2 ms·

If you click one of the names, it displays an important message: Please read the statement below before searching There are legitimate uses for offshore compa

If you click one of the names, it displays an important message: Please read the statement below before searching There are legitimate uses for offshore companies and trusts. We do not intend to suggest or imply that any persons, companies or other entities included in the ICIJ Offshore Leaks Database have broken the law or otherwise acted improperly. Many people and entities have the same or similar names. We suggest you confirm the identities of any individuals or entities located in the database based on addresses or other identifiable information. If you find an error in the database please get in touch with us.

dmix 10y ago
Any system that can be exploited will be. You can either blame that people who find loopholes or blame the system for allowing them to exist. I suspect the majority of the blame goes to governments who favour extremely complex tax law. As any hacker knows the bigger the attack surface the more vulnerabilities exist. Sadly the solution many countries are now calling for to confront the prevalence of shell companies is to add more regulations and reporting laws to identify stakeholders at the time the money is being used at the final destination. This might be effective at weeding out the bad players but further increases costs for the honest businesses and diminishes their right to privacy. Surely there must be solutions that allows for privacy of transactions among private individuals to exist while still ensuring that appropriate taxes get paid. Typically it's the source country that's the problem. For example, tons of money is siphoned out of African countries via "transfer mispricing" [1] which is largely a regulatory failure in those countries and tax haven middlemen. Whereas the burden of uncovering the stakeholders is largely left to the countries at the end of the chain, which face a much more complex and difficult task of uncovering the players, than it would be stopping it at the source. Simplifying tax law at the destination country to make tax obligations explicit plus shifting costs to the source/middlemen to incentivize reducing corruption in their own regulatory systems - instead of adding more burden to honest businessmen in the destination countries. Basically focusing energy/resources onto the source countries systems rather than just blindly throwing more aid money at corrupt governments which simply fuels the siphoning. The US and other western countries should be setting an example and fixing their own tax flight issues for other countries to follow. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transfer_pricing#Fraud https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transfer_pricing#Fraud

dmix 10y ago

Any system that can be exploited will be. You can either blame that people who find loopholes or blame the system for allowing them to exist. I suspect the majority of the blame goes to governments who favour extremely complex tax law. As any hacker knows the bigger the attack surface the more vulnerabilities exist. Sadly the solution many countries are now calling for to confront the prevalence of shell companies is to add more regulations and reporting laws to identify stakeholders at the time the money is being used at the final destination. This might be effective at weeding out the bad players but further increases costs for the honest businesses and diminishes their right to privacy. Surely there must be solutions that allows for privacy of transactions among private individuals to exist while still ensuring that appropriate taxes get paid. Typically it's the source country that's the problem. For example, tons of money is siphoned out of African countries via "transfer mispricing" [1] which is largely a regulatory failure in those countries and tax haven middlemen. Whereas the burden of uncovering the stakeholders is largely left to the countries at the end of the chain, which face a much more complex and difficult task of uncovering the players, than it would be stopping it at the source. Simplifying tax law at the destination country to make tax obligations explicit plus shifting costs to the source/middlemen to incentivize reducing corruption in their own regulatory systems - instead of adding more burden to honest businessmen in the destination countries. Basically focusing energy/resources onto the source countries systems rather than just blindly throwing more aid money at corrupt governments which simply fuels the siphoning. The US and other western countries should be setting an example and fixing their own tax flight issues for other countries to follow. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transfer_pricing#Fraud https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transfer_pricing#Fraud