Largest leak in history reveals world leaders and businesspeople hiding trillions in offshore havens

boing
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Nothing from the US? Really? Not even some small fry?

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I would imagine large portions of the American illuminati would be hiding their money elsewhere. We’ve got our own set of Virgin Islands, Romney seemed to have some hidden in the Caymans IIRC. And even some states are big tax shelters without even going offshore.

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The leading theory seems to be that it is FATCA-related. It wouldn’t exactly be the first time Americans were refused service abroad because of that.

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Remember this is only a leak from one company. Anyone not listed may just be using different accountants.

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Is that what’s going on with all the corporate headquarters in Delaware?

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That’s what I was going to say…

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According to this, we’ll be hearing more about Americans.

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No state corporate tax. There are worse ones though, I remember hearing a lot about Utah. Puerto Rico too apparently, being not a state ( in both senses of the word).

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Most of the listed people, no, not shocking at all. But the Icelandic example, yeah, I find that a little surprising and depressing.

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Where applicable: Tax, Penalize, Prosecute, Imprison.

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All this talk of consequences is adorable. Such faith in justice!

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I think all the big credit card companies left Delaware for Arizona years ago.

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True, I suppose. But I think it might be easier for me to convince everyone that I own the reasonable amounts of things that I have physical possession of, than it would be for a small group of people to announce that due to some new policies and a new look at the accounting, all of those ones and zeros now belong to them, and the rest of us will be working for them from now on. That does seem to happen occasionally in history, and it does not usually work out favorably for those people. My Grandparents were alive to experience out of control inflation, in what they thought was a modern sort of place where such things could never happen. And when that was over, they were sure that they had experienced the worst that would ever happen to them. They were mistaken in that as well. Growing up listening to their experiences made me somewhat less likely to have faith in the permanence of our way of life than most.

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That’s pretty much what has happened with the financial sector in the US this century. At the turn of the century, the financial sector consumed 2% of the GDP, now it’s 9%. Assuming efficiency on the par with other first world countries with single-payer healthcare, that extra 7% taken by the financial sector in exactly the manner you describe could pay for the significant majority of our health care costs.

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Hey look, Putin has non-poor friends and some of them keep their money in offshore accounts!

Ok, so I guess the actual interesting stuff is yet to come. Word is US individuals are coming in the next release.

Standing by…

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don’t you ALL think that is time to …move a revolution, or not?

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All right then, let’s go!

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I don’t think that’s quite how GDP works. If I stop offering my services, GDP doesn’t “move” somewhere else. Otherwise we could all stop working and have a party with all the GDP we’ve saved…

Not too sure that I’m in a hurry to see a revolution, as I think almost anyone living in the developed world counts as a fat cat who’ll be up against the wall when the …

Anyway, this should be interesting. While people have the right to take whatever legal measures they like to lower their taxes, they’d better be prepared to pay the social consequences, especially if they’re politicians. And I’m guessing that there’s going to be a few of those, at least in Europe.

Don’t see this hurting Putin or anyone in Asia, though.