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Paradise Papers: New leak from offshore finance firm

647 points by martgnz 9y ago

olivermarks 9y ago
At this point in history I'd argue that nation states have never been weaker. The idea that 'Russia' is behind anything is somewhat erroneous: powerful mobsters/oligarchs who have been enriched by looting Russia and other nation states and float their money offshore are 'Russia' in this context. That money is laundered into the western world. The concept of a capitalist 'empire' that knows no nation state is often discussed by excellent journalists such as Abby Martin. The people who make up this 'empire' - a mix of Saudis, Zionists, Asian oligarchs, old euro money and various other oligarchs and mobsters arguably run the world....
- wallace_f 9y ago
  This is a very important comment. It is the type of idea that today will be criticized as outlandish conspiracy, tomorrow will be questioned, and the next day will be accepted as a 'nothing we can do about it now.'
- fjsolwmv 9y ago
  You lost me when you fell back to racist conspiracy theories. What the hell do you think "Zionist" means?
  - olivermarks 9y ago
    'zionist' - far right wing offshore mobster hiding behind Judaism in this context
    - wallace_f 9y ago
      I'm not sure what to think? Joe Biden told the media "I am a Zionist." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uo-UXZ-1ups&app=desktop https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uo-UXZ-1ups&app=desktop
  - olivermarks 9y ago
    Recommend Misha Glenny if you haven't read his work. https://www.amazon.com/McMafia-Journey-Through-Criminal-Underworld/dp/1400095123 https://www.amazon.com/McMafia-Journey-Through-Criminal-Unde... https://youtu.be/r28674tI3uE https://youtu.be/r28674tI3uE < From 2008
mindcrime 9y ago
Let's not act like tax avoidance is some Big Deal. Taxation is theft to begin with, so there's no reason to begrudge people who are protecting their assets. The real question we should be applying our intellects to is "how do we fund the things that are currently funded by taxation, which are actually necessary / desirable, without using violence or the threat of violence?"
- anigbrowl 9y ago
  OK, then rent is also theft.
  - mindcrime 9y ago
    Just answer the question: "how do we fund the things that are currently funded by taxation, which are actually necessary / desirable, without using violence or the threat of violence?" C'mon, we're hackers... we can do better than relying on violence and aggression. What happened to the idea that we could apply our intellects, reason, logic, and rational thinking, and improve on the old way of doing things? I mean, if you want to abdicate and just accept things the way they are, that's fine. But some of us still believe in progress.
    - Clubber 9y ago
      >What happened to the idea that we could apply our intellects, reason, logic, and rational thinking, and improve on the old way of doing things? There are powerful groups of people with intellect, reason, logic, rational thinking but also have large sums of capital and the government's servitude to counter anything we try to change.
      - anigbrowl 9y ago
        It doesn't say much for the level of economic/political debate on HN that simple factual observations like this are systematically downvoted.
    - maxxxxx 9y ago
avar 9y ago
A publication using "the 1%" in the context of "the global elite" means what exactly? A salary slightly north of $30k/yr lands you in the global elite club of the 1%.
- java_script 9y ago
  Are you an AI? If so, try this on for size: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Figure_of_speech https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Figure_of_speech
  - fjsolwmv 9y ago
    It's a figure of speech that completely hides the identity of the enemy and names others instead, and the elite love that.
  - viraptor 9y ago
    It's also dangerous. There's going to be people looking up what 1% wealth is. Repeat it enough times and large enough groups will start taking it literally. Just like any social welfare improvements cause disagreement these days in some circles because socialism is bad, and it's halfway to communism, and that's terrible.
- morsch 9y ago
  I'm sure there's a millionaire somewhere decrying the injustice of wealth distribution, pointing at the billionaires.
- isostatic 9y ago
  Surely your net wort h would make more sense to see how wealthy you are, the top 1% of wealthy people have a wealth of about $900k upwards. A wealth of $3k would put you in the top half.
coolgoose 9y ago
And as always, nothing is going to happen.
- xexers 9y ago
  While it's true that about 99% of people listed in the panama papers got off scott free... There were still some serious consequences for some... and those consequences might just be enough to deter.
  - paranoia101 9y ago
    "about 99% of people listed in the panama papers got off scott free"... ...and the journalist who triggered the investigation got killed! Global elites, fuck yeah! https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/oct/16/malta-car-bomb-kills-panama-papers-journalist https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/oct/16/malta-car-bomb...
    - r3bl 9y ago
      Some insights from a person who has worked for two years for an investigative journalism organization (that was a part of both Panama Papers and Paradise Papers, but I left my position months before Paradise Papers): If someone's gonna kill an investigative journalist, he's not gonna do that while she's reporting on the story. That would be too dumb and raise way too many eyebrows. Instead, the attacker will usually let it cool down and wait, months (or possibly years) after the piece was published. Only when the thing is in the far past will he attack. Plus, the observation and preparation of the attack doesn't happen in a day[0]. So, I guess what I'm trying to say is that, whoever was behind the attack, was either a) stupid or b) a person that she reported on a relatively long time ago. [0] For a case in point, take a look at how precise was the action in which a Belarus journalist was killed in 2016: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=liSa5OFCkf4&feature=youtu.be&t=3m56s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=liSa5OFCkf4&feature=youtu.be... (the entire video is 49 minutes long, but the relevant part is about two minutes long and it starts where the link leads to)
detcader 9y ago
Hoarding money like this is highly immoral. Just give most of it away: https://www.currentaffairs.org/2017/06/its-basically-just-immoral-to-be-rich https://www.currentaffairs.org/2017/06/its-basically-just-im...
- bearbearbear 9y ago
  All the money that rich people give away comes out of your wallet in the form of tax deductions.
  - alaaibrahim 9y ago
    Could you explain why is that the case, I've heard that multiple times, but for me the math doesn't work out. If I earn an amount of (x+y), I would get taxed on (x+y), but if I donate x money, I would get taxed on y, but I've already paid x in donations, so unless there is something fishy going on with the x donations part, it would make sense for someone to not donate, as they are already being taxed on y, and the taxes on x would be less than x. So how are the rich making these donations out of my wallet?
    - Clubber 9y ago
      A lot of times, the donations are something they would already be doing. For example, instead of throwing away a couch, which someone was planning on doing, they could donate it to Good Will and get a write-off for the amount the couch was worth (typically they get to fill that in). This also works for much larger things like buildings or land. So if someone owned a parcel of land that they paid $100K for, used for a long time, but then the neighborhood was blighted or something, they could then donate it. It might be worth $30K on the market, but they could say it was $100K and write off the entire amount, which would earn them $36K vs. the $30K plus sales costs to sell it outright. There are guidelines from the IRS, but they are easy to manipulate: https://www.irs.gov/publications/p561 https://www.irs.gov/publications/p561 Arm's-length offer. An arm's-length offer to buy the property close to the valuation date may help to prove its value if the person making the offer was willing and able to complete the transaction. To rely on an offer, you should be able to show proof of the offer and the specific amount to be paid. Offers to buy property other than the donated item will help to determine value if the other property is reasonably similar to the donated property. So that person could get a few friends or associates to make offers on the property for $100K and that would generally be enough to prove value at $100K using the arm's-length valuation method. Also, another example that Trump did was make donations to an organization that held meetings in his hotel. Using your example, Trump made x+y, then donated x to a charity that then spent x on Trump's hotel, so trump is paying taxes on y even though he earned x+y (it works out a little differently, but that's the gist). https://www.forbes.com/sites/danalexander/2017/06/06/how-donald-trump-shifted-kids-cancer-charity-money-into-his-business/#348762546b4a https://www.forbes.com/sites/danalexander/2017/06/06/how-don...
