a leader in the push for reform, what was on his agenda for BVI?

Jersey is also one of the top tax havens IIRC.

As for Cameron being a leader in tax haven reform, I don't buy it for a second. Words are cheap, what action has his government taken to tackle the issue? If anything, they've been at work to increase legal loopholes and tax breaks for the rich. Not only that, but George Osbourne's family company has been proven to dodge tax. When you've got people at the top this morally bankrupt, do you really expect them to fix the regulations to serve the public?

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2012/oct/18/george-osbor...

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/budget-2015-co...

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/george-osborne...

Cameron will talk a good game in the press, do the exact opposite thing and by then the press has moved on and no-one seems to question it... It seems quite surreal that we all sleepwalk through these lies, but we do.

If you want a good primer on our influence/investment in the financial affairs of overseas dependencies and tax havens associated with Britain etc... then the book "Treasure Islands" by Nicholas Shaxson is a good place to start.

I was given this book for Christmas year before last. A very good read.

> sleight of hand

Cameron's father uses this company to offshore some of the family fortune.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/david-cameron-...

But as David Cameron has stated the real villian is Jimmy Carr /s

I did not find these references in the linked BBC story. Where is this quoted from?

The source for HN has changed a few times, the original was here and contains the breakdown quoted above:

https://panamapapers.icij.org/20160403-panama-papers-global-...

> Associates of Russian President Vladimir Putin secretly shuffled as much as $2 billion through banks and shadow companies

So where's the other $198 billion?

> Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, who has positioned himself as a reformer in a country shaken by corruption scandals

Not surprising. An oligarch doing oligarch things. Surprised anyone thought he'd be anything but corrupt.

> Movie star Jackie Chan, who had at least six companies managed through the law firm

Guy who makes movies owns companies, imagine that?

Some of this is rather pedestrian, some interesting...

> So where's the other $198 billion?

The company the data has leaked from is not even in the top 3 of its kind. Either way going from the (claimed) zero fortune to billions discovered on the spot is telling.

Except there's no proof it's his billions (Putin's name isn't in the leaks). Just that someone he knows may have been involved.

Everyone knows Putin will use the oligarchs when expedient, and crush them when he needs to. And he has cracked down on them over the years. Still no actual proof he's done anything to enrich himself.

Meanwhile, as the media turns that molehill into a mountain, there's an actual smoking gun in Poroshenko, and many western leaders. But in the media it's all about Putin.

Well, Poroshenko offshore turned out to be what, 3,400 usd? And it's a mountain compared to Putin's two billions? Sorry but no; also nobody generally gives a damn about Poroshenko given his temporary and marginal role in the world politics.

Exposing the western leaders is all good, it does happen regularly thanks to the free press of the Western world. Taking Putin's corruption virginity, however, is once in a lifetime event and is definitely more newsworthy than misdeeds of the Western temps in the office.

> Sorry but no; also nobody generally gives a damn about Poroshenko given his temporary and marginal role in the world politics.

They should. A leader was overthrown and a nation plunged into civil war so he could be installed.

And somehow in 2 years he's managed to be even less-liked than Yanukovych was at his lowest point... http://www.gallup.com/poll/187931/ukrainians-disillusioned-l...

The nation was invaded, by that Russian dude you try to whitewash so hard. On the other hand, I now understand your issue with the revelations.

Natalie Jaresko is the finance minister (used to work for US State Dept), Poroshenko was a CIA informant and oligarch, Saakashvili (US stooge in Georgia who went to war with Russia, and now is wanted in Georgia for various crimes) is the governor of Odessa, the Canadian government admitted their embassy in Kyiv was used for logistics during the 'Maidan', and Yatseniuk was mentioned in a leaked phone call as a candidate to lead Ukraine before he became Prime Minister.

Yet there's no proof of an actual Russian invasion. Tell me, were Su-34s bombing Ukraine?

Do a new round of CIA leaks need to come out to see the obvious? Is all the coup d'états the US orchestrated over the years a conspiracy? Why are 4 American stooges leading Ukraine?

T-72B3s, Grads, BTR-82s were rolling into Donbas. Crimea was annexed by Russian troops, as admitted by Putin, and it takes quite an interesting mindset to deny it. Also interesting how the USA came to all those troubles with installing Poroshenko, but couldn't fake a poll or two.

But as I said, I understand perfectly your beef with the leaks. There is a huge swath of political left who seems to deny people their agency if they align with the Western interests in any way.

> Crimea was annexed by Russian troops, as admitted by Putin, and it takes quite an interesting mindset to deny it.

If you'd ever followed Ukrainian politics before the Orange Revolution, or since independence, you'd know Crimea has always been very pro-Russian, and always voted for the pro-Russian candidate going back decades. They also tried to separate from and then gain autonomy within Ukraine.

In the case of Crimea, it was undoubtedly the will of the people.

> T-72B3s, Grads, BTR-82s were rolling into Donbas.

Proof beyond shitty pictures on the side of a road, followed by a shitty picture of a road sign? Or pictures from inside a video game? Or shitty YouTube videos? Or videos from Georgia, or inside Russia itself?

If there was evidence that wasn't potato-quality YouTube videos and images of dubious quality and value, I'd be a little more impressed.

For such a large invasion, the proof is amazingly poor. Especially since it's in the west's interest to provide proof - you'd think there'd be detailed satellite images or something.

Here's a good example of the fakery: http://www.c-span.org/video/?c4528166/senator-inhofe-shows-f...

A US senator presenting images of the wrong war to his fellow senators. Do you not understand how this looks like a bad joke? A full-scale invasion, and the US government can't provide any real images of it.

> But as I said, I understand perfectly your beef with the leaks.

As everyone should. Most people are completely ignoring the western leaders who are named, instead focusing on Putin who isn't named.

I'm sure the Russian government is plenty corrupt. But excuse me for not believing 100% of what our news/propaganda tells us. What's amazing as well is their lack of consistency. They praise the Orange Revolution, then when it falls apart, nothing. Maybe the odd piece throwing Tymoshenko under the bus. Then she's a martyr when she's prosecuted for crimes she likely did commit. Then Maidan arrives and when the western media realizes she's unpopular, she's once again forgotten. She's in these leaks too BTW.

Seriously though, it's hard to look at history, at the news, to follow the news consistently for an extended time, and to believe that what we're told is 100% 'factual'.

Planet Money did a pretty enjoyable show about setting up shell companies, that might provide some interesting context for this news:

http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2012/07/27/157499893/episo...

and

http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2016/03/30/472452808/episo...

I wonder if they knew this was coming.

I doubt it, since the episodes are from 2012.

Well, they could not have known in 2012. But, they did just re-air those episodes in the last few weeks as re-runs. So, that was either a big coincidence, or they knew it was coming.

Panama just passed compliance with FATF (February 2016) and it's a message that their political leader/law firm owner/world's largest money launderer (his name is in the OP's title) is no longer open for business after decades of being the go-to place for hidden $$$.

http://www.fatf-gafi.org/countries/#Panama

"The FATF recognised that Algeria, Angola and Panama have made significant progress in improving their regimes to combat money laundering and terrorist financing and will therefore no longer be subject to the FATF’s monitoring process."

Also let's not forgot about the CIA's asset Noriega and decades of money laundering which started all this, including recently trying to wipe cloud data off a Nevada company logs. http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/national/articl...

tl;dr - This is a multi-state G20 planned leak and not the work of some moral insider or hacker, the money laundering world is becoming a difficult place for outsiders. Real leaks don't have fancy websites with responsive vectorized portraits and a full on content /social media structure.

> This is a multi-state G20 planned leak and not the work of some moral insider or hacker, the money laundering world is becoming a difficult place and for good reason.

I agree

And of course those in the know are moving to hide their assets somewhere else

The heads up was given a long time ago, you won't find their names in the leak, it's kinda funny Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson is being outed, I guess he didn't get the memo on account of his recent actions.

The leak is of historical documents dating back decades, not a snapshot of current setups. So I don't see why that'd affect anything.

I really doubt this is some sort of official leak though. Governments hate leaks of all kinds.

>Governments hate leaks of all kinds.

Not in the UK. Leaks and "off the record briefings" are practically official government policy.

To me this looks like a rather stupid attempt to promote regime change in Russia. Putin was weakened by the low oil price, and now this has all the signs of a bizarre poli-sci undergraduate plot to push him over the edge.

I'll change my mind if a list of significant British and US pols with Panamanian accounts appears - because any suggestion that there aren't any is frankly risible.

Per the Guardian[1]:

> Six members of the House of Lords, three former Conservative MPs and dozens of donors to UK political parties have had offshore assets.

I expect we'll hear more about this in coming days and weeks.

I don't really understand this line of thinking. Big leak + "fancy website graphics" = vast Western conspiracy? Sounds less like insightful analysis and more like the kind of denial I'd expect from RT.

1. http://www.theguardian.com/news/2016/apr/03/the-panama-paper...

The reason I'm thinking "vast Western conspiracy" is that you would think, as a common sense point, that when something like this appears Western journalists would be more interested in Western politicians first.

But apparently not. I find that strange.

I also find it strange that more people don't find it strange - because it's always been obvious to me that Putin is a completely generic oligarch crook, and I really don't understand why anyone would be surprised that he acts like one.

But here's an interesting fact - public opinion management has a long history in the West, just as it does in all other big states. It's been tracked by journalists and academics, discussed in Senate committees, and explored in books. It's a long way from being either hostile state propaganda or weirdo conspiracy nonsense.

I'm quite prepared to believe that a lot of HN readers haven't taken the time to familiarise themselves with that history, but that doesn't change the historical record.

And if absolutely no US pols are implicated in this leak, I'll continue to find that curious and strange, no matter how many downvotes I get here.

As for UK pols - we'll see exactly what that means in practice. Most people here know that Cameron's father made his money as a tax consultant to the privileged, and that our beloved Chancellor's family business never pays tax.

It would certainly be interesting, timely, and welcome if other members of the government were outed as avoiding significant sums. But until more facts appear, it's too early to tell how this will play out.

> And if absolutely no US pols are implicated in this leak, I'll continue to find that curious and strange, no matter how many downvotes I get here.

Agreed. But I do fully expect to see those revealed as soon as the journalists have made sure that their case against them is watertight. Meanwhile, I'll be taking a look at the Mexican ones myself. Since there is still a difference between knowing that most of our politicians and corporate owners are corrupt in the abstract and knowing the details. In fact, I'll check that even if this turns out to be an actual geopolitical conspiracy, so long as the data is truthful (even if partial).

I would surmise that they are holding off on Western Pols because they want to keep eyes as long as possible on this. For these organizations, eyeballs are money.

If they released a huge set of people on day one and didn't have much to show on day two, this would fall off the news cycle really quickly. I think that with the US political climate, they'll focus there soon, but they want a lot of people paying attention first.

This is just a guess, but it seems logical. We've seen this kind of slow-drip journalism with big data dumps in the past.

Is PM Cameron enough?

"official government policy"

That makes the government sound like single atomic entity - it is, of course, made up of politicians who spend a significant proportion of their time playing the game of politics.

Nick Robinson, the BBC Political Editor, has described how Number 10 typically can't see the diaries of cabinet ministers as this would allow them to work out which minister was lunching with which journalist and therefore where particular leaks came from. Of course, Number 10 also briefs for and against individual ministers.

Something for thought http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-01-27/the-world-...

"Real leaks don't have fancy websites" How something looks. It really is the shallowest form of dismissal, since the days of the village gossips.

Your missing the point, it's clear they this leak is planned and not someone just uploading a bunch of files.

People don't seem to understand what I mean by the above^.

