Just to review the facts, the Panama Papers are a set of 11.5 million documents that detail financial and attorney-client information for more than 214,488 offshore accounts and legal entities, such as companies. Some of this information date back to the 1970s.
The document leak was given by a whistleblower to the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung and was reviewed for nearly one year by a group of journalists through the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ). These journalists represented 107 media organizations in 80 countries.
The name Panama Papers was given to this data dump because these were the files of the law firm and corporate service provider Mossack Fonseca, which is a Panamanian company. The government of Panama objects to the use of the name “Panama” for the “PP” documents and maybe they are right. Here is why.
Since these documents have been made public there has been extensive detailed studies made that have gone beyond what the ICIJ did. The headline ICIJ report named some of the most notable names such as the father of the current British Prime Minister David Cameron and Juan Armando Hinojosa, who has been called Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto’s “favorite government contractor.” But digging deeper revealed many aides, associates and business partners of other famous people, who were not included in the list.
Overall though, the abbreviation “PP” probably should not refer to the nation of Panama. It should probably mean “Politician Papers.” And you can probably guess what occupation is most frequently cited in the documents?
The five most cited occupations of the people that hid assets in offshore companies away from the prying eyes of tax authorities and the public were: “businessperson,” “entrepreneur,” “lawyer,” “professional football player” and “politician.” However, the number of politicians involved is almost as large as the other four occupations combined.
Of course, these documents only represent the clients of Mossack Fonseca and there are dozens of other large companies doing this sort of work, as well as many dozen more small firms. But there is good reason to believe that, while Mossack Fonseca may have just been the go-to firm for the politicians hiding their money and assets, it is likely this is fairly representative across the world.
Isn’t it interesting that the same people who write and enforce the laws of taxation and money laundering are also the ones that knew exactly how to avoid those laws? This reminds me of something about not putting the fox in charge of guarding the chicken house. While we are told that taxation is to benefit all the people and especially the poor, apparently the duty to pay those taxes is not for all the people.
We are told that all those forms we have to fill out to put our money in the bank and to take our money out of the bank is to protect the nation from terrorists and drug dealers. Yet, politicians are finding ways not to fill out those same forms that are for the “good” of the country.
American diplomat and political scientist Henry Kissinger once said, “Corrupt politicians make the other 10 percent that are not corrupt look bad.”
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