muxator 9y ago
The search interface is buggy. When searching names from some nations, it shows people from other countries.
cletus 9y ago
I can't help but think of the GOP's tax "reform" that is a hot topic in the US right now. I say "reform" because there's absolutely no reform about it. It's a tax cut for billionaires bought and paid for by the GOP donor class. The paranoia of religious conservatives certainly elected the GOP but make no mistake: they don't give a shit about anyone but the donor class, often personified by the Koch brothers. The carried interest tax credit is noticeably absent from the House plan. The problem with any kind of true reform is that every exception and rule benefits someone and they'll lobby hard to defend it. As for the corporate tax cut, I wouldn't necessarily be opposed to it if it came with enforcement against the offshoring (via transfer pricing) of profits in low tax regimes. But of course it doesn't. Bringing this back to the Paradise Papers and other similar leaks, the problem I have is there's increasingly an ultra-rich class who benefitted greatly by the political stability in places like the developed world but have somehow convinced themselves that they shouldn't have to pay for it. There was a time in my life when I was against the estate tax on philosophical grounds. That time is long gone. It really is a silver spoon tax. If anything it should be higher. I really wish I understood why someone with $5b thought themselves above paying for schools, roads, hospitals and police. What really is the practical difference between having $5b or $10b? Luckily the House plan is pretty much DOA in the Senate.
- detcader 9y ago
  The GOP is beyond corrupt -- would you agree the focus should be on improving the Democratic Party to be formidable again?
  - cletus 9y ago
    Honestly the Democrats aren't much better. I can point the finger in many directions here: 1. The Clinton stranglehold (first Bill then Hilary) on the DNC was absolute to the point with Hilary off the stage there's a vacuum and no real leadership contenders. That I think was largely by design. Hilary didn't want a repeat of the 2008 nomination; 2. Obama seemed to either not care of was ineffective in shaping the party. After eight years in office it was still Clinton's party; 3. The Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) is really the Democratic senator from Wall Street and is one of the biggest defenders of the carried interest tax credit for hedge fund managers. 4. The Democrats have an ageing and increasingly out-of-touch ruling class. As just one example, Diane Feinstein has announced plans to seek reelection... at age 85. This means she'd be 91 at the end of her term. 5. I'm still ot sure the Democrats fully appreciate the anti-establishment wave that swept Trump into office and almost swept Sanders into the Democratic nomination.
bitL 9y ago
If a company doesn't use these tax-avoidance means, it becomes uncompetitive and gets eaten by those, that do. Moreover, there is a wealth of tax optimizing consultants with great knowledge of holes one gets access to once their revenue reaches $x00,000,000, often sanctioned by governing bodies. So if one makes it to the club, the easy way to stay there is to adopt the same disgusting practices like everybody else and shoot the ladder behind themselves. The rest of the world can live in favelas, nobody at the top really cares. I doubt we can't figure out a proper system to track every single transaction and make sure it's taxed properly, but there is no will or there are always some convoluted backdoors proper consulting companies install through lobbying and make available to "donors".
- detcader 9y ago
  That's why we need good journalism... power will always corrupt, making the "Fourth Estate" a necessary implicit branch of a democratic government-and-society
- fauigerzigerk 9y ago
  >If a company doesn't use these tax-avoidance means, it becomes uncompetitive and gets eaten by those, that do. I don't understand why that would be the case.
  - TomMarius 9y ago
    Well, why do they do it? To save costs. If they have lower costs than you doing the same thing, it will eventually cost you your business.
    - fauigerzigerk 9y ago
      Taxes don't affect competitiveness much. They only affect profitability, because any money they use to compete and any money they never earn because they compete by lowering prices isn't taxed anyway. They only pay taxes on profits. Taxes are not a business expense. There is perhaps an indirect link to competitiveness in that a company can retain profits and use them down the road to take over other companies, which may strengthen their position in the market. Another such indirect link is that profitability affects the company's ability to raise capital. But what I believe is that it's not so much the company itself that cannot afford to pay higher taxes, it's the management team. If a CEO doesn't optimize taxes for the benefit of owners/investors, that CEO could be replaced by someone who does.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
bearbearbear 9y ago
Here come the conspiracy theory apologists. Blah blah tin foil hat blah blah wacko nutjob.
- cloakandswagger 9y ago
  >user: bearbearbear >created: 6 days ago You're only supposed to start deflection if and when your astroturfing gets called out. This was probably covered in your onboarding process.
jahaja 9y ago
The sad thing about this is the fatigue caused by the whole "well, of course they're cheating, they always do.". When the powerful/wealthy get caught the result seems to be just further apathy, rather than outrage with consequences. I wonder how long this can continue.
- detcader 9y ago
  I think many hoped for a path forward in Bernie Sanders, but the Democratic Party kneecapped that...
  - brohoolio 9y ago
    Hillary won by 3 million votes. I know it’s a republican / Russian talking point to keep pointing out this division.
    - detcader 9y ago
      Is Donna Brazile a Republican, RU operative, or both?
dboreham 9y ago
Imagining people in meeting rooms at law firms discussing if they can go back to paper-only workflow... Also, this I guess confirms the policy I heard from several heads of accounting depts in the 90's that they did not want their computers connected to the Internet..
- gcb0 9y ago
  dont have to go that far, or that up. head of IT for a french firm that does business over here had to contract with some small company for a invoice system because the regional manager claimed the centra one from HQ didnt accommodate the local laws. it was a lie, because the other vendor has even less compliance. nobody but the regional manager has any idea of the real reasons. but I bet its not in the interests of the company, or tax compliance.
allenz 9y ago
The leak shows substantial Russian cash going to US commerce secretary Wilbur Ross; Twitter and Facebook; and Arsenal and Everton. It also shows the usual tax avoidance by powerful people including Lord Ashcroft and Trudeau financier Stephen Bronfman.
- BatFastard 9y ago
  What will it take for people to say NO MORE
  - wallace_f 9y ago
    Hope this makes people see the collusion of the global elite.
  - heurist 9y ago
    It's starting but to truly take that stand generally requires major life changes, and those changes take time to come into fruition if they happen at all. I'm trying to save enough money to escape the rat race and build technology and organizations that at least I think could help level the political playing field, but unexpected expenses come up and savings seem to move less than they should.
angersock 9y ago
So, what's the hivemind spin on Apple aggressively dodging taxes? How're we defending that again?
- loeg 9y ago
  Come on. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html > Avoid unrelated controversies and generic tangents.
  - angersock 9y ago
    You didn't answer my question. Anything of the form "Apple is doing it for <x,y,z> reasons" or "Apple is not doing it as documented at <x,y,z>" is acceptable. "but muh hackernews rules" is not an answer. Also, it's a pretty specific tangent that coincides with the original submission about people hiding and hoarding wealth. So, again, try answering the question instead of downvoting and invoking rules that (frankly) don't show what you think they show here.
