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THE LEAKING OF 11 million files of financial data has shown how a number of world leaders, business figures, celebrities and sports stars are concealing their wealth using offshore accounts.
Tonight the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists – a global network of reporters which broke the LuxLeaks story in 2014 and SwissLeaks last year – has published details of financial arrangements, called the Panama Papers, that allow wealthy individuals around the world to avoid paying tax.
The records come from a little-known law firm based in Panama called Mossack Fonseca. The firm is a world leader in the creation of shell companies.
Among those named are film star Jackie Chan, who has at least six shell companies run by the firm, drug kingpins and football star Lionel Messi.
Hidden in the files are numerous world leaders and their families, including Mauricio Macri, the President of Argentina, Icelandic Prime Minister Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson and the President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko.
There are also links to the daughter of China’s former premier Li Xiaolin, a number of friends of Russian president Vladimir Putin and British Prime Minister David Cameron’s father.
The papers also link Fifa’s ethics watchdog Juan Pedro Damiani and three men charged in the football body’s corruption scandal.
The Irish Times reports that two Dublin-based companies have links to Mossack Fonseca.
Oxfam Ireland’s Chief Executive Jim Clarken said:
“This exposé offers a rare glimpse into the murky practices of tax dodging – and the sheer size and scale revealed is staggering.
“Every single year, poor countries lose around €150 billion due to tax dodging by wealthy individuals and companies – meanwhile 400 million people don’t even have access to basic healthcare.”
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And as per usual us minions grinding through life paying taxes to beat the band, put in jail for not paying a TV license, threatened over water charges and shoulder the job of keeping the world going, watch on as the elites pay
bugger all tax and enjoy a very padded lifestyle. Nice if you can get it!
The courage of the journalists involved is inspiring. This a massive leak and exposure of criminality and corruption.
This is what real journalism is.
Even the headline annoys me, citing Lionel Messi, why is he the person they’ve mentioned? There’s far more sinister dealings and corruption exposed. Let’s give our working class readers an icon to hate, I bloody love football.
Putin for instance is alleged to be tied to 2 billion.
Wake up Ireland, this includes you.
And we Irish will never find out who the so-called “Bond Holders” are, who we will be paying back for the unforeseen future due to their gambling on the Markets.
Sky report that Cameron’s dad was one involved with s Dublin based “company”.
Im sure the money was just resting in all their offshore accounts!!!!
C’OS, the bondholders, those that sold out when the ‘sheet’ hit the fan where mainly paid off early on by vulture capitalist firms who bought them up for a fraction of their worth. It’s these firms which sued the state then for the full value of the bonds who were paid. There’s an interview I’ve seen online of one of these guys, his name or the interviewer allude me right now but this guy boldly boasted that his personal net worth increased by $4 billion. From the interview you could easily see traits of os sociopath in him. When asked about the countries having to borrow at such a desperate time to pay these bonds he couldn’t have cared less or that national services and citizens would be heavily affected by his business.
Michael noonan, is allegedly a huge bond holder.
Yes but “Elites” have earned that right because they are especially talented at whatever they do .Cut them some slack !
No no its bondage noonan is into
That’s ” Mr Tepper” who you are probably talking about. Just put his name into You Tube and you will find an excellent video created by Mick Blake relating to an interview on the US Financial TV station.. Mick Blake has some great videos on You Tube that would make your blood boil.
Throw them all in jail. They wouldn’t think twice about it if we couldn’t pay a tv license. They can use that court in the Hague.
@Philip What are you/have you been doing to change it!?
I won it on horses Bertie style defence will no doubt be used.
Didn’t John Gilligan use that defence as well?
David please don’t mention that..in what other country could you have a finance minister without a bank account. .disgraceful..but he only told untruths..
And dont forget charlie haugheys island that he bought for next to nothing.
So much money they can’t spend it, but will do what they can to keep it hidden from the tax man.
I don’t know if it’s just me, but it seems the more money people make, the greedier and more selfish they become.
Its not just you Jay. Its sad really, people trying to hide money? For what? Sure they could never spend it anyway. I think the biggest disappointment, of its true, is messi.
Cue Sean Quinn….
Who are the Dublin based companies
One if them is called the pegasus trust in Drumcondra.
So while the people of Iceland were being screwed,with currency control..their premier was hiding money (probably foreign currency)..classy..a credit to politicians everywhere..
David Cameron’s father??! Ha! How’s he gonna explain this one..
His father was exposed in 2012. Maybe thats why he’s against tax havens now
Probably the same way he explained putting his todger in that pig’s head
Money means nothing anymore…its all a computer exercise adding or taking away zeros. Someone could have a net worth with nine zeros, so what? It means nothing. But when they lose all those zeros, they have a long way to fall. Most of us get through our days not having to worry about being the richest, the most garish, the most ridiculous people on the planet. We have families and real friends.something this lot will never achieve in their lifetimes. They will pass on, and very few people will care. They only cared about their zeros, and zero they will become.