The question is would it not be better to dump the entire data set to the public, instead of it being funnelled by reporters?

> it's clear they this leak is planned

But you haven't produced any real evidence for this claim.

The ICIJ has co-ordinated the reporting on the leak, sure; but that's not the same as claiming the leak itself was in bad faith, part of some wider state-sponsored conspiracy from G20 nations, etc.

Planned by whom? To what end? Do you have any information to substantiate this claim?

I'm referencing the fact that some leaks you get the whole enchilada and it's up to you or the media to sift though.

In the case it's a leak which is being funnelled by the reporters.

Maybe this is because of legal reasons, I have no idea, but would it not be better they just dumped the whole data set onto the web?

Did you have this same position with the Snowden leaks? Dump it on the web and it lacks credibility. Filter it through journalists who can use their resellers to make sense of it and the public gets to hear the important repercussions of the leak instead of having to try and figure it all out themselves.

Why not both?

At least they were transparent to exactly why the information was filtered. Credibility is certainly a good point but 100 people are going to have issue with sifting through terabytes of data.

They state at the very outset that they worked on the data for over a year, doing OCR, analyzing, digesting, cross-referencing, etc. No one is presenting a false front -- they aren't claiming that this is a bunch of files that they got yesterday, and instead are quite up front that they've done a lot of leg work on top of it.

So yes, the presentation was clearly "planned". That doesn't make the data any less real.

It would lose credibility if it was just a dump. Some would claim its false, others would alter it, to the point that enough confusion would be created to make it totally untrustworthy. Unfortunately thats how manipulation works.

> Real leaks don't have fancy websites with responsive vectorized portraits and a full on content /social media structure.

I don't understand this. Don't newspapers always make stories that they can tell are important more engaging for the reader? Here's a cute Guardian flash interactive from Cablegate, [1] and another nice Washington Post interactive on the same story. [2] Here's a really fancy six-part interactive from the Guardian in the wake of the Snowden files. [3] Whenever the media publishes leaks they will make similar things, even when Western governments act strenuously to prevent publication, as in the case of Cablegate and Snowden.

How does a well-presented story indicate anything other than the media thought this was a story which was important and in the public interest?

1. http://www.theguardian.com/world/interactive/2010/nov/28/us-... 2. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/nation/wikileak... 3. http://www.theguardian.com/world/interactive/2013/nov/01/sno...

> Real leaks don't have fancy websites with responsive vectorized portraits and a full on content /social media structure.

Yes they do and you're welcome.

Sincerely, somebody who worked on this for way too long and practically hasn't left the office this entire weekend.

I'm not critiquing the website, it looks great to be honest. It's comes across a little odd when you target just a small amount of people, it almost seems like a sales pitch.

The journalists need to be more transparent about the data and why these individuals were picked first, and how the data release is going to work.

I hope for your sake you don't have to vectorize everyone mentioned in the data.

Worth pointing out: this is, in no way, done by a single media organization. This is a collaborative effort of ~107 news organizations from all over the world, and you can be sure that behind each of them there's a small dedicated tech team that worked tirelessly on making this thing look pretty.

Because this is such a huge collaborative effort involving over 300 journalists from god knows how many countries, we barely managed to set an embargo until 8 PM (CEST). An hour before that, there were literally less than 10 tweets using #panamapapers. Now, there's over half a million. And it's been just seven hours since I have started the tweet wall in our office!

From this point on, I believe that every media organization is going to focus on its own region, although I cannot guarantee that. After all, my job was to make the website look pretty. I had the honor of reading some of the stories before anyone else while I was preparing them for the website (and I will have the same honor again in ~5-6 hours), but that's about it.

So, how much popcorn should i buy?

In the next 14 days, a lot. After that, have one bag per day ready until the end of the month.

I think i should invest in corn, through my offshore company of course.

Honestly that is becoming more clear and I might have jumped the gun in my initial comment.

It went viral very fast, I think it would have been a great idea to say that each "regional' media representative would be disclosing more info within the next couple of weeks.. on the website!

And if some important info was not disclosed regionally there would also be a follow up, because right now you have to admit.. not many Western names are showing up if any ( don't mention Cameron and the others since this was already exposed pre-leak).

Perhaps consider revising your original comment to be less dismissive if you have changed your mind?

Maybe I'm misunderstanding your comment, but if you have such an event ongoing and you manage to keep silence about it for over a year between ~300 people from half a dozen countries and 107 organisations - to such an extent that two hours before you have not more than ten tweets - then it looks to me that coordination works extremely well.

Looks great! Small visual bug here: https://panamapapers.icij.org/stairway_tax_heaven_game/ The zoom effect blurs the image.

The 1% having their pants down is the type of transparency we need.

Sincerely, Thank You!

>>Juan Penalti - Soccer Player

Nice touch. :)

The whole presentation was extremely well done. This seriously makes me consider going in to journalism if I ever feel the need for a career change.

sci-hub wasn't as nice for instance.

Good job anyway :)

Indeed the website looks very good - and analyzing and presenting such a huge amount of data deserves respect.

But I was also wondering why this leak had to be embargoed for a year. Why not release the complete raw data very quickly (with irrelevant, privacy-sensitive areas visibly redacted) and follow up with a detailed analysis later?

> Why not release the complete raw data very quickly (with irrelevant, privacy-sensitive areas visibly redacted)

Did you see the sheer volume of the data? You cannot redact 11+ million documents quickly.

It's not really usable on mobile though?

> This is a multi-state G20 planned leak

I don't see any incentive to self-destruct

Real bugs don't have fancy websites. http://heartbleed.com

When the first three leaders named are the top 3 enemies/adversaries of the US/Britain - Putin, Xi and Assad - my own little conspiracy canary started chirping.

And the Icelandic PM? The one who really annoyed Britain by defaulting on their debts?

Makes me wonder who orchestrated the leak.

https://panamapapers.icij.org/20160403-panama-papers-global-...

> In 2013, U.K. leader David Cameron urged his country’s overseas territories — including the British Virgin Islands — to work with him to “get our own houses in order” and join the fight against tax evasion and offshore secrecy.

> He could have looked no further than his late father to see how challenging that would be.

> Ian Cameron, a stockbroker and multimillionaire, was a Mossack Fonseca client who used the law firm to shield his investment fund, Blairmore Holdings, Inc., from U.K. taxes.

I doubt it was anyone related to David Cameron if that is what you are thinking. ;)

The USG have wanted tax reform for ages now. There's also no American mentioned (yet) which is very conspiracy-ey.

They are largely US based and want to verify rather than risk being sued for livel. Give it a month.

The information about Cameron's father pretty much came out already 4 years ago (already after his father was dead), so not like this personal link hurts Cameron a lot more with the current list of names.

Likely a disgruntled employee, same as all the rest.

  When the first three leaders named are the top 3 enemies/adversaries
  of the US/Britain - Putin, Xi and Assad - my own little conspiracy
  canary started chirping.

Is the leak because they are adversaries, or are they adversaries (at least in part) because they are the sorts of people who would participate in the leaked behavior?

https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/716795010751049728

Yet for some reason you never question Wikileaks leaks despite the fact that they never target Russia or China.

Kim of North Korea or late Chavez aren't mentioned either. Is that because they are friends of the US/Britain?

Hilarious that BBC, a broadcaster paid for by British tax payers, has a subheading in that article titled "Russian connection" describing various dealings of Russian characters who are "close associates" of Putin and an equally sordid "Iceland connection" but not even a mention of David Cameron's father's tax evading schemes listed in the documents which the people of Great Britain should be vastly more interested in. Not to mention direct implications of various other western puppets (Saudi King, Ukrainian PM, Iraqi former PM) and other dubious "connections".

I look at articles like this and ask myself is this journalism or is it a shake down?

Disagree. This way they can perhaps force anyone involved to comment, while blowing everything wide open in public would perhaps make the case revolve around a single case, and not the actual political aspects of the case. Or am I just making stuff up here? In my world this is a great tactic. Danish television will be covering this for a week. If politicians are involved it's probably best to let them comment and do their job first, instead of putting them in the spotlight where they will avoid commenting on the case.

Both the British and (especially) German [0] media are virulently anti-Russian. They blame Russians for all of their ills. Societal problems? Blame Russians. Anything that happens in their countries, they manage to find an angle to blame it on Russians somehow. Norway [1] & Sweden are also under a constant paranoia that Russians are just days away from invading them.

But nothing compares to German media when it comes to paranoia about Russians. They're truly in the league of their own. They have tabloids like BILD that devote several pages of every issue on "evil russians". They even print special issues about evil Russians and new Hitler aka Putin.

When I visited Germany last year, I felt like they're in a second Cold War or something. In the US, we managed to stop being paranoid after 1990s but Germans are still paranoid about Russians. It was explained to me by a german friend of mine that this is because their biggest publisher, Axel Springer, was started with CIA money and that every journalist who works for any of the Axel Springer properties has to sign a contract that says that they have to foster the relationship with the US. Unsaid rule is that they have to disparage Russians. And sure enough, if you search for some of this stuff, you can find things like [2] and [3]

[0]: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-03-28/top-german-journali...

[1] http://www.imdb.com/title/tt4192998/reference

[2] http://i.imgur.com/ufKQh49.png

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axel_Springer_SE#Corporate_pri...

Edit : After some googling, I came across this interesting article by Rüdiger Göbel... it sums up things nicely.

http://russia-insider.com/en/groundhog-day-german-msm-keeps-...

Edit #2 : I see my comment is controversial and is being heavily down/upvoted with downvotes winning.

Anyway, to add even more evidence to what I'm saying, see the Twitter feed [4] of Julian Röpcke, who's a 'political editor at BILD'. Go take a look for yourself and start scrolling. Everything that happens in the world, Russians are somehow behind it according to him. Millions of refugees from Syria in Europe? That's because of Russians and Putin (never mind the fact that millions arrived way before Russians started their deployment in Syria). I guess he cannot mention that unrest started after US implemented a policy of destabilizing Assad and funding of various islamic terror organization... because that would be against his pro-US "jounalistic" contract that he signed.

[4] https://twitter.com/julianroepcke

I don't know why you were downvoted, but I completely agree with you. It's great that the Panama Papers were leaked, but blaming it all on Putin seems very convenient.

Right, because at no time in its entire history has Russia actively supported organisations whose sole goal was "the overthrow of the international bourgeoisie and for the creation of an international Soviet republic as a transition stage to the complete abolition of the State."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist_International

That was more than 70 years ago.

There is a continuity to human social organisation and behaviours that transcends both time and ideology.

Russia's socialist days are long behind it now, for better or worse.

However, curiously, at least over here (Finland), the old Communist sympathizers seem to still be friends of Russia. Or vice versa: if someone is uncritically repeating Russian propaganda (re Ukraine, Donbass etc) then if he's standing in the election he's most likely with one of fringe communist parties.

It somehow goes beyond just hating America and NATO which are good common enemies. It is weird of course, as some of these people are very wealthy and in a real communist revolution would clearly get a bullet in the back of the head.

Yeah, I've noticed that some Communist movements still seem to be fond of Russia, despite everything that made them like it being gone. It's certainly not something exclusive to Finland.

Hardly. Russia is a fascist dictatorship. Fascism is a version of Socialism. Which is why fascists such as Mussolini and Hitler were such huge fans of Socialism, universally hated Capitalism, and were early proponents of the global Socialist movement in the 20th century.

In Russia the State is nearly all powerful, and realistically directly controls the means of production by its whim. It can change ownership of or nationalize any means of production at will. The only way it could be more Socialist, is if they nationalized all food production and stopped pretending there is private ownership. The government of Russia already controls all aspects of the economy and all major businesses. Supposed private ownership without actual private control is a farce, they're Socialist in everything but pretending regarding who owns what.

