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Panama Papers: Mossack Fonseca leak reveals elite's tax havens

bbc.com

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Re: Panama Papers: Mossack Fonseca leak reveals elite's tax havens

#191

Post by ryanlol »

IkmoIkmo wrote: post #181
UVB-76 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For what it's worth, being featured in these documents is not in and of itself evidence of any wrongdoing. There are entirely lawful and legitimate reasons for making use of offshore company structures.

I'd replace wrongdoing with illegal. If you ask me, if you're a billionaire and you're not willing to pay taxes and spend 0.0001% of your wealth on the expertise to reduce your tax bill by 99%, in legal ways that 99.99% of the rest of the population doesn't engage in, then by all means that's wrongdoing to me and I think most would be with me on that. Of course it's not necessarily illegal.

What about non billionaires? These arrangements aren't overly expensive and are very much suitable for perfectly "ordinary" people.

Re: Panama Papers: Mossack Fonseca leak reveals elite's tax havens

#192

Post by eugeneionesco »

cperciva wrote: post #170
infodroid wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is remarkable that this breaking story focuses on Russia, Iceland and unfriendly/anti-Western dictators (Mubarak, Gaddafi, al-Assad). And apart from Cameron's father: - Pamela Sharples, member of the House of Lords - Michael Ashcroft, former Deputy Chairman of the Conservative Party and former member of the House of Lords - Michael Mates, former Member of Parliament And in the EU: - Giuseppe Donaldo Nicosia, busin…

What's so remarkable about focusing on heads of state rather than lesser ministers, members of parliament, etc.?

Then why are they focusing on Putin's "associates" who are not even in the government?

Re: Panama Papers: Mossack Fonseca leak reveals elite's tax havens

#193

Post by ptaipale »

TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #153
neffy wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, because at no time in its entire history has Russia actively supported organisations whose sole goal was "the overthrow of the international bourgeoisie and for the creation of an international Soviet republic as a transition stage to the complete abolition of the State." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist_International

Russia's socialist days are long behind it now, for better or worse.

However, curiously, at least over here (Finland), the old Communist sympathizers seem to still be friends of Russia. Or vice versa: if someone is uncritically repeating Russian propaganda (re Ukraine, Donbass etc) then if he's standing in the election he's most likely with one of fringe communist parties.

It somehow goes beyond just hating America and NATO which are good common enemies. It is weird of course, as some of these people are very wealthy and in a real communist revolution would clearly get a bullet in the back of the head.

Re: Panama Papers: Mossack Fonseca leak reveals elite's tax havens

#194

Post by mikeyouse »

infodroid wrote: post #189
randomname2 wrote: post #24

Selected quote: "The ICIJ findings include evidence that: - Offshore companies linked to the family of China's top leader, Xi Jinping, as well as Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, who has positioned himself as a reformer in a country shaken by corruption scandals - 29 billionaires featured in Forbes Magazine's list of the world's 500 richest people - Icelandic Prime Minister Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson and his w…

I did not find these references in the linked BBC story. Where is this quoted from?

The source for HN has changed a few times, the original was here and contains the breakdown quoted above:

https://panamapapers.icij.org/20160403-panama-papers-global-...

Re: Panama Papers: Mossack Fonseca leak reveals elite's tax havens

#196

Post by k-mcgrady »

wyck wrote: post #140
wukerplank wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Planned by whom? To what end? Do you have any information to substantiate this claim?

I'm referencing the fact that some leaks you get the whole enchilada and it's up to you or the media to sift though. In the case it's a leak which is being funnelled by the reporters. Maybe this is because of legal reasons, I have no idea, but would it not be better they just dumped the whole data set onto the web?

Did you have this same position with the Snowden leaks? Dump it on the web and it lacks credibility. Filter it through journalists who can use their resellers to make sense of it and the public gets to hear the important repercussions of the leak instead of having to try and figure it all out themselves.

Re: Panama Papers: Mossack Fonseca leak reveals elite's tax havens

#197

Post by VonGuard »

vesinisa wrote: post #82
UVB-76 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For what it's worth, being featured in these documents is not in and of itself evidence of any wrongdoing. There are entirely lawful and legitimate reasons for making use of offshore company structures.

