Comment by yieldcrv | Hacker News Reader

Comment by yieldcrv | Hacker News Reader

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from the article:

> While often partly obscured by secrecy jurisdictions — such as the British Virgin Islands, Panama, Cyprus, or Cayman Islands …..

I wish people were in a place to see where the ICIJ is misguided, like they play into a sentiment that is widely shared but heavily misunderstood

For example, the Cayman Islands was assumed to be super secret and shady and then the results of their information sharing agreement came out and it turns out the Delaware was waaay more heavily used and way more secretive. Jumping the US to the least transparent jurisdiction…. Up from spot number 2.

All this offshore money hiding stigma is capturing the minds of people that are being intentionally mislead. Not by the ICIJ theyre just as misled. just the collective apparatus of a more powerful state that does protectionist things for its own industries against smaller nations states. The US has difficulty bullying its constituent member states, and directs all of that angst outwards to anyone competitive, while the US is a bigger market participant in the same behaviors the whole time!

for both foreigners looking to hide ownership and money, and citizens, the US onshore offers a catalogue thats at parity or superior to financial services microstates, and flies under all scrutiny

> the Cayman Islands was assumed to be super secret and shady ... it turns out the Delaware was waaay more heavily used and way more secretive

Ugland House in the Caymans. 10,000sq ft, 5 stories. Registered offices of forty-two thousand companies.

Corporation Trust Center at 1209 North Orange Street, Wilmington, Delaware, United States, "home" to over 285,000 Delaware corporations.

that's a decent example, there are other many addresses and other ways of counting

straight from ICIJ itself "US lands top spot as world’s biggest enabler of financial secrecy in new index"

https://www.icij.org/investigations/pandora-papers/us-lands-...

> Meanwhile, the Cayman Islands, which ranked first in 2020, dramatically dropped to No. 14 in this year’s index, after disclosing new data on the financial services it provides to foreigners.

in reality, it should have always been No. 14 or assumed to be operating the way it was, and it was just assumed to be far bigger and shadier than reality. where no information is assumed to mean bad information. that's just not the case. there are robust domestic ways to avoid claims on assets and money even from tax authorities, stigmatizing the entire offshore industry is just protectionist mentality.

I am not a lawyer. I've worked with lawyers on corporate issues for a very large chunk of my career.

Are we talking 'primary place of business' or 'address of registered agent'?

Two very different things. There are entities that basically act as centralized places for service of process - just like banks act as centralized places for financial transactions, etc.

Why is that weird? Company are required to have registered agents in that state (every legitimate Delaware LLC that isn’t based in Delaware (think most of corporate America) has to have someone do this for them (mostly so they can be sued)

Indeed. I don’t think people understand what a Registered Agent is.

Basically it’s a requirement to have someone available as a point of contact for the LLC - typically name, phone and address for mail. This is to ensure that should the LLC need to be contacted, someone is available.

It can be a hassle if you list the owner or an employee as people come and go and companies can be bought and sold. You can list the owner, but it is there responsibility to make sure it’s constantly up to date.

Registered Agents offer a service to act as the Agent on behalf of someone else. The Registered Agent will make sure the phone and address is always up to date and there is always someone on the other end to respond.

It’s basically a “go between” as a service.

So why would anyone be surprised that 40,000+ businesses all use the same agent?

Politics would be so much better if we focused on these kinds of arguments instead of people defending their identities as business owners or employees.

>instead of people defending their identities as business owners or employees

In a political/economic context, those are not "identities" but distinct roles in a power structure. Their political and economic interests are different and often fundamentally opposed to the extent that they're canonically considered two disting classes: working class* and capitalist class. It is ridiculous to consider them mere "identities."

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