charlesdm 9y ago
Honestly, nothing new. Does anyone still care? Action is being taken on an international level to combat avoidance, but it takes time. These types of offshore vehicles offer privacy and serve various specific purposes (e.g. tax transparent international investing). Yes, they can be used for illegal purposes (sometimes), but frankly that seems like the minority to me. What worries me a bit though, is the fact that heaps of confidential information is just thrown online, without significant filtering. Even completely legal situations are published, but since the average joe has no understanding of tax law, he'll assume these people are doing illegal things. Attorney-Client privilege?
- tomohawk 9y ago
  Welcome to the Soros funded news cycle. Use whatever means necessary to destroy your political opponents. Besides the points you raise, how do we know the info being made available hasn't been filtered to avoid friendly fire? There isn't a nickel's worth of difference between most of the elites, but Soros funding of these sorts of things is usually self serving.
  - charlesdm 9y ago
    Soros his communication and corporate structures were leaked as well. Not sure that was the intent, but he's had offshore vehicles since the 60s: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_Group_of_Funds https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_Group_of_Funds
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
- UweSchmidt 9y ago
  I knew I'd see a comment such like this when I clicked on the comments: "Nothing to see here, move along..."
  - charlesdm 9y ago
    It's fun to go through this to see how people are structuring their business, but most people respect the tax laws of the country they're living in. And if they're not breaking any laws, this honestly shouldn't be publicized. In the same way I don't think your personal income should be made public for the whole world to see.
wu-ikkyu 9y ago
It's funny how the people of Russia and the US are framed as being such great enemies when in reality many of the rulers of both countries have more common interests with each other than they do with the citizens of their own nations.
- geofft 9y ago
  We have always been at war with Eurasia^WEastasia.
- danharaj 9y ago
  It's not an accident.
  - wallace_f 9y ago
    Putin's utility function maximization calculus is clearly benefited from undermining his own people, and there is a lot of evidence to support that. The US plutocracy is no different. Also a lot of evidence: the actions of the NSA, CIA, War on Drugs, police militarizarion, military-industrial-congressional-complex... All cannot be explained otherwise. I think in the US, they're just a lot more clever at it. However cooky it might seem, there is some evidence coming out that extremist rallies have been organized by unknown powers, possibly sometimes Russian. A lot of the racial tension is probably not by accident. I saw this on the reddit conspiracy sub, and frankly I think it's a good point to be made: https://i.redd.it/lgdyy6dpjyfz.jpg https://i.redd.it/lgdyy6dpjyfz.jpg
    - Clubber 9y ago
      >A lot of the racial tension is probably not by accident. It absolutely is not by accident, not most of it. There are a lot of interests that make money keeping racial tensions high. News outlets are one. Bacon's Rebellion is a very significant historical event that happened in 1676 that still gets taught and still has an effect. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacon%27s_Rebellion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacon%27s_Rebellion The alliance between indentured servants and Africans (most enslaved until death or freed), united by their bond-servitude, disturbed the ruling class, who responded by hardening the racial caste of slavery in an attempt to divide the two races from subsequent united uprisings with the passage of the Virginia Slave Codes of 1705. Indentured servants both black and white joined the frontier rebellion. Seeing them united in a cause alarmed the ruling class, historians believe the rebellion hastened the hardening of racial lines associated with slavery, as a way for planters and the colony to control some of the poor. The reason the ruling class is allowed to rule (today and through history) was because the underclass was divided. Kings would keep nobility fighting with each other and not the kings. The US racial divide is an implementation of the same thing. If poor blacks and poor whites constantly bicker (and worse) at each other, they certainly aren't bickering with the powers that be. Divide and conquer. One of the oldest strategies in the book. Hell, look at what the Hippies were able to do as far as civil unrest with the government in the late 60s. Hippies weren't known to be racist, infact the opposite. That certainly wouldn't do. Enter the drug war.
mrleiter 9y ago
It's the wrong angle. One should not look at corporations as the moral saviours. As Supreme Court Judge Learned Hand once said: "Over and over again courts have said that there is nothing 851*851 sinister in so arranging one's affairs as to keep taxes as low as possible. Everybody does so, rich or poor; and all do right, for nobody owes any public duty to pay more than the law demands: taxes are enforced exactions, not voluntary contributions. To demand more in the name of morals is mere cant."[1] Rather, it is the governments of the world we should be going at if we want this behaviour to change. But then again, it is always easier to find a fat scapegoat with a shiny appearance. [1]https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=6284821606579578514 https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=628482160657957... (last paragraph)
- Parcissons 9y ago
  That fat scape-goat basically has made a market of law- where the lowest bidder wins the company of the scape-goat. Companys are the new governments. Deal with it.
- mjw1007 9y ago
  I suppose it's easier to pressure governments to change what's going on when we have journalists willing to tell us what's going on. When it comes to reporting information obtained from "secrecy jurisdictions", I think a standard of "if it's not illegal to report, it's OK to report" is reasonable. After all, that's the same standard you're advocating for managing your tax affairs.
  - pohl 9y ago
    Wasn’t the reporter behind the Panama Papers killed by a car bomb?
    - dredmorbius 9y ago
      s/the/a/ Panama Papers and the ICIJ are a very large effort. But yes, a Maltese reporter, Daphne Caruana Galizia, who worked on Panama Papers (about 80 reporters in total) was assassinated by car bomb in Malta last month. ICIJ are now over 200 journalists. https://www.icij.org/blog/2017/10/investigative-malta-journalist-killed-bomb-blast/ https://www.icij.org/blog/2017/10/investigative-malta-journa...
hhtoyou 9y ago
Thanks !
killjoywashere 9y ago
You're all missing the extremely immediate issue for YCombinator: Yuri Milner's money is from Russian oligarchs. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15631084 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15631084
hacker_9 9y ago
So how bad is this exactly? I'm all for equality, but the world is built on the game known as capitalism, and this stuff exists because people optimise their playing strategy. I know the starting conditions can be unfair, but we kinda need people at the top to make the whole thing work. If the world runs on money, then there will always be a poorer place that wants to attract the rich, and so havens are born. Let's not forget the rich spend a lot of money in their own country too, which is an essential part of a thriving economy.
- confounded 9y ago
  > this stuff exists because people optimise their playing strategy. There any a great many reasons why it’s important to know what the latest strategies are. Few of the people concerned here are passive capitalists looking for ROI. Even if they were, politics is ultimately a contest over resources. Information is power.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- killjoywashere 9y ago
  The havens are not the issue. The fact that YCombinator start-ups are funded by Russian oligarchs (via Milner) is an issue. The fact the the US Commerce Secretary is in business with Putin's family is an issue. The fact that Facebook and Twitter are funded by Russian oligarchs (again, via Milner) is an issue. There are a lot of issues here. These oligarchs have no problem killing people wholesale. You want to give them a positive ROI on their investment? WTF?
  - charlesdm 9y ago
