There Will Be A Huge New 'Panama Papers' Data Dump (businessinsider.com) 110
An anonymous reader writes: The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists said in an email that on May 9 it would "publish what will likely be the largest-ever release of information about secret offshore companies and the people behind them," based on data from the Panama Papers investigation. "The searchable database will include information about more than 200,000 companies, trusts, foundations, and funds incorporated in 21 tax havens, from Hong Kong to Nevada in the United States." The ICIJ said in the email, "The impact of Panama Papers has been epic." The investigation has caused Icelandic Prime Minister Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson to resign following revelations about his personal finances. It has caused Putin to point fingers at the West, accusing the U.S. of trying to weaken Russia. It has even created drama in the UK with calls for Prime Minister David Cameron to resign after his connections to offshore companies became evident. In addition, the ICIJ said, "[The Panama Papers investigation] sparked a new sense of urgency among lawmakers and regulators to close loopholes and make information about the owners of shell companies public."
Possibly largest text coherent collection ever (Score:5, Funny)
largest-ever release of information about secret offshore companies and the people behind them
Actually there is so much data that this is possibly the largest release of a coherent text collection of any kind, secret or not.
Re:Possibly largest text coherent collection ever (Score:5, Funny)
And 90% of it is boilerplate legalese. I'll bet it compresses rather nicely.
"The impact of Panama Papers has been epic." (Score:5, Interesting)
Including John Kerry's accounts? (Score:2, Interesting)
Surprise, surprise, surprise!
John Kerry is dirty [google.com]
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You have a billionaire wife?
Cool (Score:2)
Cool, it can't happen soon enough. The trilateral Commission needs their dirty laundry aired so us regular people have a chance in life.
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"These types of dumps are organized by a handful of the elites in order to damage their opposition."
Oooh, a metaconspiracy, a plot perpetrated by your rival conspiracy theorists. Protip: keep your pit bull feed on the top of your least leaky slideout, or skunks will nest under your doublewide.
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Hint: If you ever are asked to back up your position with evidence, linking to a YouTube video is not the best way to do it. I see you favour believing you are right more than actually being right. I weep for your future.
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Look into who is funding the research by "journalists" who have access to these documents. Hint: It's a bunch of bankers, like Rockefeller, et. al. Seriously, go do it, you'll see that it's a war between foreign banks and US / Jewish owned banks.
All Wars are Banker Wars [youtube.com]
Another hint: don't use the words "Jewish owned banks" if you want to keep your antisemitism secret.
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" meta-conspiracies roll until we are all fucking bat-shit crazy"
Until?!?!?! You're talking about Slashdot?
Where the hell have you been for the past 18 years?
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Your tinfoil hat is about 40 years out of date.
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Dunno about witches or ghosts, but the Rothschilds have been around a while... seriously, read the link, somebody did their homework. Its spooky how things are being manipulated.
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Sad truth: No Jail Time or RICO confiscation (Score:5, Insightful)
The sad truth is those "punished" for tax avoidance so far in the UK (the PM), Canada (a number of families using UK offshore tax havens), and Africa have mostly ...
Not ... Gone to jail.
Or suffered any real penalty other than paying, without excess interest owing, the taxes they avoided.
What we need here, other than a few quick drone strikes until they all pay up, are RICO triple damage confiscations, including trust funds for kids and houses and yachts, and JAIL TIME.
Which has not happened so far.
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This X 1000. Jail time is the only thing that makes some people slow down and think.
Re:Sad truth: No Jail Time or RICO confiscation (Score:5, Funny)
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Actually, I saw an interesting graphic [politicalirony.com] on the use of shell companies. It had some pretty legitimate uses for shell companies.
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The problem is that the laws (written by lawyers and legislators, many of whom use these vehicles of financial obscurity) are written with relatively little penalties in them.
Sure, the law says you must pay your taxes, but there's no penalty clauses in there for doing the kinds of things that the lawmakers themselves are engaged in.
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AND? How is 'tax avoidance' a crime? I'm not talking about 'outright lying' on a tax return but moving money in such a way as to minimize the tax paid...people do this ALL the time. I haven't outright moved money but I look for every legal angle to reduce my tax bill, does that make me a 'bad person'? A 'criminal'? (heck I have purposely NOT taking a deduction that I felt I was 'morally'/ethically entitled to but didn't because of the potential fallout on others who are struggling) I'm not going to get all
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This is why we use drones until it happens
Legal is only legal until it stops happening
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Bush's invasion and occupation of Iraq cost the U.S. $2+ TRILLION [rand.org] and that does not include the ongoing costs to pay for the medical expenses of the thousands of soldiers who were injured.