As a regular reader of German news, this does not seem true to me. My impression is that the German media are more Russia-friendly than their British and American counterparts. After all, Russia and Germany could be natural allies from a geostrategic perspective.

Go on BILD, Die Welt and Der Spiegel and read articles in German. I'm semi-fluent in German (studied it for 5 years and lived there for a year) and from my experience everything I said is true. I've added some references.

It is not true. Dr. Ulfkotte is a known fake journalist: http://www.dialoginternational.com/dialog_international/2015...

What's not true?

This?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axel_Springer_SE#Corporate_pri...

or this:

http://i.imgur.com/ufKQh49.png

>What's not true?

The part about poor Russia being targeted by German media for no apparent reason. German media space has plenty of differing opinions in it altho I do understand that the vocal Russian minority in Germany would rather if any criticism of Russia stopped regardless of its veracity.

British and American media are virulently anti-Russian so that doesn't mean much.

I did not know that Axel Springer actually has support for America, the EU and Israel literally written into its corporate constitution. That seems like a powerful source of bias for a media organisation.

While you are being downvoted, I concur, of all the people mentioned in the Panama papers [1] Russians for one reason or another drew unproportionally much attention of the media. By looking at the source [0][2, for posterity] I can only infer that Putin is in the center of the web.

[0] http://panamapapers.sueddeutsche.de/

[1] https://panamapapers.icij.org/the_power_players/

[2] http://panamapapers.sueddeutsche.de/wp-content/uploads/2016/...

Being Russian citizen I find this critical position actually pro-Russian. It's in our interest to have a professional government and a president elected on transparent and free elections, to fight corruption and to work for the prosperity of our Homeland and for happiness of all our people. The government, the president, the courts and the deputees of parliament that do not satisfy these criteria can and shall be criticized by anyone who dares. And, by the way, these media do not criticize the Russian people. So, we are ok with that critics and sane people here are not humiliated by what others may call "lecturing from the West". In fact, we are proud that there's so much interest to the Russian politics, that we are treated as important part of the world and that we do matter. Moreover, such critics will not change anything in Russia, because Russian internal affairs are only our internal affairs. I'd say, they are for internal consumption in Germany and UK, and it's good - even western citizen enjoying the taste of democracy may fall to Putin's propaganda, so better keep fighting.

> In fact, we are proud that there's so much interest to the Russian politics, that we are treated as important part of the world and that we do matter.

The only reason Russia "matters" is that it's non-compliant to the Western interests. The only kind of "freely-elected" government that the West would approve of is one that would bend to its wishes. Take a look at Ukraine to see what happens to elected governments that don't.

There are plenty of reasons why Russia matters, and non-compliance is not the one of them. To name few: nuclear weapons, vast natural resources (including fresh water), great cultural heritage. And quite good representation in tech, btw. The West is not a Satan, like some ayatollas would say, and Russia is not the Last Fortress standing against his armies. As for Ukraine, unfortunately it is the failed state, that is severely (almost deadly) damaged by corruption - it has nothing to do with Western or Russian interests, first of all it's the failure of Ukrainian people to get rid of crooks (just like the failure of Russian people to do the same), and only then there are the sides that would like to play with it.

I appreciate your perspective on your country and the world. I'm a USian but I agree with you and can't fault Russia for resisting the neoliberal/neoconservative Empire erected by the Western elites.

Russians (and the rest of us?) are supposed to fall meekly into line in the world created by the likes of GWB, Victoria Nuland, Hillary Clinton, Dick Cheney and Rumsfeld, David Cameron and Merkl? No thanks.

Do you really believe that western media care a single bit about free elections in Russia? The only reason they care about it is because The position of Russia government does not match the western narrative.

I did not say anything about my beliefs and it is not important WHY do they care about Russia. The only thing that is important, is the result - whether these critics are justified, whether they serve Russian interests or not. They do serve. If this was not someone's goal, shame on that guy, he failed. If it was, thanks to him, he did his job well.

> whether they serve Russian interests or not. They do serve.

You're assuming that free elections would benefit common Russians. They wouldn't. You're right about one thing, though: it wouldn't be Putin and his cronies siphoning all of Russia's wealth (resourceful citizens, natural resources, ...). It would be the western conglomerates.

I do not know who "common Russians" are. However, I am Russian and I would like free elections, thank you.

Don't get me wrong - I definitely hope and wish you get them. I also hope and wish they won't be abused by the West. And I hope I'm wrong with my pessimism. But I fear I'm right...

In this world, everybody is trying to abuse everybody else all the time at the background and foreground.

One just should not use "external abuse" as reason to act (or not).

What makes you think that recent elections were not free? I am Russian and vast majority of people I know (like 90%) went to vote for Putin. I have one friend who was worried about elections not being free since he was voting for Prokhorov and really disliked Putin, so he signed up as an independent observer at one of the St.Petersburg voting booths, and he was shocked when he saw the amount of people that came to vote for Putin, he said it was like 9/10 people were voting for Putin after they counted vote papers, and he said there was no way to fake those votes at least at his booth.

For some reason individuals in Russia think that if the candidate they were voting for did not win the elections - it means the elections were not free and somehow fake, but you have to understand that there are a vast majority of people in Russia who thought that Putin is a better candidate compared to Prokhorov and others

Last Duma elections were definitely rigged.

For example, Moscow voted as two different cities: https://github.com/alamar/elegraph/blob/master/moscow.png Note the two obvious centers of blobs. I'm yet to see any non-handwavy explanation of that phenomenon, and why it then disappeared for the next President elections.

Can you explain to me how this chart proves that "elections were DEFINITELY rigged"? I just don't understand what do you mean by "obvious centers of blobs" and how does it correlates with rigged elections?

You would imagine, if Moscow is a city comprised of similar election districts, that election results in that districts will form a continuity.

There would be a few outliers and a massive core of "typical" districts with similar results in them. We're even bound to get Gauss distribution of results or something similar.

However, for Duma election, there's no continuity. There are two distinct profiles. There are a lot of districts with one kind of results, a lot of districts with different kind of results. As if it was two different cities, possibly in two different countries. Or if election results were rigged in a large subset of districts.

Why would that be?

Moscow is a huge city (12 mln population). I don't think that different results in different parts of it give you any reason to call elections "DEFINITELY rigged", if you look at New York state (which has similar population size as Moscow) elections for 2012 [1], you will also see that each county has a pretty different kind of results, some counties were in full support of Obama, and some were in support of Romney, but that does not make it "definitely rigged" no?

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_ele...

Who cares if the elections are rigged in terms of vote counting, if oppositional politics or media is more or less non-existent? Without a healthy opposition and oppositional media elections aren't free, period.

The historical data does not support your theory. We all know that some of the countries now belonging to the "Western world", some time ago were neither democracies, nor successful free market economies. Now we all know about German, Korean and Japanese multinationals. Adopting the "Western" way does not mean surrendering and losing political and economical sovereignity. There were trade wars and political conflicts between Western powers, they all play their own games, they just have agreed on the way of conduct for them.

I see Germany, Korea and, to a letter extent, Japan, as completely surrendered to US interests.

> Ohh, please stop, do you really believe that western media care a single bit about free elections in Russia?

I think any person in the "west" would be delighted to see free elections in Russia. Why wouldn't we? Since it would be a missive influence on our lives, of course western media should care!

A government elected by popular vote would be stabilizing to the region (and the world) since it wouldn't have the same need of maintaining poopularity by inventing an external enemy (and at regular intervals, creating one, if necessary).

> "does not match the western narrative"

What is the "western narrative" really?

I suppose one historical "western narrative" is that the Soviet Union was dissolved in the early 90's, and that the borders drawn then are those of sovereign states who each have a choice of trade/military alliance. I'm getting increasingly worried that this isn't the historical narrative tought in some schools in parts of the former union.

> I think any person in the "west" would be delighted to see free elections in Russia.

No, they will be delighted to see the candidate they (westerns) like more - win, they won't care who most people really voted and supported in Russia. Putin won on the recent elections and I did not notice any "delighted west media" after that, even thought as I said in a separate comment - vast majority of the people in Russia actually did support Putin vs other candidates. It's hard to see from the outside, but most people in Russia are actually supporting Putin, I think the reason is that those who were against Putin have a better reach to international media since they speak english and are more socially active thus from the outside it looks like most of the population dislikes Putin, which in reality is not true.

I don't doubt Putin has massive support, but in a country without free press or free elections popularity says nothing. Putin doesn't win elections, he arranges them.

North Koreas leaders have traditionally enjoyed a 100% support, and it might even be genuine support, but it doesn't mean anything.

The media climate in Russia isn't yet North Korean of course, but it's far from a climate in which elections would be called fair. https://index.rsf.org/ (You really don't want to rank with Belarus and Congo on the freedom of press index).

To win a real election you make sure you have freedom of press, then you have an election overseen by internationally recognized observers such as the oecd.

The fact that Putin is popular despite rapidly growing deficits and receding standard of living (at the same time as massive military spending) is pretty telling.

> rapidly growing deficits and receding standard of living

Really? What is it based on? Compared to a period after the perestroika, level of life has greatly improved in Russia, the worst period of crime and absolute horrendous inability of police to prevent the growth of organized crime is not something most of the people of Russia want to experience again and that is why they want to go with stability which they think Putin gives them.

> in a country without free press or free elections

Throwing around big captions like this does not help a single bit, these words mean absolutely nothing to me, what do you mean by "free press" isn't most of the popular media in UK or US owned and heavily censored by corporate leaders or government parties? What makes this media "free" and media in Russia "not free".

> Really? What is it based on?

The fact that the budget is balanced on a completely different oil price, and no sanctions. The russian reserve funds are falling pretty rapidly, while defense spending is still increasing and over 5%.

> Compared to a period after the perestroika, level of life has greatly improved in Russia

No doubt. The period after the union dissolved standard off living rapidly rose. The period of openness over the last decade meant great growth and together with rising oil prices it saw rising standards of living. This only changed in the last years with falling oil prices and sanctions which have seen prices rise at a faster rate than wages and pensions. This is also known as a "sinking standard of living". Russian price and wage indices aren't subjective or secret information so please let's not debate whether you can e.g. buy more or less food for a teachers' salary in 2016 than 2013. I'm talking about the very last years now, not the period since 1990.

> stability which they think Putin gives them.

I don't blame them. Putin saw great economic success in his early years. I do however consider it foolish to vote for an authoritarian if the cost of this stability is lack of opposition and lack of free press, which has been the result in recent years.

> what do you mean by "free press"

The methodology used by Reporters Without Borders is a pretty decent one:

  "[The level of] pluralism, media independence, environment and self-censorship, legislative framework, transparency, and infrastructure. The questionnaire takes account of the legal framework for the media (including penalties for press offences, the existence of a state monopoly for certain kinds of media and how the media are regulated) and the level of independence of the public media."

As I posted earlier, Russia fares no better than Belarus in this matter (a totalitarian dictatorship!) and also little better than many third world failed states, which is just embarrassing for a mostly developed country like Russia.

> Isn't most of the popular media in UK or US owned and heavily censored by corporate leaders or government parties?

Yes, a lot of the press is owned by corporations, or non political organizations, or political parties, or individuals. A lot of it has a party bias. That's entirely natural. Pluralism is the key -- e.g. are there media outlets representing all political parties etc? Is there excessive control of one type of media such as TV by a government entity? Self-censorship is a problem, but this problem is accounted for in the freedom-of-press index.

> What makes this media "free" and media in Russia "not free".