Yeah, hiding a conflict of interest might be illegal, but "tax planning" is by definition legal.

Save for the deposit minimums in the 6 figure region....

Re: Panama Papers: Mossack Fonseca leak reveals elite's tax havens

#198

Post by usaphp »

guard-of-terra wrote: post #186
usaphp wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you explain to me how this chart proves that "elections were DEFINITELY rigged"? I just don't understand what do you mean by "obvious centers of blobs" and how does it correlates with rigged elections?

You would imagine, if Moscow is a city comprised of similar election districts, that election results in that districts will form a continuity. There would be a few outliers and a massive core of "typical" districts with similar results in them. We're even bound to get Gauss distribution of results or something similar. However, for Duma election, there's no continuity. There are two distinct profiles. There are a lo…

Moscow is a huge city (12 mln population). I don't think that different results in different parts of it give you any reason to call elections "DEFINITELY rigged", if you look at New York state (which has similar population size as Moscow) elections for 2012 [1], you will also see that each county has a pretty different kind of results, some counties were in full support of Obama, and some were in support of Romney, but that does not make it "definitely rigged" no?

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_ele...

Re: Panama Papers: Mossack Fonseca leak reveals elite's tax havens

#199

Post by alkonaut »

usaphp wrote: post #188
alkonaut wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Ohh, please stop, do you really believe that western media care a single bit about free elections in Russia? I think any person in the "west" would be delighted to see free elections in Russia. Why wouldn't we? Since it would be a missive influence on our lives, of course western media should care! A government elected by popular vote would be stabilizing to the region (and the world) since it wouldn't have the sam…

> I think any person in the "west" would be delighted to see free elections in Russia. No, they will be delighted to see the candidate they (westerns) like more - win, they won't care who most people really voted and supported in Russia. Putin won on the recent elections and I did not notice any "delighted west media" after that, even thought as I said in a separate comment - vast majority of the people in Russia act…

I don't doubt Putin has massive support, but in a country without free press or free elections popularity says nothing. Putin doesn't win elections, he arranges them.

North Koreas leaders have traditionally enjoyed a 100% support, and it might even be genuine support, but it doesn't mean anything.

The media climate in Russia isn't yet North Korean of course, but it's far from a climate in which elections would be called fair. https://index.rsf.org/ (You really don't want to rank with Belarus and Congo on the freedom of press index).

To win a real election you make sure you have freedom of press, then you have an election overseen by internationally recognized observers such as the oecd.

The fact that Putin is popular despite rapidly growing deficits and receding standard of living (at the same time as massive military spending) is pretty telling.

Re: Panama Papers: Mossack Fonseca leak reveals elite's tax havens

#200

Post by infodroid »

cperciva wrote: post #170
infodroid wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is remarkable that this breaking story focuses on Russia, Iceland and unfriendly/anti-Western dictators (Mubarak, Gaddafi, al-Assad). And apart from Cameron's father: - Pamela Sharples, member of the House of Lords - Michael Ashcroft, former Deputy Chairman of the Conservative Party and former member of the House of Lords - Michael Mates, former Member of Parliament And in the EU: - Giuseppe Donaldo Nicosia, busin…

What's so remarkable about focusing on heads of state rather than lesser ministers, members of parliament, etc.?

It makes me wonder why an "associate" of a foreign head of state is a more relevant story than the father of the head of state, or of serving politicians with close links to the party of the head of state, from the same country's taxpayer-funded news service.

The story doesn't even mention the implication of Cameron's father in the scheme. Which is odd, because Cameron stood to gain from the inheritance. And if the allegations are true, then he would have benefited from the proceeds of tax evasion.

There are also several other heads of state directly implicated in this scheme, yet they were not even mentioned in the story: the current heads of state of UAE, Ukraine, Argentina, and Saudi Arabia for example.

And the figure who is apparently at the center of the Russian allegations is a concert cellist who has known Putin since they were teenagers. Yet the link and related BBC story convey the impression (at least to my mind) that Putin was somehow complicit in the scheme, without establishing any proof for this.

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