Deep jenni.. deep
Most of go through life struggling so as we can maintain these fückers life styles.
No we dont. We go through life like our parent, grandparents etc did. We live we love and we do what we do. And for the most part we are happy. Sometimes its a struggle..but there are happy times to remember. And dont forget us normal people have proper families and real friends. Would you really want to be a super rich person? No friends, family using you..and all the rest. Dont get me wrong I’d love to win a million..I could do so much for everyone I know, but I wouldnt want to be one of the zero people.
Spot on Jenni. Well said.
Riiiiight… we’ll be fine because, unlike this one percent, we understand the true riches in life: family, freinds, moral integrity, etc. So we, the ninety- nine perce… oh no wait; this applies only to maybe 19 % of the world. Around 80% of the world lives under a dollar or two a day and his little access to food, education, health care, etc. So actually these petty zeros are not so petty after all. These zeros decide who gets access to what. So although I agree you can be thankful for what you got and you probably have many valuable things that these elites don’t, their corruption is NOT meaningless
Right, unlike these one-percenters, we understand that money means nothing because we all have great families and we know true riches are in these relationships; and we, the 99 perce… oh no, wait, it’s not 99% of the world that has all this; it’s more like 19%. Around 80% of the world doesn’t have proper access to basic food, shelter, education, health-care, etc. So actually, these little zeros are not quite meaningless. They decide who gets access to even the most basic things required for life, and therefore the corruption of these elites is all the more important and not something we shouldn’t care about.
Agreed, Danny, these people are a huge cause of the daily struggles jenni describes – all because they must have more, more, more and obviously become to believe they are superhuman.
Interesting fact of the day: only 8% of the world’s money exists. 92% of it exists only on a computer screen. Won’t they be pissed when they find out they can’t have their money
Look what happened to Gaddafi after he sugested actually having money backed up with gold (how it use to be)…….
Bilderburg acolytes – no surprise there. No consequences for these sh*tty people ever. Carry on plebs – taxes are only for the little people don’t ya know.
The real parasites exposed.
Ones based in Drumcondra.
Obscene.
Whether or not Cameron has hid a few quid or hid his bleedin mickey in a pig’s head is irrelevant to me, I want to know who the Irish dodgers are.
I bet that the recommendation, when the dust settles from all this, will be some massive world wide tax grid that is impossible to avoid.
Yep! This is the engineered Problem, now wait for the reaction!! Oh here’s the solution!!! Cashless slaves.
Or maybe they go on a witch hunt to prosecute who ever was involved in the initial theft of the data and who leaked it to the press?
This time they won’t be welcome in Russia
Well, the IFSC being one of the largest centres for tax dodging and money laundering in europe, i wouldnt be surprised to find a whole array of companies and individuals trading in ireland on that list.
Zero hedge have been predicting the end of the world for some time now, I wouldn’t put much thought into their words
Revealed: the $2bn offshore trail that leads to Vladimir Putin http://gu.com/p/4t26c?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Copy_to_clipboard
The wealthy are laughing at you…by voting in ff fg you have just gave them bonus protection their havin a right auld laugh. now go pay your taxes you peasants.let me know when the irish wake up.
I love how ” a number of friends of Russian president Vladimir Putin ” was mentioned in the article so his name could be indirectly mentioned.
In many cases when something big and attention grabbing like this is rolled out for the public to get angry at there is something else being covered up. I remember when all the media was busy covering the story of hacked celebrity nudes and it was all people were talking about the massacre israel carried out in gaza got barely any mention.
When people are kept busy looking at something shiny in the left hand they pay little attention to what is going on with the right.
I wonder if the likes of DOB appear anywhere on these lists.
@ John..thats what this ‘leak’ is all about!!!! Putin creams the US and NATO with his stance in Syria and then all of a sudden – bang..this comes out..with his name all over it by association! Pathetic attempt by Washington
right now the story about the imf leaks concerning Greece is getting barely any attention. People underestimate how huge this could be if it got full public attention.
Here they are in person
Big write up on Putin and friends in the Irish Times over this story. No mention of the Camerons (as in David). Not surprised.
“Taxes? Those are for the little people to pay.”
Have a look at this–it summarises the attitude very well:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leona_Helmsley
The fact is that the political, economic and financial systems are geared to favour the rich, the powerful and the privileged. Those of right wing disposition are happy that this is the case, even when outside the immediate circle of privilege.
Hiding taxable income in offshore accounts is illegal. So presumably the only people who are happy about it are would be while-collar criminals.
Haha
This could get Messi.
Rte dumbing down the biggest story of global Tax Scam Evaders of them all give it a week and we will be told it’s perfectly normal business behaviour and we need to accept this goes on …..
So, Jackie Chan’s shell companies are being run by drug kingpins and Lional Messi?
Rte news has a story about this but name an Irish man. Have a look as it doesn’t seem to be reported here for some reason.
have your say