It's not black and white, it's a scale from completely unfree (North Korea) to completely free (Nowhere!). Somewhere along this scale we can argue that is are "free" and somewhere I'd argue they are not free.

Where one draws that line is entirely arbitrary. Out of pure interest - if you yourself were to use the freedom of press ranking to draw a line somewhere above north korea where you consider the press to be "free", which state is that? Since it is below Russia in the ranking, where is it? Belarus? Cuba? Saudi Arabia?

I do suspect this -- you will not be able to pick a state on that list as being below Russia but still enjoying press freedom. What you will have to do instead is a) dismiss reporters without borders and their "freedom of press index" as a western invention deviced to make "western style media" look good, while painting the Russian media landscape as failed, or b) claim that no country on the rank has free press, even Finland at the top spot, since hey, all media in Finland are owned and self censored by individuals and corporations or parties or organizations...

If you are going to do a) or b) above, don't bother - you'd be better of not responding.

> The russian reserve funds are falling pretty rapidly

Any data to back up that claim? Looking at the national reserve fund data it does not look to be anywhere near "falling pretty rapidly" [1]

Also Russian national debt has decreased by quite a lot in recent years [2], and now is only about 25% of GDP, which is a very low figure compared to other countries.

1 - https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%A0%D0%B5%D0%B7%D0%B5%D1%80...

2 - https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%92%D0%BD%D0%B5%D1%88%D0%BD...

The fund shrunk by 20% in the last two years (from 2014 to 2016) due to the sanctions and low oil prices. I'd say 10% on a per-year basis is pretty fast.

http://old.minfin.ru/en/nationalwealthfund/statistics/amount...

Why are you only cherry picking the data that fits your narrative? The link you included shows that since the time when Putin become a president in 2008 - reserve fund increased by more than 230% in USD and almost 10X in rubbles, the recent drop in reserve fund in USD is happening because of the oil prices decrease (same thing is happening with US national reserve [1]) , but even thought oil prices dropped by almost 400% in recent 2 years - the Russian reserve fund has only dropped by 20% in USD and it actually increased in rubbles. I am very far from Putin supporter, and I absolutely dislike what is happening in Russia, but I just don't like when people come up with "facts" by cherrypicking stuff, if you want to be objective - look at the combined data, do not ignore whatever does not fit your narrative.

1 - http://www.tradingeconomics.com/united-states/foreign-exchan...

I'm not cherry picking I'm just talking about the recent years and I'm completely aware that the economic situation is due in large part to low oil prices. There was no problem being popular when high oil prices and an open market meant steadily increasing standard of living. What I'm discussing is how hard it is for any politician to be popular in the face of rapidly decreasing purchasing power and living standard such as when there is a budget deficit and inflation. So why isn't Putins popularity decreasing when the economy is? Is it because the people saw what he did in 2008-2014 and trust he can bring that back? Makes sense, but a diverse media would question that idea. It wouldn't be enough in any country with a working media and opposition. Leaders in working democracies don't have that high approval ratings even in good times.

The last couple of years have seen large inflation, and also stagnated salaries/pensions. This is a very recent phenomenon and started with falling oil prices and was worsened by the Crimea sanctions.

You could argue that discussing 2013-16 is cherry picking but those 3 years are pretty special -- they are the most recent 3!

With the sanctions in place 7+ percent inflation and oil prices looking to stay low for a long time, spending 5-6% on the military while the public can buy less every month for their salaries is only sustainable in one single way - make a story that the nation is in a conflict with an external enemy. That it's "us against them". It's simple nationalism and it has always worked. To support that story you cannot have an alternative narrative either so you must effectively control media and ensure there is no working opposition. This is exactly what the rest of the world believe has happened, which is why everyone is worried. It's becaus we fear that given enough time - the people of Ru wouldn't actually know they don't like Putin because there is no media that gives them any reason not to!

The point isn't that Putin is mismanaging the economy directly - it's that he is isolating Russia economically e.g by the Crimea story which will hurt the economy over time.

The same would happen in the US if Mr Trump was elected, but the difference there would be that media would eat him alive after that (e.g alienating Mexico or the entire Muslim world) and the opposition would win in a landslide come the next election.

> I think any person in the "west" would be delighted to see free elections in Russia. Why wouldn't we? Since it would be a missive influence on our lives, of course western media should care!

In practice, that's not true. Take Egypt as an example where the US government tried to keep Mubarak/Suleiman in place [1] until it was unfeasible during the Arab Spring. When it was time for elections, they pretended to be for them (And so did the western media and public) until the Muslim Brotherhood was elected. That was not well received because democracy is only good if people elect who we want them to elect.

The military coup [2] happened, probably with foreign intervention, and the US government couldn't be more pleased with it. Most of the western public either doesn't know, doesn't care or thinks it's better that way and the media will go along official US lines and not call them dictators like they don't call US aligned governments authoritarian or non-democratic. That's strictly reserved for our opponents.

[1] - http://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/feb/05/hillary-clinton... [2] - https://theintercept.com/2014/10/02/feigned-american-support...

> That was not well received because democracy is only good if people elect who we want them to elect.

Well, there is always the age-old question of whether democracy canbe abandoned with democratic means. (Note I don't know what the MB platform was in these elections, nor what the constiution looked like). Egypt has deep rooted issues with its military being entrenched in all parts of society and politics (A problem which in turn to a large part was created by western intervention /long time subsidies!). Reversing that will take a very long time, and there is always the risk that the people elect a populist government (be it religious populism or some other kind). There is little reason to believe the situation in Egypt will improve any quicker than it has in e.g. Burma. Which is to say, the west will try to meddle in semi-democratic elections for many decades yet.

When I say everyone in the west would be delighted to see free and fair elections in Russia it's because I believe that the Russian people are quite sensible and would elect a decent leadership if given the chance.

> It's in our interest to have a professional government and a president elected on transparent and free elections

I think everyone has been looking forward for this to happen for hundreds of years. Nothing has happened. It's still land of kleptocrazy (let's not start arguing that there are other equally bad players as well). And even to this day, Russians seem to be like: "there is nothing we can do". And Putin is more popular than ever. Take this as a critizism for Russian people. You have allowed such a bad leaders run to your country. Russians I have met, talk more about leaving the country.

And to reply to myself:

Now that we have the leaks, look what is happening in Iceland and compare that to what is happening in Russia. In Iceland people are demanding their prime minister to resign. In Russia, people think that this is an attack from the west.

Maybe, but "father of a PM" is not even close to the same thing as "PM". If Cameron's father has done something wrong, that doesn't (shouldn't) affect perceptions of his son. The days of punishing children for the crimes of their parents are long in the past.

Assuming the guy did anything wrong, of course. As these articles note, off shore companies are not illegal.

A father is certainly a closer connection than childhood friend or "close associate" whatever that means.

Ok so they can talk about Putin's childhood friend, but not about Cameron's father?

The implication was that Putin's childhood friend is running a scheme that Putin is taking part in.

But Cameron directly benefited from his father's tax avoidance. He received several hundred thousand pounds as an inheritance from his father's estate. I'm sure he would have received less if his father had not saved money by avoiding taxes. He wasn't running the scheme, but he did directly benefit from it.

A child has no control over their parent's financial affairs when they were a minor. If they are involved after they reach majority that's very different.

I have no control or knowledge where my parents keep their money or if they cheat on their taxes or not.

No, I thought that was kind of dumb too, but I've got used to western media constantly dumping on Putin regardless of the merits of the case so I just ignore it now. Like, I just skip any part of the Economist that talks about Russia because their coverage of the topic is so hilariously unbalanced.

> Maybe, but "father of a PM" is not even close to the same thing as "PM". If Cameron's father has done something wrong, that doesn't (shouldn't) affect perceptions of his son. The days of punishing children for the crimes of their parents are long in the past.

That's still in the public's interest to know about this kind of thing, assuming it is actually illegal.

Yeah Margaret Thatcher had no idea whatsoever about her son involvment in the Saudi arms deal.

>The days of punishing children for the crimes of their parents are long in the past.

Except if the victims are white. Then so many people like to play the game of attempting to justify contemporary offence/injustice X, with historical event Y.

Which is why it's good that this massive pile of data is analyzed by a huge load of international newspapers.

This way, papers can selectively publish stuff that won't put themselves in too grave danger - just look what happened to The Guardian with the Snowden leak (visits from three-letter agency officials) or what happens in Turkey, Ukraine or Hungary with media that dares to publish stuff too offensive to the respective regimes.

The situation sucks, yes, but it's the only viable modus operandi for now.

I mean sure journalists and meme-makers will spin this however it suits them, but I thought here in the west we're assured that we have freedom of press. This type of obvious slant certainly doesn't make it seem that way.

> I thought here in the west we're assured that we have freedom of press.

Freedom of press does not guarantee freedom from persecution (or prosecution), so the international consortium approach is a much better guarantee for all the information actually getting out.

That's exactly what freedom of the press is supposed to mean...

Not really, freedom of press is much narrower. What you're suggesting is an ideal world where journalists are protected from the egos and reputations of powerful people who might want to retaliate against them for their reporting. There are many forms of legal retaliation that freedom of press cannot protect against. In practice, this freedom is weighed against the consequences of publishing any single piece.

If not freedom from prosecution, then what else would "freedom of the press" guarantee?

For example, not having to run all (or huge parts of) your stories through a censor before being allowed to publish them (e.g. China, Israel).

Or, like in Germany, various protections like e.g. the police not allowed without complex judiciary checks to monitor the phones and internet connections of a journalist, or to go into a newspaper office and seizing random data to uncover a source.

You can be prosecuted for reasons entirely unrelated to your publishing of a story, even if that is the true reason. Do you think people don't try to intimidate journalists?

The BBC does have freedom from persecution or prosecution (assuming it doesn't publish things that are e.g libelous). But, due to the particular way it is funded, it doesn't have freedom from government intervention.

In particular the BBC charter is reviewed every so often. This process involves the government and can affect things like the level of funding available to the BBC, and its remit in terms of the services it is allowed to offer. It's no secret that the current government are not big fans of the BBC, both for ideological reasons, and because of cozy relationships with certain commercial broadcasters. They are already waging a war in the press trying to convince the public that the BBC has an intrinsic left-wing bias, and are mooting ideas like preventing it from making programmes that are too popular and so may draw audiences away from commercial rivals. In this environment, and with funding already being cut, and jobs lost, it's not hard to see why you would think twice about running stories that could lead you open to allegations of an anti-government agenda.

Although the particular details of that situation are unique to the BBC, it's important to note that commercial broadcasters, and media outlets in general, also don't have freedom in the sense of freedom-from-consequences. For example there was a story last year about HSBC pulling adverts from media outlets which ran articles critical of its business practices. In an environment where, particularly for print media, margins are tight or non-existent, it's easy to see how this can give commercial interests hidden editorial control over a "free" press.

There is no particularly strong legal basis for "freedom of press" in the UK. While recent history has had the press being largely unhindered by the government, our history is one of strict restrictions that have been gradually relaxed over the centuries.

You're probably confusing us with the US, which has some constitutional guarantees.

Thanks for clearing that up. US press seems curiously absent from even covering this story. As per @mathewi the only US media companies on the #panamapapers team are Miami Herald, Univision, Fusion and McLatchy.

I guess we'll see how active they'll become and what their spin will be, if any, in the coming days.

The US press situation is a standard consolidation story. They are dependent on leaks and access to officials, and have little meaningful competition to drive risky behavior.

There's a reason Fox leans republican and CNN leans democrat -- they get to avoid competition.

In a market like NYC with 4-5 papers, the Post and Daily News always try to one up each other, posting off politicians in the process.

