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Just want to point out that this was all possible because of the hard work of people at the icij. They do amazing work (same group that did the Panama papers an

Just want to point out that this was all possible because of the hard work of people at the icij. They do amazing work (same group that did the Panama papers and one of the last real independent investigative news organizations in the US) and deserve your support! More info here: https://www.icij.org/ https://www.icij.org/ As an aside, I would also ask this question: why not democratize this and make billions using the same loopholes so that everyone gains access or they are forced to fix it? Surely it’s a good startup opportunity.

TacticalCoder 1y ago
[dead]
delusional 1y ago
> same group that did the Panama papers Isn't the icij "just" a network of people already doing investigative journalism who work on this stuff anyway? As in it's just a place where investigative journalists can meet/discuss investigations that cross borders? My impression were that they were just normal journalists and that groups then formed and disbanded based on interest within this network. I certainly love their work, and I think a network like that is very important (we should probably have something similar for software developers/IT people across Europe), calling them a group seems wrong with my understanding though.
- RamblingCTO 1y ago
  > we should probably have something similar for software developers/IT people across Europe what do you mean by that? support by doing data journalism? more like hacktivism?
  - delusional 1y ago
    I'm thinking something much more boring than that. Basically I think we could have a conference where a participant could share some problem they are having that they believe generalizes across other participants (maybe some regulatory reporting requirement, or maybe some question about implementing AI in sharepoint or whatever) and the other participants could then sign up for further discussion and participation in creating some software systems that would solve the problem. I'm thinking something akin to FRONTEX JAD's or that conference the EU has where lawyers show up to discuss cases they need EU assistance with. Concretely, my company recently did a migration into Azure, if we were at a meeting like that and somebody said they were planning to do the same, we would have a bunch of experience to share with them. I imagine that could maybe help foster some shared European understanding about what our big tech problems are. Maybe we could even let the solutions end up as open source or something.
- phtrivier 1y ago
  True, but they also tend to be papers that can't consistently rely on advertising, precisely because of their investigations (publishing the deeds of corporate billionaires is a great way to not get ads placed for whatever the billionaire sells.) So, at least subscribe to one of the papers ! (I know, sorry HN, I asked people to pay for a service that could be financed by ads to gather more data - aka more food for the algo. Sorry.)
- input_sh 1y ago
  It's not one or the other, it's both. They both do original reporting on their own and act as a loose network of smaller investigative journalism organizations. It truly depends on the task at hand, but it's usually very useful to get some of the local investigative journalists involved, as they're the ones that both understand the language and are able to put the leaked data into context. Usually ICIJ is the one that publishes the English version of the story and their local partner(s) publish the same thing in the local language. Actually, I'd say there's three such networks: ICIJ, GIJN and OCCRP. They're not really competitors, each serving slightly different purposes, and there's plenty of collaboration and overlap between their members. Source: I'm not in that world anymore, but I knew about Panama Papers long before it was public and have my name in the credits in some of the collaborations with ICIJ.
_feus 1y ago
The way I understand these schemes is that they require minimum balance way above what an average person has to be effective, but not sure. Would love a professional tax engineer/CPA opinion.
- rapnie 1y ago
  There was a documentary on Dutch TV a couple of years ago, about 'DYI tax haven management' for common people. Can't remember which public channel it was on, and what the name was. Might have been part of "Tegenlicht" series. Update: Maybe it was the program Rambam where the makers set up their own tax haven based on the methods of the big corporations. Information in Dutch: https://pers.bnnvara.nl/rambam-ontduikt-belasting-met-medeweten-van-de-belastingdienst/ https://pers.bnnvara.nl/rambam-ontduikt-belasting-met-medewe...
  - snickerdoodle12 1y ago
    Meanwhile the Netherlands is taxing the common people like crazy, and politicians are talking about raising taxes even more.
    - conception 1y ago
      The Netherlands also has the number two quality of life in the world so maybe don’t worry about it so much? https://www.numbeo.com/quality-of-life/rankings_by_country.jsp https://www.numbeo.com/quality-of-life/rankings_by_country.j...
      - cyanydeez 1y ago
        it's weird when Americans day dream of giving tax breaks to billionaires because they might be rich one day; it's a another thing for people who ostensibly have the best social system in the world looking at America and say "we should do that".
        snickerdoodle12 1y ago
znpy 1y ago
> Surely it’s a good startup opportunity. I don't think there are many VCs willing to invest into this.
- calgoo 1y ago
  Technically, if the VC and the startup is located in the blacklisted country i don't see why not. Basically we will start the torrent site like DNS witch hunt, but still possible. I assume the "elites" would not be too happy and do everything in their power to stop it?
- pinkmuffinere 1y ago
  To be honest, making a business out of this might be the best way to convince regulators to close the loopholes. You could even devote N% of the revenue to closing the loopholes. There’s DEFINITELY a large moral hazard though, it would be very easy to lose your soul, or to be kicked out by the board in favor of a more malleable leader :/ Edit: after reading the article, I realize most of the “loopholes” to be changes are in disparate countries, not the _source_ country. This makes the whole idea less attractive. I suppose you could potentially still get rid of the anonymous-representative option by which people conceal their connection to different assets.
AriedK 1y ago
There’s a fun documentary that explores this concept: The Town That Took On The Tax Man https://youtu.be/ipV_GU7YaQg https://youtu.be/ipV_GU7YaQg It’s about a Welsh town that set out to do just this. Recommended watch.
cyanydeez 1y ago
dont forget the hard work of congress nicely putting threading loopholes, and the supreme court!
grafmax 1y ago
I guess ‘democratize’ means something different to you than me. Most Americans don’t have any substantial savings whatsoever.
- unmole 1y ago
  > Most Americans don’t have any substantial savings whatsoever. The median household net worth is ~200k.
  - xboxnolifes 1y ago
    How much of that is their house?
    - disgruntledphd2 1y ago
      Generally around 90% or so.