    I'm pretty sure plenty of people wouldn't care. If someone offers you $100m for your business today (Ford), and a Russian company offered you $300m (Gazprom) -- guess which one most would sell to? Facebook might not like it now, but at the time, you could be quite certain they didn't care.
    - 9y ago
NN88 9y ago
The Facebook and Twitter ties to Gazprom and VTB need to be investigated. ASAP.
Proven 9y ago
Lol.. who gives a crap. The first batch did nothing. You are all state slaves.
alekseypo 9y ago
On one end of the scale the benefit of transparency and on the other the inevitable subversion of these types of info dumps in the future, as a way to manipulate public opinion...
return0 9y ago
Its not clear what "secrets" they have revealed. Appleby seems to be an "advising company", so presumably no Trust data have been exposed. We might as well be looking at something we knew to be public all along. Is this really serious?
- patall 9y ago
  Example: If the british monarch exploits her very poorest subjects by promoting ill-adviced (vacuum cleaner) loans, that is a 'secret' that has been uncovered. And in a normal political environment the queen should step down or at least donate most of the involved trusts money to the people hurt by it.
noobermin 9y ago
Since there are no top level comments putting this out for probably obvious reasons, here is a supportive comment for the article. This is what people feel in their guts when they drive out on tattered roads and avoid going to the hospital even though they are sick, when they don't have a real increase in wages but are working longer hours. They have the sense that something isn't right, that there are two sets of rules and they got the shaft when it comes to that. Where police forces are cashstrapped and turn to civil forfeitures and ticket quotas while they see famous celebrities and politicians get off for things magnitudes more illegal than what they've done, whether it's smoking a joint or driving while black. People already have a sense that things aren't fair. There's a reason why tax reform is polling so poorly. There's a reason why most of the country thinks taxes should be higher on the wealthy and corporations. They have a feeling that they are not seeing the rise of productivity in their own life, and they want justice. My SO lives in SG. She is lower middle class (going to school, father works in a factory) and I asked her about income inequality, for there it's quite extreme. She says it's not that bad because people there have a reasonable standard of living; they can go to school, they can go to the doctor, they have access to affordable food, etc. Income inequality I think isn't a bad thing as long as the poorest among us have some basic level of livelihood. The problem is that in the US, that isn't true, and so, people clamor for justice.
- thecrazyone 9y ago
  I empathize with your condition and your thoughts. However, the problem is not the rich. This is a classic case of [tall poppy syndrome](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tall_poppy_syndrome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tall_poppy_syndrome). There indeed are a two sets (or multiple striated on your lobbying power) of rules. The rich lobby to get exceptions, we don't 'cause we can't (afford it). TL;DR It's the government which is to blame here for the rich stashing their wealth in tax havens rather than deploying them productively in the economy. Details: - The rich don't like stashing their wealth in tax havens. I'm not rich myself to have first hand experience, but let's logically think this through. - If you've capital, you want it deployed and earning money for you. And you'll choose the best risk adjusted ROI you can get (you'll be especially rational about this if you have the means to hire consultants like the rich do). - Therefore, we can reach the poignant conclusion that stashing it away in tax havens, which in fact costs money to do, is the best option you've. There is a lot of cost involved even if you want to re-route money to invest it via tax havens - 1) Risk of government(s) confiscating your money 2) Cost of setting up and operating complicated corporate structures. - Taxation is theft. Pretty radical, but please humor me and read through. This is not even an original idea, this is a common notion in libertarian circles (eg: https://mises.org/blog/taxation-isnt-only-theft-its-destruction https://mises.org/blog/taxation-isnt-only-theft-its-destruct...). Let me share a few points why: - Why #1: Government is a bad monopoly. The ditches on the road you referenced, is because you can't stop paying govt for doing a bad job on roads and enlist an alternative vendor. The reason why it's _bad_ is because it's forced upon you - you cannot stop paying taxes to enlist someone else to make your roads better, you'll be put in jail. Google is a good monopoly, because we all voluntarily use google. If something better comes around, you can use it and google wouldn't (shouldn't) force you to use theirs. They can persuade, but not force. - Why #2: Government (policy makers) are humans. They put their self interest above yours (just like you do) and make bad public policy as a result. Paying them money (tax) blindly is silly. - Why #3: Government (policy makers) don't understand (or perhaps deliberately mislead everyone on) economics. We still think public roads are good, public healthcare is good, public police, public (fiat) money, rent control, import tariffs, export controls and more are all good. They are all patently bad for reasons which you can google out. This distortion is a wealth destroyer and distorts & cripples the economy. Paying them money (tax) when the policies don't benefit you is insane. ## Conclusion: There is an alternative system to government which works - privatize everything a.k.a Free Markets. This is also known by the rather dire name "Anarcho Capitalism" (please don't go by the bad connotations of the name). Why use free markets: - Why #1: They're ethically, morally superior to government. All transactions in an economy are voluntary and involve no force. Force is immoral, and unethical. Every action that government does implies force - if you don't pay taxes, you get jailed => force; etc. - Why #2: Good monopolies. Everyone competes to be a monopoly by providing the best service at the lowest cost, which is a benefit to society, if they don't, you can choose an alternative. Note: Monopoly here rarely means the strict definition of just one compnay providing a good, there are usually alternatives. Edit - formatting
tomkat0789 9y ago
These leaks are juicy and all, but have our oligarchs had to change anything as a result of them? What were the big effects of the Panama Papers?
- brown9-2 9y ago
  The biggest thing I can think of is the Prime Minister of Iceland resigning.
  - wallace_f 9y ago
    Wasnt SK's record-breaking protests an indirect result of the Panama Papers?
    - ionised 9y ago
      No, their civil unrest was due to an issue with their president being under the thrall of a cult figure and the corruption between government and various Chaebols. There may have been some South Koreans mentioned in the Panama Papers, but their protests started way before those leaks dropped.
- fragmede 9y ago
  No, it didn't cause a Fight Club/Mr. Robot-style overnight collapse of capitalism, but it did force a number of politicians and business people in a number of different countries to step down and face fines. Pakistan in particular disqualified their Prime Minister, in what was called a "defining moment" for the country. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reactions_to_the_Panama_Papers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reactions_to_the_Panama_Papers
  - fjsolwmv 9y ago
    So, a few scapegoats got turned out, an business as usual continued.
- patall 9y ago
  I do not quite understand what you want to tell us with such a comment? So what? If injustice is done, but we were not able fix it the last time it was brought up, we should just let it be? (And honestly, I am also surprised that something like this shows up on hackernews. (In 2007:) Why does Apple come up with a touch screen mobile phone, those did not make profit the last time they come up. (Early 2010s:) Why does Musk invent an electric car, those things disappeared after the 20s for a reason.)
stanislavb 9y ago
I like how they are using neo4j to untangle the relationships...
nickthemagicman 9y ago
My parents always taught me to be honest and care about those around you. The older I got the more I realized that was mal-adaptive behavior in capitalistic society. The real goal of capitalism is exploit or be exploited.
- cobookman 9y ago
  It's possible to do both. Look at the kibbutzim of Israel. Many after 50ish years have > 1mil/resident in assets. Many are a communist society with bad actors kicked out. and sell their goods in a capitalistic way. So you get the best of communism and capitalism. It doesn't scale for everyone but it's a good in between.