Apparently they split out all the documents relating to Americans and haven't released them yet. So nothing has "hit home" so to speak for American media.

> but I thought here in the west we're assured that we have freedom of press

Hell no. As long as crap like NSLs (or other secret gag orders, see UK), anti-whistleblower laws or (esp. USA) actually independent media with mass reach exist, there is no freedom of the press.

the BBC's bias against Russia is notorious, surpassed only by washingtonpost, but I don't know if that one is taken seriously anyway.

I believe they are withholding details regarding any British connections until the BBC Panorama show which airs tomorrow. As before, this leak is coordinated across different media organisations and the whole news cache is released iteratively.

That might be the case, we will have to see. But surely it is strange to single out Russia in this way.

Not surprised. Last I heard, the Government was floating the idea of turning editorial control of the BBC over to a board of their own appointees: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/mar/14/the-gua...

BBC is just trying to get ahead - by self-censoring itself. They sure showed Cameron!

> by self-censoring itself.

This is is of course an area of concern. It is sometimes referred to as cognitive capture, akin to regulatory capture. It occurs when a regulatee so strongly paints a picture of how they feel the world should work, that a regulator fails to fulfill their duties, because their lens on the world has become so distorted in favor of the regulatee's perspective.

It often flows private industry ----> govt, with private industry cognitively capturing the government.

But it can just as easily go the other way. Afterall, in the west the media/journalist industry has historically been seen as the regulator of the government, the fourth estate.

> Not to mention direct implications of various other western puppets (Saudi King, Ukrainian PM, Iraqi former PM) and other dubious "connections".

I don't know about Ukraine, but the Middle East would likely be quite different if both the Saudi ruler and al-Maliki were "Western puppers".

But when channels like Al Jazeera do the same thing with issues pertaining to Qatar, which is unethical of course, everyone has their pitchforks ready. I mean come on - everyone knows that BBC is a "neutral" news source.

> paid for by British tax payers,

While that is mostly true, (it's the same people obviously) I'm pretty sure the BBC isn't funded by taxes. If they were, they would be under political control. Which would be silly.

It's funded by the license fee. You don't have to pay but then you can't watch live TV.

> It's funded by the license fee.

That was my point. It might not sound like a difference from a tax, but the difference is pretty substantial when we are discussing the control of the company.

Not really? The government still controls the licence fee.

Actually, the Office of National Statistics now classifies the TV Licence fee as tax.

It certainly is indistinguishable from a tax from the licensee's perspective, so I agree with the classification in that sense (e.g. for evaluating the tax pressure of UK citizens etc). The important takeaway however is that unlike proper taxes the money isn't politically controlled.

It is remarkable that this breaking story focuses on Russia, Iceland and unfriendly/anti-Western dictators (Mubarak, Gaddafi, al-Assad).

And apart from Cameron's father:

- Pamela Sharples, member of the House of Lords

- Michael Ashcroft, former Deputy Chairman of the Conservative Party and former member of the House of Lords

- Michael Mates, former Member of Parliament

And in the EU:

- Giuseppe Donaldo Nicosia, business partner of former Italian senator

- Jérôme Cahuzac, former French minister

- Konrad Mizzi, current Maltese minister

- Miguel Arias Cañete, wife of a current Spanish minister and European Commissioner

- Paweł Piskorski, former Warsaw mayor

- Stavros Papastavrou, former advisor to the current Greek Prime Minister

---

Source: ICIJ https://projects.icij.org/panama-papers/power-players/index....

What's so remarkable about focusing on heads of state rather than lesser ministers, members of parliament, etc.?

Then why are they focusing on Putin's "associates" who are not even in the government?

It makes me wonder why an "associate" of a foreign head of state is a more relevant story than the father of the head of state, or of serving politicians with close links to the party of the head of state, from the same country's taxpayer-funded news service.

The story doesn't even mention the implication of Cameron's father in the scheme. Which is odd, because Cameron stood to gain from the inheritance. And if the allegations are true, then he would have benefited from the proceeds of tax evasion.

There are also several other heads of state directly implicated in this scheme, yet they were not even mentioned in the story: the current heads of state of UAE, Ukraine, Argentina, and Saudi Arabia for example.

And the figure who is apparently at the center of the Russian allegations is a concert cellist who has known Putin since they were teenagers. Yet the link and related BBC story convey the impression (at least to my mind) that Putin was somehow complicit in the scheme, without establishing any proof for this.

Is it remarkable, or is it completely expected for propaganda?

I've been visiting the US for 6 months now, and the only time I hear anything about the outside world is when (China/Russia/NorthKorea) are doing something bad, or their citizens lives suck, or rarely when a social program in a developed country (UK, Europe) goes a little wrong (over budget or whatever).

Interestingly, the fact that hundreds of millions of people living in developed countries have better health care, education, roads, etc. than Americans is never mentioned. It's also never mentioned that American politicians are for sale, and bribery is completely legal here.

Why would they, when Time Warner (owner of CNN), for instance, is a top 10 contributor to the Clinton campaign and is therefore legally bribing politicians?

Source: https://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/contrib.php?cid=N000...

I really feel like this is an unnecessarily melodramatic comment. I can't tell if you're being serious about American news only reporting things that make America look good but that's certainly not true in my experience. Mainstreams outlets (NYT/WSJ/etc.) have different biases on their editorial boards but they are more than willing to report negative news about the US and mundane current events from around the world.

Also, I think it's a little bit to early to call propaganda/controlled-opposition on this leak. Because the US has such a strict tax evasion regime, it's pretty reasonable to believe that Americans would be treated differently by firms selling tax evasion services. Or, it could be that American names will be released later. Hard to tell at this point.

> I can't tell if you're being serious about American news only reporting things that make America look good

I'm being serious.

Other countries I've lived in spend a lot of time in their media comparing their own country to other countries that are doing very well, or are doing something better than them, such that they can learn from that and make their own situation or system better.

When you only compare America to countries doing much worse, you never get that.

The American sentiment of "we are the best" has been seriously harmful in the last ~20 years because it means there is no drive to improve anything. In fact, I notice it's very "un-American" to even suggest changing/improving things.

Hypothetically, even if a given country were the best at something, that's not a reason not to improve it.

I don't believe the US is hung up on not improving. I think that's blatantly false and I think you're wrong about some of what you're claiming.

It's also a fascinating bit of hypocrisy, to say that the US is hung up on being right, and yet you feel free to bash the US while promoting the things others do right (you listed healthcare, education, roads). How does that work again?

The US does in fact improve. See: gay marriage legalization (something many of those supposed progressive nations you're referring to still lack). Body cams for police (a wide national interest in ending police brutality). Ending mass incarceration and the war on drugs (changes that are now supported by the majority of Americans). The ACA / Obamacare.

If you want to talk about roads, much of Europe for example has seen its spending on infrastructure plunge dramatically. The US is now spending more on its infrastructure than most of the countries you're likely to reference:

"Infrastructure spending in the euro zone has dropped to an average of 2.7 percent of gross domestic product, compared with 3.4 percent of GDP for the U.S. and 3.6 percent for Japan."

http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-11-27/europe-has-...

It's almost universally recognized within the US that there are significant problems in both education and healthcare. You can hardly get away from discussions on these topics. What is occurring, is a slow moving national debate on what to do about fixing them. The US has a healthcare system the size of all of Europe's healthcare systems combined in dollar terms, which employs directly or indirectly millions of people - there's no scenario under which you're going to radically remake something like that in short order.

The US is a relatively complex, massive representative system, with local + state + federal systems that all play an important role and a total government budget so large it would be the world's #3 economy by itself. It's difficult for a government system that large to move quickly on almost anything. Imagine trying to get most of the countries in Europe to agree on major changes to their education or healthcare systems simultaneously, it's approximately an equivalent feat to remake education or healthcare in the US - both of which are heavily managed at the state levels.

> It's also a fascinating bit of hypocrisy, to say that the US is hung up on being right, and yet you feel free to bash the US while promoting the things others do right (you listed healthcare, education, roads). How does that work again?

He's not bashing the US, but rather being realistic about the sorry state of American healthcare, education, and infrastructure. And it's perfectly valid to suggest that both American exceptionalism and a general lack of exposure to the ideas and experiences of foreign citizens, are partially to blame for America's failures domestically and abroad.

> The US does in fact improve. See: gay marriage legalization (something many of those supposed progressive nations you're referring to still lack). Body cams for police (a wide national interest in ending police brutality).

Gay marriage is a great step forward, but there are more pressing issues honestly, primary among them reigning in the military-industrial complex that has been steadily toppling democratically-elected governments for the past 60 years, stealing resources, fighting proxy wars, and selling weapons to one or both sides.

> Ending mass incarceration and the war on drugs (changes that are now supported by the majority of Americans). The ACA / Obamacare.

No way the majority of citizens of support ending the drug war. Legalization or decriminalization of marijuana are only small steps toward ending mass incarceration. How many people currently support heroin being legal, taxed, and available down the street? Not many, but until US society has that revelation, there will still be black market violence, and still be addicts ODing because their heroin is anything from 10% to 90% pure and potentially cut with other harmful substances, and because they hesitate to call an ambulance for fear of exiting the hospital in police custody.

Have you tried watching or reading the news at all while you're here? This comment reads like someone imagining what American media might be like.

I was wondering the same. Whenever I'm in the states, I don't find the media to be particularly different...read a NYT or a WSJ paper and you'll get a lot of international news, positive and negative. As always, if you want news, you have to go looking for it. It just isn't going to be hand fed into your mouth.

I do not for the life of me get CNN and the 24 hour news cycle, though. It just seems to be all noise for news on cable TV. Anyways, still better than what I can get in the country I currently live in (China), but there is always the Internet (even with the GFW in place).

I've been watching the news and reading newspapers every day for 6 months, across 4 different states.

Alright, well, most news is going to be negative, that's just how news works. You're not going to see the headline "Things at the NHS are going pretty well", because that's not news. Just like you won't see "Medicare has been pretty solid this month" or something. You will see that kind of analysis in editorials and magazines though.

So I can understand if you don't see much positive commentary about other countries, that's just the nature of the news. But if you're not seeing anything negative about America, then I can't believe you're actually reading any news.

I think the expected mindset for the reader is that things in other developed countries are usually going pretty well, and no news is good news. The media will report on ongoing stories, like Brazil's corruption scandal, the European migrant crisis, Israel/Palestine, etc., and on new newsworthy events, which unfortunately are usually negative. Something like "France passes great budget" is just not interesting enough for a general audience newspaper.

> I think the expected mindset for the reader is that things in other developed countries are usually going pretty well

You're expecting all too much of readers.

Of the hundreds of people I've hung out with in the last 6 months (in 4 different states) I would say less than 1% of them have any idea about the outside world.

They think healthcare in Canada is crap (which is very far from the truth)

They have no idea the murder rate in the US is so high compared to other developed countries.

They have no idea tertiary education is paid for with taxes in other countries, so students don't pay out of pocket.

etc.

In my experience, the majority of Americans don't know much about how the outside developed world functions, so they can't make meaningful comparisons for the purpose of improving things.

They can, however, compare America to Russia/China/NK all day long, and say "We're doing GREAT!"

Can you provide a source for your list? I'm trying to find the complete list of people involved, but so far I have no luck.

Source was the Panama Papers mini-site [1] of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ).

[1] https://projects.icij.org/panama-papers/power-players/index....

> - Stavros Papastavrou, former advisor to the current Greek Prime Minister

He is a Nea Dimokratia member and was advisor of the previous government (Samaras'), not Tsipras' current one.

