Paradise Papers Revealed Commoditisation Of Tax Avoidance

Paradise Papers Revealed Commoditisation Of Tax Avoidance.

The Australian Tax Office delving into the Paradise Papers had identified 731 individuals and 344 corporate entities so far that had used the offshore legal service provider Appleby and corporate services provider Estera in 19 jurisdictions, mostly in the Caribbean and the Channel Islands. A smaller amount comes from the Singapore-based international trust and corporate services provider Asiaciti Trust. The leaked documents cover seven decades, from 1950 to 2016. The German newspaper Suddeutsche Zeitung obtained the original material, and the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, a global network of investigative journalists, with nearly 100 media partners from 67 countries were called to work on the project. It was the fifth major leak of financial papers in the past four years. And although not as massive a haul of data as the Panama Papers in 2016, the scale of the information in the Paradise Papers and how it lifts the lid on sophisticated, upper-end offshore dealings is unprecedented.

What is a tax haven? It is fundamentally a secretive and stable financial jurisdiction outside the regulations of one’s nation, used by individuals and companies to lower their taxes on profits or assets. A tax haven is a term usually used in the media, whereas the term offshore financial centre (OFC) is the preferred term used by the industry. Often, they are small islands, many of the UK Crown Dependencies or Overseas Territories, but not exclusively so. The UK and the US are leading nations providing services that facilitate the use of OFCs.

Read Article Here:

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/jan/15/paradise-papers-revealed-commoditisation-of-tax-evasion-australia