- nickysielicki 9y ago
  You're posting on a website of a venture capital group.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
- forapurpose 9y ago
  If we say, 'others are doing wrong; therefore I must do the same in order to compete', then we always will do wrong because there always will be people like that out there. If we say 'this system can be gamed by people willing to do bad things, therefore I must do them or I'm at a disadvantage', then we always will do bad things - every system is vulnerable.
- icelancer 9y ago
  > The real goal of capitalism is exploit or be exploited. The real goal of capitalism is to increase the amount of capital available. This fundamentally is not possible via exploitation alone. Capitalism - nor the economy - is not a zero-sum game. This type of simplistic thinking makes people dismiss real criticisms over the real-world implementation of American capitalism.
  - 9y ago
haaen 9y ago
Comment from economist Tyler Cowen when the same group of journalists released the Panama papers: Was it wrong to hack and leak the Panama Papers? Let’s say a group of criminal defense lawyers kept a database of their confidential conversations with their clients. That would include clients charged with murder, robbery, DUI, drug abuse, and so on. In turn, a hacker would break into that database and post the information from those conversations on Wikileaks. Of course a lot of those conversations would appear to be incriminating because — let’s face it — most of the people who require defense attorneys on criminal charges are in fact guilty. When asked why the hack was committed, the hacker would say “Most of those people are guilty. I want to make sure they do not escape punishment.” How many of us would approve of that behavior? Keep in mind the hacker is spreading the information not only to prosecutors but to the entire world, and outside of any process sanctioned by the rule of law. The hacker is not backed by the serving of any criminal charges or judge-served warrants. Yet somehow many of us approve when the victims are wealthy and higher status, as is the case with the Panama Papers. Furthermore most of those individuals probably did nothing illegal, but rather they were trying to minimize their tax burden through (mostly) legal shell corporations. Admittedly, very often the underlying tax laws should be changed, just as we should repeal the deduction for mortgage interest too. But in the meantime we are not justified in stealing information about those people, even if some of them are evil and powerful, as is indeed the case for homeowners too. Once again, politics isn’t about policy, it is about which groups should rise and fall in relative status. And many people believe the wealthy should fall in status, and so they will entertain the morality of all crimes and threats against them. These revelations will of course lead to some subsequent cases of blackmail, against Chinese officials for one group. I had tweeted “Are your views on privacy and #PanamaPapers consistent? Just asking…” and my goodness what a response, positive and negative. Most interesting of all, many people had never pondered the question before. Somehow “good things” such as “privacy” and “transparency” cannot stand in such conflict because all good things, like all bad things, must come together. (...) http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2016/04/the-morality-of-panama-papers.html http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2016/04/the...
- natural219 9y ago
  Excuse me while a shed a single tear for the world's uberrich.
dmitriid 9y ago
Remember Panama papers? The outcome of those was..? Nothing? Or close to nothing? The same will happen to Paradise Papers. There will be a "public outcry", there will be multiple opinion pieces, someone will create a nice website to show you cool infographics based on data. A year from now everyone will forget about this ever happening. Which is a shame.
- Synaesthesia 9y ago
  It's up to us to make a change.
pera 9y ago
Appleby claims these documents were obtained during a security incident last year: https://www.applebyglobal.com/news/news-2017/media-coverage-of-the-offshore-sector.aspx https://www.applebyglobal.com/news/news-2017/media-coverage-...
nevi-me 9y ago
Are there any downloadable documents one could sift through? I'm interested in finding which individuals and politicians in my home country are implicated; this coming a at a time where our sitting president is guilty of fraud, racketeering, corruption, tax evasion (hasn't submitted a tax return since 1995). Civil society and citizens are working behind the scenes to put pressure on the remaining good people in the system. This information could help. Thanks.
croatoan 9y ago
What a crock of shit. Hilary Clinton, John Podesta, and Robert Mueller knowingly sold 20% of Americas HIGHLY ENRICHED URANIUM to Russia and Barack Obama knew about it. Its high treason that would have gotten each and every one of them executed just 30 years ago, but now the msm and the shills want to still say trump is tied to Russia. Trump before the campaign has almost zero ties to Russia, and even if he did it's not illegal for a real-estate mogul to have ties with Russia. Trump after starting his campaign has had zero ties with Russia. ZERO. Comey,McCabe,Clapper,Brennon,Yates,Nunes,Fienstien,Schiff,Burr, and even Maxine "dead horse" Waters have stated on record multiple times, "There is absolutely no evidence of Russian collision with the trump campaign during the election." That's 2 FBI directors, a director of national intelligence, a CIA director, an assistant attorney general, 2 highest ranking senators on senate intel committee, 2 highest ranking congressman on house intel committee, and a dead horse all saying no Russian collusion. Multiple CNN executives have said (hidden camera) that the entire Russian collusion that they pushed for 7-8 months is 100% a nothing burger. Wikileaks emails show that the dnc used the Russian collusion narrative as a smokescreen since day fucking 1. Seymour hersh, one of the most respected multi-pultzer prize winning journalists confirmed it was Seth rich, not Russia that gave Wikileaks the emails of the dnc. Julian Assange, the creator of wikileaks hinted at seth rich being the source for dnc leaks on many different occasions. Kimdotcom has evidence seth rich was the source of the dnc leaks through his supposed contact with seth before the dnc killed him. IT specialists mathematically proved that the dnc leaks could have only been downloaded through a USB connection, and that it was mathematically impossible for Russia to have hacked and downloaded the dnc leaks with current tech. Trump and Russia collusion is a complete and utter lie. Enough is a fucking enough, how long are shills gonna protect the lying scumbags from the fbi (mueller, comey, mccabe), the clinton crime family, and the podesta crime family?
NN88 9y ago
FYI HN: Jeffery Carr wrote about Milner's ties to the FSB/KGB in 2011 http://archive.li/2Lv1b#selection-549.14-549.39 http://archive.li/2Lv1b#selection-549.14-549.39 ...and got fired from Forbes Magazine for writing about it... https://twitter.com/JamesFourM/status/915361529012289536 https://twitter.com/JamesFourM/status/915361529012289536 Theres certainly a major back story here.
- stevenwoo 9y ago
  There are 95 news organizations sharing the 13.4 million documents so it would be hard for anyone to hide it now.
jorblumesea 9y ago
Trump was one of the dirtiest candidates in history. How a rich oligarch billionaire got elected as a blue collar populist is one for the history books. These scandals will haunt him for the rest of his political career, as it's just so easy to dig up dirt on him. Almost every business deal in his past has been marred by some kind of controversy. The man is a walking scandal magnet.
libpcap 9y ago
How do we get a piece of that pie? In other words, how do we play the same game? How do we put our money offshore like them?
baki 9y ago
The Trump foundation sold 20% of US uranium assets and earned 145 million dollar on it. The Russians passed it on to the very peaceful Iranians, who are don't building nuclear warheads and ballistic missles. Trum ordered a fake damning dossier on Hillary Clinton from the Russians... etc... etc... etc
baki 9y ago
Ridiculous
daveheq 9y ago
I always wonder about the timing of these releases... Are they really released as soon as possible after they're found, or just piecemeal when it's revealers find it most politically convenient?
Pffffffff 9y ago
The way the icij acts, is like 4chan with the Adult Friend Finder dumper.
jMrL 9y ago
:/