> Miguel Arias Cañete, wife of a current Spanish minister and European Commissioner

Nope. It's the man himself, not his wife.

Nope. His wife is the only one mentioned in the data according to the reporters:

> The third Spaniard to appear in the giant leak is the wife of former Spanish Agriculture Minister Miguel Arias Cañete, Micaela Domecq Solís-Beaumont, who was "empowered to approve transactions of Rinconada Investments Group SA, a Panama company registered in 2005 which was in existence while her husband Miguel Arias Cañete held public positions in Spain and the European Union.

https://www.thespainreport.com/articles/704-160403213534-ped...

His wife is not called "Miguel Arias Cañete" though.

That was what I was pointing out...

While there may be new information about Cameron's father, his tax schemes were thoroughly covered by the British press years ago. They're not in and of themselves news in the UK, so unless these documents reveal something significant that hasn't already been known, it's not strange they're not making a big deal over it.

FYI, for those looking for more data, stay tuned:

> ICIJ media partners been allowed to select profiles they believe are of interest to their audiences which may result in similar interactives with fewer profiles. The information in the interactive is current as of April 3, 2016 and the offshore data up to December 2015. ICIJ will release the full list of companies and people in the Panama Paper files in early May.

From https://panamapapers.icij.org/the_power_players/

Some of the data is available here[0]

For those of you who are wondering. ICIJ is funded by the CPI, one of the more "liberal" (e.g. if you consider the NYT 'liberal') think tanks. In my mind it's a very respectable institution, but check out their supporters[1] to see what sort of 'slant' they might have. Maybe read their take on the Citizens United decision[2] too.

[0] http://offshoreleaks.icij.org/about/download Not too much though.. [1] https://www.publicintegrity.org/about/our-work/supporters [2] https://www.publicintegrity.org/2016/03/11/19418/citizens-un...

They seem to be funded by Microsoft among others, so certainly evil beyond imagination.</s>

Apparently there are no American politicians or businessmen listed. And no coverage on NYTimes, CNN, Fox, MSNBC, CNN, USAtoday, LA Times, etc. That seems strange to me.

I bet we'll get the coverage soon. It has to be delivered in the right time - by Monday morning, just like in Europe.

US I can kind of understand since offshore banks often refuse to deal with US persons for fear of running afoul of burdensome IRS reporting requirements. The lack of Canadians in the list is surprising, though.

Coverage will come, the leaks started later in the day in the US.

As for no American politicians or businessmen, it can be explained by sample size:

The USA might have their own internal money dirty money path. Or maybe the tax haven of choice is another country for the US. Maybe the IRS has specific rules for Panama?

That this one company has skew/bias in the origin of its clients does not surprise me at all.

If we had variety of leaks from different money fixers from different countries; say from the Bahamas, Cayman Islands, Guernsey, Singapore, UAE, Monaco, Lebanon, Puerto Rico, Belize; and no US scandal, I would be very surprised.

It is completely possible that the schemes provided in Panama wouldn't work very well for US citizens, and also the close relationship between the USA and Panama might make US citizens looking for such schemes look elsewhere.

As for the fall out not being reported in US news, it is Sunday night, and if they weren't involved, then they wouldn't have a leg up on this. Wait until Monday to pass judgement.

> Apparently there are no American politicians or businessmen listed.

Apparently the US has some sort of treaty with Panama to prevent its use as an offshore tax haven for Americans.

Once tax havens and double dutch schemes are unavailable to legally operating businesses, we can be very hopeful that instead of accumulating digits in a bank account, companies like Apple and Google will be forced to spend like the rest of the economy does. Spending is what's keeping the lights on generally speaking, so allowing some wealthy companies to just sit and mountains of wealth benefits nobody. Of course they need a war chest but nowhere near what they have now. Remember recent news about people being scared Apple would become a bank. And I'm only speaking of company wealth in digital numbers. Private wealth and immovables etc. should be exempt. The best is to give incentives to spend. Apple and Google could be incentivized to spend it on projects that benefit them and the public, but without exclusivity contracts of 20 years, maybe more like 5 years if needed.

>companies like Apple and Google will be forced to spend like the rest of the economy does

Spending on what? I think one big problem here is that the capital is possessed by entities that were nurtured in very specific markets. Take Apple. They are really nothing more than a "shiny gadgets/personal computing" company. They have a ton of potential to invest in other markets but they do not have the expertise to do so. What are their options: 1) start acquiring and undoubtedly mismanaging companies that are outside of their market domain 2) setup a wealth management unit that invests passively in equity markets and such.

I think this could easily be elaborated into an argument against the orthodox liberal economics claim that says that markets allocate capital to the most able entities; the implication being that those same entities will make best use of said capital. I think here it is clearly not the case. Sorry, but I don't really trust Apple to come up with a decent EV solution (I know they are trying). I don't even trust them to invest in the correct EV startups. What do they know? It's not their market domain.

Return the money to shareholders who can spend or invest it.

Or, to the employees who made it, whom can spend or invest it.

And that way making the economy stronger and more dynamic. Money isn't worth anything if everybody would just hold onto it in some ledger.

Spending is only good if it is wise. If you tell a company "sorry, you have to spend it now" it is equivalent of telling you "sorry, I don't care if you don't like any house on the market now, you'll have to buy now, you can't wait". That's no freedom, but slavery. Only when you have a choice of hoarding vs spending, then you help the economy to truly grow by providing everyone with the best products and services. Incentivizing spending at all costs simply means creating more useless things instead of making technological breakthroughs and improving quality of life.

When you say "you don't trust Apple" it doesn't matter. Apple made its money honestly. It didn't steal from or rob anyone. More importantly, simply because Apple made so much money, it must mean it knows damn well how to invest it.

At least in my post I said "incentivize" and not "punish" or anything to the same extent.

One big issue is with their shareholders whose mindset may not allow increased spending and less dead digital cash.

Honestly? By evading taxes they are stealing from hundreds of millions of people.

That's your opinion. I think taxation is extortion. Who's to say I'm not entitled to my point of view?

Ignoring fairness of certain taxes and issues with tax laws in general, taxes are the rent one has to pay for living in a place. If you don't have income you usually won't pay most taxes at all. It's arguable how much of the tax system works and what parts are just plain broken and favor certain interest groups, but that's an implementation detail. If you visit places where much of the population evades taxes, you'll find that the state of roads and infrastructure in general is worse than someplace with people paying their taxes. I'm with you if you argue that tax laws are unfair and do not reflect the live circumstances of most people.

If there were no taxes, you'd probably have to buy tickets to walk and drive on roads, stroll in the park, swim in a sea, etc. I suppose you want more of a pay-what-you-use society where, if you just stay at one place most of the time, you pay considerably less taxes. Whether that can work universally I don't know.

> If there were no taxes, you'd probably have to buy tickets to walk and drive on roads, stroll in the park, swim in a sea

Do you have to insert coins into your smartphone every time you call someone these days? And yet it's almost impossible to live without a smartphone today, so people buy them and pay for the plans. But, but, they do have a choice of which operator to use (and, frankly, US is the worst example here, Europe/Asia is much less regulated in this respect, so it's cheaper and simpler there). Do you see where I'm going with this example?

Yes, I only want to pay for things which I use. And have a choice of, for example, which school to send my kids to (if any) without having to pay the same price. I want things provided on the market, which generally makes them cheaper, not more expensive. Almost any example of a market you take, where government once heavily regulated or provided a product or service, but then deregulated it and invited private companies to fill in - you will find that the price fell and quality rose, giving more people (not less) access to the said service or product.

I don't want to pay for: 1) wars 2) torture 3) police abuse 4) government mismanagement 5) that guy who has no job and has a gambling addiction 6) that guy who smokes 3 packs a day and demands free healthcare 7) politicians flying big jets and employing goons with guns to protect them.

You buy a recurring ticket for your phone and it's billed for anything else. It's like a tax plus extra use fees.

Privatization is not a general solution though. It needs regulation and oversight to keep unfair market practices to a minimum.

I totally get why you'd not want to finance many things, and I'm with you on most of those, but the world isn't that simple and human behavior/psychology surely isn't.

1, 2, 3, 4, 7) Totally with you here. The biggest defect is that government officials cannot be held responsible for their mismanagement and thus have no incentive to not screw up. This is totally different in a company. Steve Jobs got kicked out but that won't happen to a politician let alone made to pay for losses created. This needs to start with the people. First, getting elected to an office and office in general has to stop being about who gets the most money and money/favors must be eradicated from lobbying totally. Second, voters must stop treating elected persons as if they're replacement monarchs. They should just use Hollywood stars for that and buy their t-shirts or whatnot instead. I'd argue that feudalism still exists in the minds of most if you look at the way governors, ministers (not the religious kind) are treated with a red carpet, awe and looking up to. They're representatives voted into an office to manage things and are still just nothing more than a city clerk but with more decision power in the chain. People have a fascination with those in power and won't stop living in virtual feudalism because of that. Also that a US candidate has to look for campaign money and cannot focus on the agenda (s)he is trying to get votes for is a huge defect in the system. This is less of a problem in other countries.

The spending of taxes is broken and sadly you cannot hold anybody accountable. We could be living on Europa by now if we spent just 0.1% less on wars.

5, 6) The guy who doesn't want to work but gamble or waste his life leading an unhealthy lifestyle won't magically become a productive member of society. He will find other ways to use but not contribute. Some might argue that by supporting him to survive one prevents a worse fate for him and the society.

> Privatization is not a general solution though. It needs regulation and oversight to keep unfair market practices to a minimum.

That's a statement, not an axiom, although it's taught as an axiom. Did you know that the US military is the biggest polluter? Who regulates it? If government can't regulate itself, what kind of regulation of private companies do you expect from it, when said private companies have money to bribe it?

In reality, what regulation comes down to in 90% of the cases is just granting monopoly rights and artificially increasing barrier for entry. That is all. Give me any example of a good (in your opinion) regulation and I will almost certainly find how it works to the benefit of a small group of people.

> The biggest defect is that government officials cannot be held responsible for their mismanagement and thus have no incentive to not screw up

Precisely.

> First, getting elected to an office and office in general has to stop being about who gets the most money and money/favors must be eradicated from lobbying totally. Second, voters must stop treating elected persons as if they're replacement monarchs.

My argument is that you should show a reliable mechanism of how we can elect the right people first. If you can't show the mechanism, I'm defaulting to the assumption that politicians will always be incentivized to be corrupt. And I'd argue that there is no such mechanism, because lying to people will always be easier and more profitable than telling the truth, and so only liars will get elected. In fact, that's the difference between a businessman and a politician: a businessman has to provide a service or product first, then he gets paid. A politician just promises things to get elected and then is in no way legally bound to keep the promises.

And you can't just say "we should...". I think we should all not work and just chill and enjoy life. If I find out a reliable way to replicate that, I'll be the first to share.

> The spending of taxes is broken and sadly you cannot hold anybody accountable.

And it will stay this way. How do you expect government to behave when they spend somebody else's money (taxpayers) on somebody else (government employees and subcontractors) (see Milton Fridman "4 ways to spend money) and are not accountable for any of it?

>5, 6) The guy who doesn't want to work but gamble or waste his life leading an unhealthy lifestyle won't magically become a productive member of society. He will find other ways to use but not contribute. Some might argue that by supporting him to survive one prevents a worse fate for him and the society.

Not convinced. If the majority agrees with you, but I disagree, does it mean you have the right for the chunk of my money that will go into financing those things? I'd say no, you don't have that moral right, even though the majority agrees with you.

Regulation bodies: Of course regulators need oversight and regulation and it's hard to get right.