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Tax evasion - the ILLEGAL minimisation of tax due.
Evasion gets you a cell mate, avoidance does not.
Regardless of your own views of what should constitute avoidance/ evasion these people do not appear to have done anything illegal.
Whether it is moral is another question.
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In the case of Canada, it can be seen by even a layperson that the particular use of an Isle of Man tax haven was tax evasion with just enough lipstick on it to be able to later claim, in an emergency, 'gosh, I didn't realize that was a pig I was kissing'. Look up the details of it and tell me how any reasonable person could think what was being done was legal tax avoidance.
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In the case of Canada, it can be seen by even a layperson that the particular use of an Isle of Man tax haven was tax evasion with just enough lipstick on it to be able to later claim, in an emergency, 'gosh, I didn't realize that was a pig I was kissing'. Look up the details of it and tell me how any reasonable person could think what was being done was legal tax avoidance. !
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That's because in most countries, you have to actually investigate and do a financial audit before you start punishing people. I know, difficult to understand and all that. A few weeks back when all of this came to light the Canada Revenue Agency(IRS for Americans), directed their investigators to get a hold of and start investigating the papers for those who failed to pay their taxes or were hiding assets.
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As an American, I'd prefer not to suddenly take over responsibility for enforcing Canadian law or blow up Canadian citizens. I have a feeling all of Canada agrees with me on that.
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What you suggest is entirely absurd. If an Englishman is evading UK taxes, that's a matter for the UK. Not the US. Yet you seem to want to use the US military and legal code to enforce foreign tax laws in foreign nations. I could stand next to you with a megaphone, screaming "STUPID!" in your
Announcement that there will be an announcement (Score:1)
Rich people use tax shelters. Yawn.
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OMG???? Really???? You mean that having an account in the Cayman's is not just something people do in the movies?
I'm shocked... shocked!
Can the US join this time? (Score:5, Interesting)
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Which leads smart people to believe that this is a false flag operation from the CIA. That's how they be.
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what about the president of the firm's numerous postings over the last decade about refusing business to US clients.... CIA long con.
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Delaware and Nevada are still subject to the IRS.
Not from Panama (Score:2)
US companies don't use Panama as an anonymous tax shelter. They use Belize.
The dump was from a Panamanian law firm that set up shell companies. Europeans like Panama. US companies like Belize. And, sometimes, Barbados.
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One disappointing thing about the last leak is that it basically had no US connections. A leak that included US clients could probably bring down Clinton, Trump, and half of Congress.
If I were running for president, losing, and clean on this, I certainly wouldn't suspend my campaign until the dump hits the net.
Soros (Score:5, Interesting)
Not much gets into main stream media without puppeteers pulling strings: And when I hear the Soros foundation is partially bankrolling this, you gotta ask why.
Quote from infowars.
The Panama Papers expose offshore tax havens in Switzerland, the Bahamas, Grand Cayman, and Panama, but says nothing about a new arrangement legalized under FATCA, the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act.
The law “makes the parking of dirty US money abroad practically impossible. So where does that money go instead—it stays in the US,” writes Zero Hedge. “And, to top it off, there is one specific firm which is spearheading the conversion of the U.S. into Panama: Rothschild.”
The international bankster institution opened a trust company in Reno, Nevada. “It is now moving the fortunes of wealthy foreign clients out of offshore havens such as Bermuda, subject to the new international disclosure requirements, and into Rothschild-run trusts in Nevada, which are exempt,” Bloomberg reports. The United States “is effectively the biggest tax haven in the world,” boasted Andrew Penny of Rothschild. One of the world’s largest providers of offshore accounts, Trident Trust, opened an office in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.
http://www.infowars.com/soros-... [infowars.com]
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Not much gets into main stream media without puppeteers pulling strings: And when I hear the Soros foundation is partially bankrolling this, you gotta ask why.
Because his foundation is the Open Society Foundation, "with a stated aim of advancing justice, education, public health and independent media" (as per Wikipedia [wikipedia.org])...?
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A name does not equal purpose.