647 points by martgnz 9y ago

At this point in history I'd argue that nation states have never been weaker. The idea that 'Russia' is behind anything is somewhat erroneous: powerful mobsters/oligarchs who have been enriched by looting Russia and other nation states and float their money offshore are 'Russia' in this context. That money is laundered into the western world. The concept of a capitalist 'empire' that knows no nation state is often discussed by excellent journalists such as Abby Martin. The people who make up this 'empire' - a mix of Saudis, Zionists, Asian oligarchs, old euro money and various other oligarchs and mobsters arguably run the world....

wallace_f 9y ago
This is a very important comment. It is the type of idea that today will be criticized as outlandish conspiracy, tomorrow will be questioned, and the next day will be accepted as a 'nothing we can do about it now.'
fjsolwmv 9y ago
You lost me when you fell back to racist conspiracy theories. What the hell do you think "Zionist" means?
- olivermarks 9y ago
  'zionist' - far right wing offshore mobster hiding behind Judaism in this context
  - wallace_f 9y ago
    I'm not sure what to think? Joe Biden told the media "I am a Zionist." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uo-UXZ-1ups&app=desktop https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uo-UXZ-1ups&app=desktop
- olivermarks 9y ago
  Recommend Misha Glenny if you haven't read his work. https://www.amazon.com/McMafia-Journey-Through-Criminal-Underworld/dp/1400095123 https://www.amazon.com/McMafia-Journey-Through-Criminal-Unde... https://youtu.be/r28674tI3uE https://youtu.be/r28674tI3uE < From 2008

mindcrime 9y ago

Let's not act like tax avoidance is some Big Deal. Taxation is theft to begin with, so there's no reason to begrudge people who are protecting their assets. The real question we should be applying our intellects to is "how do we fund the things that are currently funded by taxation, which are actually necessary / desirable, without using violence or the threat of violence?"

anigbrowl 9y ago
OK, then rent is also theft.
- mindcrime 9y ago
  Just answer the question: "how do we fund the things that are currently funded by taxation, which are actually necessary / desirable, without using violence or the threat of violence?" C'mon, we're hackers... we can do better than relying on violence and aggression. What happened to the idea that we could apply our intellects, reason, logic, and rational thinking, and improve on the old way of doing things? I mean, if you want to abdicate and just accept things the way they are, that's fine. But some of us still believe in progress.
  - Clubber 9y ago
    >What happened to the idea that we could apply our intellects, reason, logic, and rational thinking, and improve on the old way of doing things? There are powerful groups of people with intellect, reason, logic, rational thinking but also have large sums of capital and the government's servitude to counter anything we try to change.
    - anigbrowl 9y ago
      It doesn't say much for the level of economic/political debate on HN that simple factual observations like this are systematically downvoted.
  - maxxxxx 9y ago

avar 9y ago

A publication using "the 1%" in the context of "the global elite" means what exactly? A salary slightly north of $30k/yr lands you in the global elite club of the 1%.

java_script 9y ago
Are you an AI? If so, try this on for size: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Figure_of_speech https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Figure_of_speech
- fjsolwmv 9y ago
  It's a figure of speech that completely hides the identity of the enemy and names others instead, and the elite love that.
- viraptor 9y ago
  It's also dangerous. There's going to be people looking up what 1% wealth is. Repeat it enough times and large enough groups will start taking it literally. Just like any social welfare improvements cause disagreement these days in some circles because socialism is bad, and it's halfway to communism, and that's terrible.
morsch 9y ago
I'm sure there's a millionaire somewhere decrying the injustice of wealth distribution, pointing at the billionaires.
isostatic 9y ago
Surely your net wort h would make more sense to see how wealthy you are, the top 1% of wealthy people have a wealth of about $900k upwards. A wealth of $3k would put you in the top half.