TacticalCoder 1y ago

[dead]

delusional 1y ago

> same group that did the Panama papers Isn't the icij "just" a network of people already doing investigative journalism who work on this stuff anyway? As in it's just a place where investigative journalists can meet/discuss investigations that cross borders? My impression were that they were just normal journalists and that groups then formed and disbanded based on interest within this network. I certainly love their work, and I think a network like that is very important (we should probably have something similar for software developers/IT people across Europe), calling them a group seems wrong with my understanding though.

RamblingCTO 1y ago
> we should probably have something similar for software developers/IT people across Europe what do you mean by that? support by doing data journalism? more like hacktivism?
- delusional 1y ago
  I'm thinking something much more boring than that. Basically I think we could have a conference where a participant could share some problem they are having that they believe generalizes across other participants (maybe some regulatory reporting requirement, or maybe some question about implementing AI in sharepoint or whatever) and the other participants could then sign up for further discussion and participation in creating some software systems that would solve the problem. I'm thinking something akin to FRONTEX JAD's or that conference the EU has where lawyers show up to discuss cases they need EU assistance with. Concretely, my company recently did a migration into Azure, if we were at a meeting like that and somebody said they were planning to do the same, we would have a bunch of experience to share with them. I imagine that could maybe help foster some shared European understanding about what our big tech problems are. Maybe we could even let the solutions end up as open source or something.
phtrivier 1y ago
True, but they also tend to be papers that can't consistently rely on advertising, precisely because of their investigations (publishing the deeds of corporate billionaires is a great way to not get ads placed for whatever the billionaire sells.) So, at least subscribe to one of the papers ! (I know, sorry HN, I asked people to pay for a service that could be financed by ads to gather more data - aka more food for the algo. Sorry.)
input_sh 1y ago
It's not one or the other, it's both. They both do original reporting on their own and act as a loose network of smaller investigative journalism organizations. It truly depends on the task at hand, but it's usually very useful to get some of the local investigative journalists involved, as they're the ones that both understand the language and are able to put the leaked data into context. Usually ICIJ is the one that publishes the English version of the story and their local partner(s) publish the same thing in the local language. Actually, I'd say there's three such networks: ICIJ, GIJN and OCCRP. They're not really competitors, each serving slightly different purposes, and there's plenty of collaboration and overlap between their members. Source: I'm not in that world anymore, but I knew about Panama Papers long before it was public and have my name in the credits in some of the collaborations with ICIJ.

_feus 1y ago

The way I understand these schemes is that they require minimum balance way above what an average person has to be effective, but not sure. Would love a professional tax engineer/CPA opinion.

rapnie 1y ago
There was a documentary on Dutch TV a couple of years ago, about 'DYI tax haven management' for common people. Can't remember which public channel it was on, and what the name was. Might have been part of "Tegenlicht" series. Update: Maybe it was the program Rambam where the makers set up their own tax haven based on the methods of the big corporations. Information in Dutch: https://pers.bnnvara.nl/rambam-ontduikt-belasting-met-medeweten-van-de-belastingdienst/ https://pers.bnnvara.nl/rambam-ontduikt-belasting-met-medewe...
- snickerdoodle12 1y ago
  Meanwhile the Netherlands is taxing the common people like crazy, and politicians are talking about raising taxes even more.
  - conception 1y ago
    The Netherlands also has the number two quality of life in the world so maybe don’t worry about it so much? https://www.numbeo.com/quality-of-life/rankings_by_country.jsp https://www.numbeo.com/quality-of-life/rankings_by_country.j...
    - cyanydeez 1y ago
      it's weird when Americans day dream of giving tax breaks to billionaires because they might be rich one day; it's a another thing for people who ostensibly have the best social system in the world looking at America and say "we should do that".
      - snickerdoodle12 1y ago

znpy 1y ago

> Surely it’s a good startup opportunity. I don't think there are many VCs willing to invest into this.

calgoo 1y ago
Technically, if the VC and the startup is located in the blacklisted country i don't see why not. Basically we will start the torrent site like DNS witch hunt, but still possible. I assume the "elites" would not be too happy and do everything in their power to stop it?
pinkmuffinere 1y ago
To be honest, making a business out of this might be the best way to convince regulators to close the loopholes. You could even devote N% of the revenue to closing the loopholes. There’s DEFINITELY a large moral hazard though, it would be very easy to lose your soul, or to be kicked out by the board in favor of a more malleable leader :/ Edit: after reading the article, I realize most of the “loopholes” to be changes are in disparate countries, not the _source_ country. This makes the whole idea less attractive. I suppose you could potentially still get rid of the anonymous-representative option by which people conceal their connection to different assets.

AriedK 1y ago

There’s a fun documentary that explores this concept: The Town That Took On The Tax Man https://youtu.be/ipV_GU7YaQg https://youtu.be/ipV_GU7YaQg It’s about a Welsh town that set out to do just this. Recommended watch.

cyanydeez 1y ago

dont forget the hard work of congress nicely putting threading loopholes, and the supreme court!

grafmax 1y ago

I guess ‘democratize’ means something different to you than me. Most Americans don’t have any substantial savings whatsoever.

unmole 1y ago
> Most Americans don’t have any substantial savings whatsoever. The median household net worth is ~200k.
- xboxnolifes 1y ago
  How much of that is their house?
  - disgruntledphd2 1y ago
    Generally around 90% or so.