We have 'The Safe Schools Program', whos stated aim is 'the prevention of bullying in schools', but has now been revealed as primarily driven by LGBTI activists (Ros Ward) to introduce primary school aged children to alternative sexual lifestyles, which smacks of marxism (ie the state knows better than parents, so shut up)
Yes, because I'm going to trust what Infowars says (Score:4, Insightful)
You might want to try and find someone a little more credible than Alex Jones (9/11 truther, gold bug, serial martial law predictor, etc) if you want me to take a theory at all seriously.
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Re:Soros (Score:4, Funny)
Dude, you know the drill!
First you have to do a 5 paragraph screed about the evils of money in politics with subtle hints that the Koch Bros are in league with Satan (or big oil. Same difference really).
Then you do at least 7 posts of how Republicans are out to eat babies, rape your grandmother, and cheat at softball.
And then you mention Soros as a half-assed et tu and mention the CCX in passing before the popcorn starts.
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Nobody said the Kochs were stupid. Just venal, selfish, and corrupt.
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Please, never quote or link to www.infowars.com.
It's a website for nut-job conspiracy 'theorists.'
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Too true.
The US refuses to sign on to the OECD Common Reporting Standard automatic exchange of information, and refuses to implement true reciprocity in FATCA IGAs. The result is that the US will be the last tax haven standing. Hypocrisy abounds.
tougher laws (Score:2)
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Future tax havens won't be online (Score:4, Insightful)
I predict that future tax havens won't store client information online.
The "true, beneficial ownership" information will all be stored on a non-connected computer network or maybe even in paper ledgers.
Good luck getting at that without walking in and physically stealing it (or bribing/coercing a bank employee to make you a copy).
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The IRS doesn't have enforcement powers against banks in most of the world. Short of going after the country that is hosting the tax haven, the worst the US government can do is put the bank on the "bad-boy" list, denying it the right to do business with law-abiding US businesses or directly connect to the US banking system. If the bank is a tax-haven bank, it probably doesn't care.
Let's assume for the sake of argument that the tax havens exist in countries where their own government doesn't object.
Online storage unnecessary for leaking (Score:2)
An air-gapped computer still has to have trusted people accessing it, hence each person represents a potential point of failure. The more updating these air-gapped computer records require the more frequent the on-site people use the air-gapped computers and the more opportunity any of them can copy data to a portable storage device. Leaks happen because people in-the-know who have a conscience choose to publish the confidential records. This predates the use of computers.
Leaks/inside jobs vs. external intrusions (Score:1)
True, it is very hard to prevent a leak if your people lose faith in you.
But air-gapping makes an un-assisted attack by a hostile outside party much, much harder. The outside party is reduce to only a couple of options: Dupe/social-engineer the people into doing their bidding (think stuxnet and the poisoned USB drives), or gaining physical access. That leaves a much lower attack surface than an internet-connected system.
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Nobody Trusts the Media Anymore (Score:5, Insightful)
The reason the Panama Papers are failing to make the impact they should is because nobody trusts the media anymore.
We are expected to believe that the same class which protects the interests of the wealthy and which prosletyes their neoliberal ideology has somehow enough concern for us lower castes, or for abstract concepts like "justice" or "fairness", that they will report on this impartially. Excuse me, but even if this massive group of PR-powdered international journalism extraordinaies is in fact legitimate and not just the twitter stunt they appear to be, even if they are legit, why should I believe the media this time around?
Journalists have cried wolf, stayed silent, and betrayed the public trust too many times to be taken seriously now. The media has morphed from a fourth estate, into the new first estate. So when I see a campaign like this, I see only the new international priesthood, condemning some sin. I await their indulgences to be paid.
Wait... What?? (Score:3)
Sorry, but what does our trust in the media have to do with anything? The government does not give a single fuck what the people thing or believe. Not a single fuck.
The people are not the ones prosecuting people.
The only outcome is what you always get. Your Clintons and what not say, OH NO!! We are gonna solve this together and those who responsible parties shall be looked at very closely, blah blah blah.
In the then nothing at all will happen. How could it? The ones who make he laws are the ones breaking th
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The media are generally allowed to report anything "in the public interest" no matter the source.
Technically every celebrity photo is stolen, or taken without permission, or whatever. But because the press are able to hide behind it being "in the public interest", where you and I could be sued to oblivion if we touched it, they get free reign.
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Oh, wait.. http://www.npr.org/podcasts/45... [npr.org]
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I don't think you thought this through.