coolgoose 9y ago

And as always, nothing is going to happen.

xexers 9y ago
While it's true that about 99% of people listed in the panama papers got off scott free... There were still some serious consequences for some... and those consequences might just be enough to deter.
- paranoia101 9y ago
  "about 99% of people listed in the panama papers got off scott free"... ...and the journalist who triggered the investigation got killed! Global elites, fuck yeah! https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/oct/16/malta-car-bomb-kills-panama-papers-journalist https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/oct/16/malta-car-bomb...
  - r3bl 9y ago
    Some insights from a person who has worked for two years for an investigative journalism organization (that was a part of both Panama Papers and Paradise Papers, but I left my position months before Paradise Papers): If someone's gonna kill an investigative journalist, he's not gonna do that while she's reporting on the story. That would be too dumb and raise way too many eyebrows. Instead, the attacker will usually let it cool down and wait, months (or possibly years) after the piece was published. Only when the thing is in the far past will he attack. Plus, the observation and preparation of the attack doesn't happen in a day[0]. So, I guess what I'm trying to say is that, whoever was behind the attack, was either a) stupid or b) a person that she reported on a relatively long time ago. [0] For a case in point, take a look at how precise was the action in which a Belarus journalist was killed in 2016: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=liSa5OFCkf4&feature=youtu.be&t=3m56s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=liSa5OFCkf4&feature=youtu.be... (the entire video is 49 minutes long, but the relevant part is about two minutes long and it starts where the link leads to)

detcader 9y ago

Hoarding money like this is highly immoral. Just give most of it away: https://www.currentaffairs.org/2017/06/its-basically-just-immoral-to-be-rich https://www.currentaffairs.org/2017/06/its-basically-just-im...

bearbearbear 9y ago
All the money that rich people give away comes out of your wallet in the form of tax deductions.
- alaaibrahim 9y ago
  Could you explain why is that the case, I've heard that multiple times, but for me the math doesn't work out. If I earn an amount of (x+y), I would get taxed on (x+y), but if I donate x money, I would get taxed on y, but I've already paid x in donations, so unless there is something fishy going on with the x donations part, it would make sense for someone to not donate, as they are already being taxed on y, and the taxes on x would be less than x. So how are the rich making these donations out of my wallet?
  - Clubber 9y ago
    A lot of times, the donations are something they would already be doing. For example, instead of throwing away a couch, which someone was planning on doing, they could donate it to Good Will and get a write-off for the amount the couch was worth (typically they get to fill that in). This also works for much larger things like buildings or land. So if someone owned a parcel of land that they paid $100K for, used for a long time, but then the neighborhood was blighted or something, they could then donate it. It might be worth $30K on the market, but they could say it was $100K and write off the entire amount, which would earn them $36K vs. the $30K plus sales costs to sell it outright. There are guidelines from the IRS, but they are easy to manipulate: https://www.irs.gov/publications/p561 https://www.irs.gov/publications/p561 Arm's-length offer. An arm's-length offer to buy the property close to the valuation date may help to prove its value if the person making the offer was willing and able to complete the transaction. To rely on an offer, you should be able to show proof of the offer and the specific amount to be paid. Offers to buy property other than the donated item will help to determine value if the other property is reasonably similar to the donated property. So that person could get a few friends or associates to make offers on the property for $100K and that would generally be enough to prove value at $100K using the arm's-length valuation method. Also, another example that Trump did was make donations to an organization that held meetings in his hotel. Using your example, Trump made x+y, then donated x to a charity that then spent x on Trump's hotel, so trump is paying taxes on y even though he earned x+y (it works out a little differently, but that's the gist). https://www.forbes.com/sites/danalexander/2017/06/06/how-donald-trump-shifted-kids-cancer-charity-money-into-his-business/#348762546b4a https://www.forbes.com/sites/danalexander/2017/06/06/how-don...

muxator 9y ago

The search interface is buggy. When searching names from some nations, it shows people from other countries.

cletus 9y ago

I can't help but think of the GOP's tax "reform" that is a hot topic in the US right now. I say "reform" because there's absolutely no reform about it. It's a tax cut for billionaires bought and paid for by the GOP donor class. The paranoia of religious conservatives certainly elected the GOP but make no mistake: they don't give a shit about anyone but the donor class, often personified by the Koch brothers. The carried interest tax credit is noticeably absent from the House plan. The problem with any kind of true reform is that every exception and rule benefits someone and they'll lobby hard to defend it. As for the corporate tax cut, I wouldn't necessarily be opposed to it if it came with enforcement against the offshoring (via transfer pricing) of profits in low tax regimes. But of course it doesn't. Bringing this back to the Paradise Papers and other similar leaks, the problem I have is there's increasingly an ultra-rich class who benefitted greatly by the political stability in places like the developed world but have somehow convinced themselves that they shouldn't have to pay for it. There was a time in my life when I was against the estate tax on philosophical grounds. That time is long gone. It really is a silver spoon tax. If anything it should be higher. I really wish I understood why someone with $5b thought themselves above paying for schools, roads, hospitals and police. What really is the practical difference between having $5b or $10b? Luckily the House plan is pretty much DOA in the Senate.

detcader 9y ago
The GOP is beyond corrupt -- would you agree the focus should be on improving the Democratic Party to be formidable again?
- cletus 9y ago
  Honestly the Democrats aren't much better. I can point the finger in many directions here: 1. The Clinton stranglehold (first Bill then Hilary) on the DNC was absolute to the point with Hilary off the stage there's a vacuum and no real leadership contenders. That I think was largely by design. Hilary didn't want a repeat of the 2008 nomination; 2. Obama seemed to either not care of was ineffective in shaping the party. After eight years in office it was still Clinton's party; 3. The Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) is really the Democratic senator from Wall Street and is one of the biggest defenders of the carried interest tax credit for hedge fund managers. 4. The Democrats have an ageing and increasingly out-of-touch ruling class. As just one example, Diane Feinstein has announced plans to seek reelection... at age 85. This means she'd be 91 at the end of her term. 5. I'm still ot sure the Democrats fully appreciate the anti-establishment wave that swept Trump into office and almost swept Sanders into the Democratic nomination.

bitL 9y ago

If a company doesn't use these tax-avoidance means, it becomes uncompetitive and gets eaten by those, that do. Moreover, there is a wealth of tax optimizing consultants with great knowledge of holes one gets access to once their revenue reaches $x00,000,000, often sanctioned by governing bodies. So if one makes it to the club, the easy way to stay there is to adopt the same disgusting practices like everybody else and shoot the ladder behind themselves. The rest of the world can live in favelas, nobody at the top really cares. I doubt we can't figure out a proper system to track every single transaction and make sure it's taxed properly, but there is no will or there are always some convoluted backdoors proper consulting companies install through lobbying and make available to "donors".