Total transparency is the first step in everything. No penny can cross a table visibly without being accounted for.

But it's easy to involve malevolent parties in oversight, looking for their own outcome rather than find a universally beneficial regulation. Hard nut to crack.

Election: Probably getting rid of all the financial madness and imitate countries where even right wing idiots can get into congress is a start. That is a reflection of the people's opinions after all. But you need to educate people and eradicate unfounded fears which are exploited by politicians. Not all education is correct as can be seen in some folks' strong opinions that look like straight from the dark ages.

Unproductive gambler: You cannot expel the guy, you cannot shutdown the guy, so you can therapy him or support his lifestyle enough that he doesn't become a larger burden. This will be hard to sell and seen as fascist style government (or that's what people will reference anyway) if you force him to lead a more productive life.

Spending: Put into law that misspending has consequences like getting fired. How nice it would be if, for a change, those who made the final decision or ignored the work of their underlings would have to face consequences. This is something that I believe is deeply ingrained in Japanese society but I don't know if it works. And, like a company, if you spend N, then there's no magic fountain for another N amount of money. That alone would solve a lot. Making taxes purpose-bound would go a long way in the right direction. In Germany trucks pay a road toll per kilometer but from the greater than 7 billion EUROs not much seems to be left for roads, judging by the debates on missing funds for road infrastructure. In a company people do not use the training budget for buying smokes and if they do it's a badly managed company.

Idea1: Make government office about points to gain for problems solved, like friggin school. More points equals more credit to spend extra. If you mess up you lose rights to spend and make executive decisions.

Idea2: Oversight and regulation for those who actually lobby and/or come up with policies for officials to sign off. Those are the same group of people lingering around DC for 50 years, and everybody thinks it makes a difference whether Trump or Bob Hope is elected president.

Idea3: Hold candidates accountable to promises they make. Suddenly they will stop or use imprecise light rethoric that doesn't convey anything. Either way it would stop false belief in someone's promise.

From reading your post I feel like there's this thinking that's ingrained very deep in you, which is that no matter how corrupt or awful the system is, you think the solution is more government and more control... layers of control. Could you for a moment just forget about it all and think, really imagine, what a world would look without governments? But don't imagine chaotic endless tribal wars. Imagine it to be a good place. It's a good exercise: no matter your political views, just imagine a world where there are no governments and just private businesses. Make it work. Think about details. How would you make it work if you knew there is no way you can create a government?

I like to think I don't have political views, just observing faults of existing structures and finding bug fixes. I'm neither left or right or peachpie. Maybe you would call me a realist and I'm sure there's a way to put me in a box for that view, though it's important to stress that I don't subscribe to any particular political system. Humans are just too hard to manage that none of those black/white ideologies work.

Having zero governing bodies is a thought experiment laid out more than a few times in Sci-Fi, so assuming those weren't totally wrong, I don't think the human race can do without. The problem are humans and their motivations. Greed is one problem, laziness another. I don't know how to solve those. How do you make sure people do not exploit their freedom by making others suffer?

Okay, let's say there's no governing body. Now, there's a dispute. How is it resolved? Fight to death? The achievement of modern society is that we do not kill each other, and that requires rule makers, rule enforcers, oversight to keep chaos down to a minimum. If we do, it's a punishable offense. But punishment as implemented right now is totally wrong and doesn't solve anything. Putting people away for years does not make the crime undone and also doesn't turn a killer into a pet store owner. There are experiments with different kinds of containment and reintegration into society but this is also a hard problem that's unsolved.

I honestly don't know how without some sort of management entity a peer to peer society would work without rules of any kind.

Once you enact rules of conduct, you have everyone follow the rules, and something somewhere needs to make sure rules are not broken unjustifiably.

It's like distributed systems or cooperative threading, if you think about it.

Can you tell me how you'd do it?

> Okay, let's say there's no governing body. Now, there's a dispute. How is it resolved? Fight to death?

You've got an excellent question and I've got an excellent answer for you: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTYkdEU_B4o It's a short video, but I highly recommend it to you (skip the first minute or so for a short historical intro). Please come back here and let me know if it answered your question. I also hope it doesn't just answer your question, but sets in your in a different mode for thinking, mode in which problems that seemed unsolvable can now be solved.

Watched it and as I guessed you will again have, like in a distributed system, some management facility. Friedman call it a judge or arbitrator and everyone can have their own, where judges will work out contracts between themselves for disputes of their own.

So, this all sounds like P2P with an evolutionary system of contracts between all kinds of parties, where there's no universal rule book (aka what we know as a country's laws).

If this really works, good, but how do you solve that humans will see that the contract between two other parties is better and will want the same deal? Will you give it to them?

I'd really like to think this is workable as it would give custom-fit "laws" for everybody. Though, there still needs to be some kind of general laws for heinous crimes, doesn't it?

> If this really works, good, but how do you solve that humans will see that the contract between two other parties is better and will want the same deal? Will you give it to them?

Not sure I understand the question. Who is giving whom the contract? The idea is, if you don't like the laws your protection agency / law firm provides you with, you switch firms. And that way you have a lot more control under which set of laws you want to live.

Once another party is involved you end up coming up with another agreement and first you need to agree which arbiter is used. You have more choice but where's body that makes sure everybody chooses the better judge so that bad judges get nothing to rule?

You sign up for a law firm and trust it with its choice of arbiters. Much like when you buy a cake, you trust the baker with ingredients and recipes. If you later feel sick, you never go to that bakery again and trash its reputation.

It's weird you would use the telecom industry as an example of the wonders of laissez faire capitalism. This is an industry that naturally tends toward monopolies and once acquired, have shown in the past a willingness to overcharge and under deliver.

> Europe/Asia is much less regulated in this respect

Do you have a source for that in Europe? Ofcom in the UK is far more powerful then the FCC and actively inserts itself into all aspects of the telecom industry there. Additionally the EU just passed free roaming laws, a pretty big piece of regulation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_roaming_regulat...

I don't need a source. I'm from Russia and also lived in Latvia. Internet and phone calls are super cheap. I normally pay about $5/mo for my phone (unlimited calls, unlimited 4G internet) and $50/year for a decent internet connection at home. Industries are unregulated and there's a lot of competition.

The U.S. has a very strange corporate tax system. Why should Apple have to pay U.S. taxes on the profits they make selling in Germany a phone made of Korean components in a Chinese factory? That's above and beyond whatever taxes they're paying in the supplier nations and in Germany itself, which I assume are not insignificant.

As long as they pay taxes on that profit somewhere I don't care. At the moment they don't pay them anywhere, instead telling the Germans that the profits were made by the US part of the company and so can't be taxed there, and then using the US's daft repatriation laws to avoid paying US taxes by just leaving the profits offshore.

Usually states want to see taxes for stuff bought by people on their premises, and this is where Google and co are escaping, but this is all a little unclear with e-commerce and all.

One major spending they could do is bringing back more production to the US and thereby increasing the locally available know-how. Right now more and more production skills are only available outside the some companies' hq countries. Apple is a good example due to the high prices their customers are willing to pay.

These papers have nothing to do with Google or Apple.

They may not, and I didn't say they do. The tax haven and money hiding aspect reminded me that so much money just sits in a ledger digitally somewhere without benefiting anybody but the well-feeling of shareholders. A stronger economy due to more spending will also benefit shareholders.

Editor of Süddeutsche Zeitung responded to the lack of U.S. individuals in the documents, saying "Just wait for what is coming next" https://twitter.com/mathewi/status/716771686482202625

My money is on a current presidential candidate being connected to this, though I'm not 100% on which one.

Not to imply that any future revelations must necessarily be less impactful than the Iceland story, but I feel like that would have come up on day 1 alongside Putin, rather than the Iceland PM.

It would have made front page news in the entire western world rather than being largely ignored late on a Sunday night.

For more background on the leak and who the leaker contacted: http://panamapapers.sueddeutsche.de/en/

About the Panama Papers: http://panamapapers.sueddeutsche.de/articles/56febff0a1bb8d3...

I am surprised given the audience oh HN that no one seems to consider the technical aspect of this leak. This is yet another failure to protect corporate data. It is obvious that this law firm worked with criminals, but I am sure they also had legitimate clients whose private information is now exposed. Of all the companies, a law firm contains secret that are protected by law (attorney-client privilege) and for very good reasons.

The number and magnitude of data leaks is ever increasing and now reached alarming rates. Irrespective of tax dodging considerations, I do not think that IT professionals as an industry should cheer at this type of leak. The trust from businesses in IT to do its job is at rock bottom, and where it is not, it should be.

I wouldn't call it a bad leak. Something like Snowden leak.

I guess price of art artifacts will raise in the following years. No risk of leaks.

I did consider it, in the sense that I think we should be very lucky that corporate digital rights management still isn't ubiquitous.

Also read here [http://panamapapers.sueddeutsche.de/en/] to find an overview of several other relevant articles about these papers.

The research was done by “teams from the Guardian and the BBC in England, Le Monde in France, and La Nación in Argentina. In Germany, SZ journalists have cooperated with their colleagues from two public broadcasters, NDR and WDR. Journalists from the Swiss Sonntagszeitung and the Austrian weekly Falter have also worked on the project, as have their colleagues at ORF, Austria’s national public broadcaster. The international team initially met in Washington, Munich, Lillehammer and London to map out the research approach.”

How did this become about taxes when it's actually about corruption? New evidence is uncovered of people at the top systematically abusing their power and disregarding the very laws they instill upon everyone else. Yet HN commenters are telling me the problem is that I am not giving these bastards a large enough share of my income.

it's about corruption where the laws are being bent backward to allow seemingly legal tax evasion on a grand scale. It's isn't about you personally, unless you are one of those individual whose moral tells them to evade the tax office at all cost.

What would be the economic impact of a country recovering tens or hundreds of billions of dollars? It couldn't immediately actual economic productivity. Would it simply work out to reducing a country's debt obligations? Would it cause inflation? In what form is this wealth stored?

This is beyond my understanding of economics, would love to get any insights.

One article claims there is $20 trillion hidden in tax havens.[1]

That sounds like a lot, but considering that this is money that has accumulated over the course of decades (say 30 years), and only a portion of it would be taxable (say 20%), that would give an annual revenue stream of $133 billion per year. If that all went to the US, that would be about 7 times more than is collected by the estate tax, which is less than 1% of government revenues, but still only about half of what is collected through corporate taxes.

(That $20tn estimate is actually global, though, but no breakdown by country is given)

My guess is that it would noticably benefit a country to stop tax havens, but not to the point of any drastic difference.

[1] http://www.bbc.com/news/business-18944097

$133 billion per year! That would buy us one F-35 fighter jet per year!

That's about 1/5th of the tax burden we pay in the U.S. dealing with obesity-related illnesses each year.

You are off only for about a factor of 1000.

Good point!

> and only a portion of it would be taxable (say 20%)

Well, I think some of these hidden funds were accumulated through outright theft and could in theory be 100% recoverable. (Though in practice any recoveries are extremely unlikely, I'm sure...)

Everyone in Russia knows government officials siphon off billions govt money to offshore accounts. Same happens in much of the developing world. Corruption is evreywhere but the scale and depth of it in these places is unprecedented. It baffles me how the west has allowed this to happen for many decades and now we're shocked corrupt Russians own half of London.

Original here: https://panamapapers.icij.org

Original

http://panamapapers.sueddeutsche.de/articles/56febff0a1bb8d3...

Discussion on reddit

https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/4d75i7/26_teraby...

Many of the family members of current and former Chinese Politburo officials are exposed in the file leak. China has implemented a complete censorship about this topic and any sources/comments that mention the involvement of Chinese leaders/princelings have been deleted.

