Let’s get this straight. The rich and the famous… shady politicians and elite athletes… criminals and bankers alike… have all been using off-shore companies to evade taxes and store their wealth beyond the reach of the “authorities” for the last 40 years.
And this is news how?
Does it really surprise you that people with money can, if they’d like, find ways to avoid paying taxes?
Maybe the biggest surprise of the “Panama Papers” story is the size of the encrypted file that was leaked to The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ). The file leaked to the ICIJ was 2.6 terabytes, made up of 11 million separate files, with detailed information on hundreds of individuals and thousands of shell companies.
The Panama Papers may cause some political embarrassment for a few people. But do you think anyone will go to jail? Do you think Vladimir Putin is worried? And to be fair, there are legitimate reasons to set up off-shore companies. Why not make it as hard as possible for acquisitive governments to get at your money?
All this really shows is that the financialisation of the global economy has created a vast industry for hiding away gains, whether they’re ill-gotten or not. There are two sets of rules in the world. If you’re rich, connected, and benefit from access to cheap money and expensive lawyers, you exist in a supranational world with one set of rules. The rest of us are in the other world with another set of more repressive rules.
Category: Geopolitics