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

bbc.com

351–360 of 452 posts

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

#351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's funded by the license fee. You don't have to pay but then you can't watch live TV.

> It's funded by the license fee. That was my point. It might not sound like a difference from a tax, but the difference is pretty substantial when we are discussing the control of the company.

Not really? The government still controls the licence fee.

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

#352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could not agree more. Our society is based on the foundation that everybody does her/his own fair share, if the leaders of the world think it is not the way then lets just stop paying taxes and see how fast things change. One funny thing about humanity, we used to pay 1/10 of our income that was enough for the "state", I am paying 65% (that is right) of my income to the sate right now and it is not enough, I have to…

Where do you live that has a >65% top income tax rate? Because I quite like the sound of it. Or are you conflating other taxes and presenting an overall figure?

Depending on your definition of income tax you check 2 numbers:

- the lower number that you as a person pay (strictly the personal income tax) - the higher number, combining what the company pays + what you pay after your income.

I am a contractor so I get a breakdown how much was spent on taxes and if get 100 EUR from a company the tax deduction is 65 EUR. (Obviously, the % depends on your actual income).

Combine this with VAT and you see that your actual contribution to the government is in the 70%-80% range.

You can check out the rates here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tax_rates

I still remember how bad I felt for the peasants in primary school when we learned that they had to give 1/10th of their income to the state, and later another 1/10th to the church.

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

#353
post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where do you live that has a >65% top income tax rate? Because I quite like the sound of it. Or are you conflating other taxes and presenting an overall figure?

He isn’t “conflating”, he clearly said this is the total paid to the government — i.e. all sorts of taxes. That you like the sound of it is, frankly, horrible.

It's horrible that I like the sound of a high-ish top rate of income tax? We haven't even stated the terms of what income level that tax rate is applied at, so your finding it horrible is either a total misunderstanding, or you object to the progressive nature of variable income tax outright. I hope it's the former, because I find the latter truly objectionable.

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

#354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where do you live that has a >65% top income tax rate? Because I quite like the sound of it. Or are you conflating other taxes and presenting an overall figure?

Depending on your definition of income tax you check 2 numbers: - the lower number that you as a person pay (strictly the personal income tax) - the higher number, combining what the company pays + what you pay after your income. I am a contractor so I get a breakdown how much was spent on taxes and if get 100 EUR from a company the tax deduction is 65 EUR. (Obviously, the % depends on your actual income). Combine th…

Thanks for the explanation. Are you taking into account the lower rates, though? For example, where I am, there's a personal allowance meaning one can earn £10,000 and not pay a single penny in income tax. The basic rate (which ends at a value substantially above the average salary) is only 20%. I'm guessing you're not in the UK, so it's going to be harder for me to compare situations. I don't think it's fair to combine income tax with VAT since that (mostly) applies on goods you choose to buy, rather than a percentage of your earnings.

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

#355

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…

> Associates of Russian President Vladimir Putin secretly shuffled as much as $2 billion through banks and shadow companies So where's the other $198 billion? > Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, who has positioned himself as a reformer in a country shaken by corruption scandals Not surprising. An oligarch doing oligarch things. Surprised anyone thought he'd be anything but corrupt. > Movie star Jackie Chan, who h…

> So where's the other $198 billion?

The company the data has leaked from is not even in the top 3 of its kind. Either way going from the (claimed) zero fortune to billions discovered on the spot is telling.

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

#356
post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that really true? I am not a US citizen but I have an account with a US broker. I just need to file a single form once in a while declaring my foreign tax status and that's it. This can hardly be the reason why it is absolutely necessary to have offshore holdings. (Of course, I have to pay taxes at home for any profits and there are supposed to be mechanisms that ensure I do...)

If you deal in volatile markets with questionable rule of the law and weak property rights (e.g. Russia or much of the Middle East), then the ownership and its transfer is often structured with offshore companies. The leak however suggests the legit offshore cases are drop in the bucket in this overall money laundering business. Kind of like with file sharing, many would argue we need it primarily to get our latest U…

Dunno. Netflix is cheap, I've only benefitted from filesharing swarms to get Linux ISOs in the past few years.

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

#357
post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

VAT is crazily regressive because those who make the least spend far larger proportions of their income buying stuff for it. Most countries with VAT end up with complicated rules for exemptions for basic goods as a result, to try to balance it better.

It is not complicated to me: - food, books, medicine, ... -> lower VAT - cars, luxury items -> higher VAT

This is a dramatic over-simplification that ignores what is actually a cascade of exemptions that leads toward a similar tax-law morass that we already have.

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

#358
post #86

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…

>Icelandic Prime Minister Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson and his wife secretly owned an offshore firm that held millions of dollars in Icelandic bank bonds during the country's financial crisis Also, a quarter of Iceland's cabinet apparently holds offshore companies.

A country that actually jails its bankers for their crimes may be deeply interested in this information. popcorn time

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

#359
post #190
post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> British Prime Minister David Cameron, a leader in the push for tax-haven reform There was a load of rhetoric in 2011 about offshore/tax reform, but very little in the way of action since then. As with tradition in Cameron's brand of "Compassionate Conservatism", it's a depressingly cynical slight of hand and nothing more.

How much is he able to influence the British Virgin Islands? As they seem to be one of the top havens for years. If he is, and being a leader in the push for reform, what was on his agenda for BVI?

If you want a good primer on our influence/investment in the financial affairs of overseas dependencies and tax havens associated with Britain etc... then the book "Treasure Islands" by Nicholas Shaxson is a good place to start.

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

#360

Hilarious that BBC, a broadcaster paid for by British tax payers, has a subheading in that article titled "Russian connection" describing various dealings of Russian characters who are "close associates" of Putin and an equally sordid "Iceland connection" but not even a mention of David Cameron's father's tax evading schemes listed in the documents which the people of Great Britain should be vastly more interested in…

While there may be new information about Cameron's father, his tax schemes were thoroughly covered by the British press years ago. They're not in and of themselves news in the UK, so unless these documents reveal something significant that hasn't already been known, it's not strange they're not making a big deal over it.
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