5 ms·

Reality has a well-known liberal bias. Seriously: the data that was leaked is a formation agent that has it's clientele in specific places and focusses on a spe

by pudo 11y ago

Reality has a well-known liberal bias. Seriously: the data that was leaked is a formation agent that has it's clientele in specific places and focusses on a specific type of clients. That doesn't seem to include US senators, or, for example, senior officials from my home country, Germany. I can assure you that the folks doing research on this have run both names from "Western" and "other" countries. They are some of the best and most independent-minded people I know (and yes, they do need a salary). Many are actually from non-Western countries, check out these three amazing folks who actually did the heavy lifting on much of the Russia stuff: http://krug.novayagazeta.ru/ http://krug.novayagazeta.ru/ The fact they ended up with more stories from developing economies may just be a bias in Mossack Fonsecas client base, or it may be indicative of who uses these services, or of the sophistication in distancing assets from their real owners. Don't know. But it does make sense to consider that people who run countries under less-than-democratic circumstances and use state capture to extract personal and family wealth might have a greater need of offshore services. Political leaders in Europe, on the other hand, sometimes actually are almost as boring as they make themselves look in public. (Disclaimer: working with one of the reporting centers, same as r3bl)

B1FF_PSUVM 11y ago
> or of the sophistication in distancing assets from their real owners My good man, I can assure you that our elites are impeccably candid. They have been so since the days when they used to whiten their togas with chalk when running for office. Practice makes perfect.
stult 11y ago
I suspect that Mossack Fonseca avoids taking on American clients to skirt the federal Foreign Accounting Tax Compliance Act (FATCA). FATCA gives the IRS many powerful tools to pressure foreign banks and financial institutions to disclose information about American citizens in order to ensure that those citizens are reporting all of their income. This frequently involves disclosures of non-Americans' finances, because stashing income in a corporation with foreign citizenship is an easy way to evade income tax. Many, many non-American financial institutions categorically refuse to provide services to American citizens in order to avoid IRS scrutiny of their books and to protect the privacy of their non-American clients. I expect that, before offshoring dark assets, the likes of Vladimir Putin and Xi Jiping would select a management firm that poses minimal risk of disclosure to US regulators and thus a firm that has no American clients. Meaning, a firm providing these kinds of services can probably only serve either US citizens OR the government officials of America's geopolitical rivals, but not both. The presence of those officials does not indicate that Americans aren't engaged in similar activities, just that they are probably serviced by other firms and so won't be implicated in this particular leak. Otherwise, there are three possible explanations for the lack of Americans that I can think of. First, later releases may reveal US citizens in the client list, rendering this discussion moot. I have no idea why the journalists would wait to disclose information about Americans, but we might get some idea about that once further details emerge. Second, the journalists may be protecting their own nations' interests, as posited by this article. Personally I find that unlikely given that the ICIJ has a track record of integrity and releasing information that is damaging to US persons. Plus, I suspect if they were protecting certain parties, they wouldn't protect an entire nation's citizenry but would instead selectively exclude key figures from the releases. Third, it is entirely possible the party that released the data edited it before hand to exclude Americans and Germans. I think that may be the explanation if it turns out that this is a joint NSA-BND operation posing as an anonymous, solo whistle-blower. I could see a basic inter-agency operational agreement stipulating that the leaked information should not implicate anyone from the home nations of the participating agencies to avoid thorny political issues arising from intelligence agency activities that interfere with domestic politics. Regardless, I personally see my original FATCA theory as the most probable explanation. But we can't know the true explanation given the current released information and ultimately we may never know the real truth.

by pudo 11y ago

B1FF_PSUVM 11y ago

> or of the sophistication in distancing assets from their real owners My good man, I can assure you that our elites are impeccably candid. They have been so since the days when they used to whiten their togas with chalk when running for office. Practice makes perfect.

stult 11y ago

I suspect that Mossack Fonseca avoids taking on American clients to skirt the federal Foreign Accounting Tax Compliance Act (FATCA). FATCA gives the IRS many powerful tools to pressure foreign banks and financial institutions to disclose information about American citizens in order to ensure that those citizens are reporting all of their income. This frequently involves disclosures of non-Americans' finances, because stashing income in a corporation with foreign citizenship is an easy way to evade income tax. Many, many non-American financial institutions categorically refuse to provide services to American citizens in order to avoid IRS scrutiny of their books and to protect the privacy of their non-American clients. I expect that, before offshoring dark assets, the likes of Vladimir Putin and Xi Jiping would select a management firm that poses minimal risk of disclosure to US regulators and thus a firm that has no American clients. Meaning, a firm providing these kinds of services can probably only serve either US citizens OR the government officials of America's geopolitical rivals, but not both. The presence of those officials does not indicate that Americans aren't engaged in similar activities, just that they are probably serviced by other firms and so won't be implicated in this particular leak. Otherwise, there are three possible explanations for the lack of Americans that I can think of. First, later releases may reveal US citizens in the client list, rendering this discussion moot. I have no idea why the journalists would wait to disclose information about Americans, but we might get some idea about that once further details emerge. Second, the journalists may be protecting their own nations' interests, as posited by this article. Personally I find that unlikely given that the ICIJ has a track record of integrity and releasing information that is damaging to US persons. Plus, I suspect if they were protecting certain parties, they wouldn't protect an entire nation's citizenry but would instead selectively exclude key figures from the releases. Third, it is entirely possible the party that released the data edited it before hand to exclude Americans and Germans. I think that may be the explanation if it turns out that this is a joint NSA-BND operation posing as an anonymous, solo whistle-blower. I could see a basic inter-agency operational agreement stipulating that the leaked information should not implicate anyone from the home nations of the participating agencies to avoid thorny political issues arising from intelligence agency activities that interfere with domestic politics. Regardless, I personally see my original FATCA theory as the most probable explanation. But we can't know the true explanation given the current released information and ultimately we may never know the real truth.