Little fresh information is exposed in this leak so far. It merely reconfirms the reports made by journalists from Bloomberg and Washington Post a few years ago.

  There are 11.5m documents and 2.6 terabytes of information drawn from Mossack Fonseca’s internal database.

Is there a torrent for this or an online catalog?

No it's not being released, only the papers have it.

That kind of makes sense. The internet sleuths would analyze it in minutes further than the reporters ever could. They like their jobs so they insist on keeping that data to themselves.

Edit: Ahh, hackernews, the tumblr sister site where inconvenient truth means downvotes :D

Actually its:

Hacker News - The little island that is not corrupted by sarcasm and sensationalism.

Well, it is actually pretty interesting how the information has been managed in case. The press wants their own piece after they lost the previous major leaks completely. It's actually pretty relevant discussion about the future of an industry that has been in slow decline for the last decades. In case someone interprets that as sarcasm or sensationalism that is probably an attitude problem, or perhaps an issue with low media interpretation skills.

I have found Hackernews as one of the islands that really acts still like penguins. Strong engineering culture, and just like penguins people just love guarding their rocks and throwing poo at others, just in certain style that is very typical to technical communities. Sarcasm should be the last of issues when compared to that.

> The press wants their own piece after they lost the previous major leaks completely.

The information is being released by 100 different news organizations in 100 different countries. It has nothing to do with protecting their jobs from "Internet sleuths", it's having professional journalistic standards.

What pisses me off is that after they are done going through the data, they often still don't release the files.

There is a reason why publicly available information is useful (think about historians for instance), and by locking it for these only 100 orgs (which will then forget about it in half a year when the scandal is done) you lose on the opportunity to do future research, books, etc. on this

The newspaper leading in this investigation has been very open to research of such data it received in the past – not just opening the data, but also funding it.

Holy moly, something tells me this will blow up. Any torrent available?

This was leaked to journalists, not dumped on the web (similar to the Snowden leaks) so no, almost certainly not.

Lets hope for a proper leak from some whistleblower inside the media.

leakception

exactly, not so much as a leak as a release. The presumption that the press (even 100 odd institutions) need to be gatekeepers for this inforamation is offensive. Especially since the mostly sham of an excuse of the snowden documents does not hold in this case.

Sure, let’s leak passports, bank account data, etc of all shareholders of 214'000 companies...

That would get the media immediately closed.

> as well as Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, who has positioned himself as a reformer in a country shaken by corruption scandals

I wonder how Ukrainians ,who fight for him and his "freedom" ideas, will react to this

As a Ukrainian, I'm livid. Our media mentioned Putin's offshores but obviously forgot about Poroshenko's. Same shit, different day.

One of the biggest Ukrainian news sites wrote about Poroshenko at 22:17 of local time: http://www.pravda.com.ua/news/2016/04/3/7104295/

This guy made a table:

https://twitter.com/vorobyov/status/716731020880568320

I suspect, they will react in the same way, as Russians when learning their 'corruption fighting' Путин (Putin) [1] is involved through a proxy.

I suspect, the reaction will be: "If not [$enter-corrupt-leader-name], then who else should lead our nation? " or "Yes, [$enter-corrupt-leader-name], however we had much worse. And this is the least evil of all the other options"

In other words, the population in large in these places are simply brain-washed to be complacent.

I would also suggests, that the fan's of former secretary of UN Kofi Anan [2] -- will not react any differently

I would be interested, however to see, how far complacent the British had become. And, specifically, how far, the British media will go to mute the 'small imperfections' of leaders of 'so-called free world' and UN, vs the despicable money laundering 'by the others'.

[1] https://rbth.com/news/2016/04/01/putin-confirms-national-ant... [2] http://fusion.net/story/287227/famous-presidents-shell-compa...

Well, probably in a similar way those who fight for the so-called Donetsk people's republic and whatever will react to Putin's dealings.

We know that they know that we know that they know that their leading politicians are corrupt. Everyone fights for their corrupt politicians. It is very hard for Poroshenko to exceed the corruption reputation of the previous guy in office.

Great read from Vice in 2014 on this exact law firm:

http://www.vice.com/read/evil-llc-0000524-v21n12

I read that it's unlikely that U.S. citizens would use this Panamanian firm for offshore dealings because of the tax reporting laws between Panama & the U.S. They would use a different firm. Is this correct, and can anyone elaborate or point me to sources on this?

Man, I'm not one to judge on appearance, but Jürgen Mossack has got to be the most stereotypical "I-am-an-evil-Nazi" face I've ever seen. I feel comfortable saying this given that his father was in the Waffen-SS.

"Mossack’s holdings, according to the files obtained by ICIJ, include a teak plantation and other real estate, an executive helicopter, a yacht named Rex Maris and a collection of gold coins."

Any bets on where those gold coins came from?

I like this quote: [1]

Fonseca was born 14 on July 1952 in Panama,and studied law and political science at the University of Panama and the London School of Economics. As a young man, "he hoped to save the world".

1. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramón_Fonseca_Mora

> "he hoped to save the world"

he hoped to save the [money of the richest people in the] world

He is a true believer of trickle down economics!

Another story here is how did it leak?

It's interesting to observe that Mossack Fonseca's client portal login uses @#&@!&*! wordpress.

I have no knowledge of how it leaked but it's amazing to me that a firm responsible for trillions of dollars uses wordpress on its client login site.

there was a very informative episode on Planet Money with regards to setting up shell companies. A lot of info here with regards to how names are hidden etc...it is worth a listen. The hosts setup their own shell companies:

http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2016/03/30/472452808/episo...

We could solve this "problem" by simply eliminating taxation, and moving to a stateless society[1] and an across the board model of self-government[2].

[1]: http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Academic/Order_without_the_sta...

[2]: https://www.theadvocates.org/

Of course, there is the minor issue of "simply" convincing everyone to embrace anarchy, or "simply" disposing of everyone who doesn't.

simple != easy

I didn't say it would be easy. But we ought to at least have a target to aim for, yes?

It's a target the vast majority of people in the world don't want to aim for. But I guess it is a target. Like a lot of utopian ideals, anarchy only works as long as everyone agrees to be an anarchist. Unfortunately for anarchists, people find states, laws and the monopoly on violence to be useful.

And this is but _one_ company in _one_ tax heaven.

Does anybody have any evidence of how much effort the UK government puts in to increasing transparency in its' overseas tax havens? How much ministerial attention does it get? How much urgency is given to these issues?

Looks like Putin's offshore assets are being exposed. About damn time.

Is there a way to grep for a specific country related information?

This is an important leak, but I'd like to see come crowd-sourcing in this.

That is we have 100 newspapers with access, but that might not be enough.

We only get the condensed version deemed relevant to a particular subset of population. By combining these 100 subsets we are not going to get a full set.

In other words, UK paper might report on Russian connections, Russian paper(if any got access that is) might report on UK connections, but how do I find out if an obscure mid sized town city boss from Eastern Europe is on the list?

It's interesting how this leak just seems completely devoid of US involvement. No US news media talking about it or involved. No US people mentioned in the leak.

frankly when I saw it I thought, corruption in iceland? good luck making the US news.

> While much of the leaked material will remain private, there are compelling reasons for publishing some of the data.

How convenient.

> the papers simply reveal the vast number of people who use offshore to protect their wealth. There is nothing unlawful about doing this. It is not illegal to be a director, shareholder or beneficial owner – the real owner, even though their name may not appear on the shareholder register – of an offshore company.

Then why hide it?

This smells funny. Millions of papers leaked, and Putin is the biggest fish they caught. I don't doubt he's knees-deep in illegal activity, but I just can't see how $2B is in any way comparable with the billions hidden by westerners; after all, it was them who set up and keep protecting tax havens, and they've had 100 years to learn to conceal their activity, compared to just 2 decades for the Russians. I'll remain hopeful, though, for further leaks of some western influential figures.

On TV some of the journalists involved just said that they wouldn’t know "any western bank or government not involved in this".

You should watch the TV debate, btw.

On which channel? BBC?

ARD.

> Then why hide it?

There are a lot of legitimate reasons to use these kinds of services. Releasing all the data is a huge privacy violation for all the customers who have done nothing wrong. Would you like much of your perfectly legal business and/or personal finance dealings suddenly made public?

Yes. I think all contracts should be public (or, equivalently, that private contracts wouldn't be enforceable). That kind of transparency would help a lot with various issues we have these days (terrorism, inequality, corruption, bribery, white-collar crime, ...).

Strange, nothing about it on NYT.

List of participating entities: https://panamapapers.icij.org/pages/reporting_partners/

I suspect is because of the way they treated Snowden and GreenWald.

Paging David Brin to this.

http://earthbydavidbrin.pbworks.com/w/page/15607661/SecrecyU...

Most people hire lawyers via a referral. What I want to know is, do all these prime ministers and robber barons go to the same crazy parties? I'd love to see the annual client dinner invite list.

Here are some great visualizations of the data: https://panamapapers.icij.org/graphs/

I'm sick of this nonsense; if it's illegal it's illegal, and if it's not it's not.

If you think it's wrong, convince people that it should be illegal.

Any US presidential candidates implicated? Particularly Trump or Clinton? Or is this primarily used by non-US money launderers / tax-evaders?

Random thought: most of the candidates are in the documents - journalists are still trying to figure out how to deal with that. There's more information to come...

I wonder what kind of software / tools the journalists used to analyze the leaked data. Anyone have any info on this?

There have been many previous times in history when naked obvious extreme inequality and disparity of power combined with drought/war/disease/poverty to ignite a tinderbox of revolution and civil war that led to armies of the poor taking the assets of the super rich by force.

Just sayin' .. perhaps the super rich would do well to look after their own long term interests better by at least _pretending_ to contribute to the societies they dwell in?

High likelihood it's an inside job due to the size of data (over 2TB) and that it was well structured on delivery.

When it comes out it might be interesting to cross reference this against the released Hillary emails.

Any links to the 1MDB scandal?

The son of Najib is connected to the scandals, but no direct connection to 1MDB (yet).

No mention of any Americans (yet), which is really weird for a leak like this.

They haven't published all the details yet — it's likely that Americans will be implicated in the next wave of revelations.

quite the season for leaks - first the mega Unaoil one now this

damnit... somebody already took : https://github.com/PanamaPapers

We changed the URL from http://panamapapers.sueddeutsche.de/articles/56febff0a1bb8d3..., despite HN's strong preference for original sources, because that page begins with an obnoxiously theatrical video that there seems to be no way to turn off. I'm pretty sure HN prefers its news articles without movie trailers.

Keep fighting the good fight, dang.

That is missing almost half of the content accessible on the other page.

Even just copying the content, or using Google Webcache, or using Archive.org/Archive.is would be preferable.

Also, right-click pause turns off the video.

Indeed, but it's a fair intro and the deeper content is linked to in the comments here.

Not changing it would have led to more off-topic objections than changing it. We see more of these articles than just about anybody, and what this one did is far down the long tail of obnoxiousness, especially for an otherwise credible source.

Yes please, the first thing I did was go into Chrome dev tools and delete that video element... Also, scrolling past videos in the page pauses them, so irritating!

Good, I was going to complain about the video, the BBC source seems better

Just use http://panamapapers.sueddeutsche.de/en/

It was a tough call, for me too, thx.

while I agree the video is obnoxious, I can simply right click and select pause. or mute.

I'd like to take a moment to appreciate the good work the NSA has done in respecting the privacy of tax evaders.

This will blow over. Every person that has wealth has done this. Journalists don't have wealth and have recently watched the movie 'Spotlight'

Doesn't look like that's happening.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com