detcader 9y ago
That's why we need good journalism... power will always corrupt, making the "Fourth Estate" a necessary implicit branch of a democratic government-and-society
fauigerzigerk 9y ago
>If a company doesn't use these tax-avoidance means, it becomes uncompetitive and gets eaten by those, that do. I don't understand why that would be the case.
- TomMarius 9y ago
  Well, why do they do it? To save costs. If they have lower costs than you doing the same thing, it will eventually cost you your business.
  - fauigerzigerk 9y ago
    Taxes don't affect competitiveness much. They only affect profitability, because any money they use to compete and any money they never earn because they compete by lowering prices isn't taxed anyway. They only pay taxes on profits. Taxes are not a business expense. There is perhaps an indirect link to competitiveness in that a company can retain profits and use them down the road to take over other companies, which may strengthen their position in the market. Another such indirect link is that profitability affects the company's ability to raise capital. But what I believe is that it's not so much the company itself that cannot afford to pay higher taxes, it's the management team. If a CEO doesn't optimize taxes for the benefit of owners/investors, that CEO could be replaced by someone who does.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

bearbearbear 9y ago

Here come the conspiracy theory apologists. Blah blah tin foil hat blah blah wacko nutjob.

cloakandswagger 9y ago
>user: bearbearbear >created: 6 days ago You're only supposed to start deflection if and when your astroturfing gets called out. This was probably covered in your onboarding process.

jahaja 9y ago

The sad thing about this is the fatigue caused by the whole "well, of course they're cheating, they always do.". When the powerful/wealthy get caught the result seems to be just further apathy, rather than outrage with consequences. I wonder how long this can continue.

detcader 9y ago
I think many hoped for a path forward in Bernie Sanders, but the Democratic Party kneecapped that...
- brohoolio 9y ago
  Hillary won by 3 million votes. I know it’s a republican / Russian talking point to keep pointing out this division.
  - detcader 9y ago
    Is Donna Brazile a Republican, RU operative, or both?

dboreham 9y ago

Imagining people in meeting rooms at law firms discussing if they can go back to paper-only workflow... Also, this I guess confirms the policy I heard from several heads of accounting depts in the 90's that they did not want their computers connected to the Internet..

gcb0 9y ago
dont have to go that far, or that up. head of IT for a french firm that does business over here had to contract with some small company for a invoice system because the regional manager claimed the centra one from HQ didnt accommodate the local laws. it was a lie, because the other vendor has even less compliance. nobody but the regional manager has any idea of the real reasons. but I bet its not in the interests of the company, or tax compliance.

allenz 9y ago

The leak shows substantial Russian cash going to US commerce secretary Wilbur Ross; Twitter and Facebook; and Arsenal and Everton. It also shows the usual tax avoidance by powerful people including Lord Ashcroft and Trudeau financier Stephen Bronfman.

BatFastard 9y ago
What will it take for people to say NO MORE
- wallace_f 9y ago
  Hope this makes people see the collusion of the global elite.
- heurist 9y ago
  It's starting but to truly take that stand generally requires major life changes, and those changes take time to come into fruition if they happen at all. I'm trying to save enough money to escape the rat race and build technology and organizations that at least I think could help level the political playing field, but unexpected expenses come up and savings seem to move less than they should.

angersock 9y ago

So, what's the hivemind spin on Apple aggressively dodging taxes? How're we defending that again?

loeg 9y ago
Come on. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html > Avoid unrelated controversies and generic tangents.
- angersock 9y ago
  You didn't answer my question. Anything of the form "Apple is doing it for <x,y,z> reasons" or "Apple is not doing it as documented at <x,y,z>" is acceptable. "but muh hackernews rules" is not an answer. Also, it's a pretty specific tangent that coincides with the original submission about people hiding and hoarding wealth. So, again, try answering the question instead of downvoting and invoking rules that (frankly) don't show what you think they show here.

charlesdm 9y ago

Honestly, nothing new. Does anyone still care? Action is being taken on an international level to combat avoidance, but it takes time. These types of offshore vehicles offer privacy and serve various specific purposes (e.g. tax transparent international investing). Yes, they can be used for illegal purposes (sometimes), but frankly that seems like the minority to me. What worries me a bit though, is the fact that heaps of confidential information is just thrown online, without significant filtering. Even completely legal situations are published, but since the average joe has no understanding of tax law, he'll assume these people are doing illegal things. Attorney-Client privilege?

tomohawk 9y ago
Welcome to the Soros funded news cycle. Use whatever means necessary to destroy your political opponents. Besides the points you raise, how do we know the info being made available hasn't been filtered to avoid friendly fire? There isn't a nickel's worth of difference between most of the elites, but Soros funding of these sorts of things is usually self serving.
- charlesdm 9y ago
  Soros his communication and corporate structures were leaked as well. Not sure that was the intent, but he's had offshore vehicles since the 60s: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_Group_of_Funds https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_Group_of_Funds
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
UweSchmidt 9y ago
I knew I'd see a comment such like this when I clicked on the comments: "Nothing to see here, move along..."
- charlesdm 9y ago
  It's fun to go through this to see how people are structuring their business, but most people respect the tax laws of the country they're living in. And if they're not breaking any laws, this honestly shouldn't be publicized. In the same way I don't think your personal income should be made public for the whole world to see.

wu-ikkyu 9y ago

It's funny how the people of Russia and the US are framed as being such great enemies when in reality many of the rulers of both countries have more common interests with each other than they do with the citizens of their own nations.

geofft 9y ago
We have always been at war with Eurasia^WEastasia.
danharaj 9y ago
It's not an accident.
- wallace_f 9y ago
  Putin's utility function maximization calculus is clearly benefited from undermining his own people, and there is a lot of evidence to support that. The US plutocracy is no different. Also a lot of evidence: the actions of the NSA, CIA, War on Drugs, police militarizarion, military-industrial-congressional-complex... All cannot be explained otherwise. I think in the US, they're just a lot more clever at it. However cooky it might seem, there is some evidence coming out that extremist rallies have been organized by unknown powers, possibly sometimes Russian. A lot of the racial tension is probably not by accident. I saw this on the reddit conspiracy sub, and frankly I think it's a good point to be made: https://i.redd.it/lgdyy6dpjyfz.jpg https://i.redd.it/lgdyy6dpjyfz.jpg
  - Clubber 9y ago
    >A lot of the racial tension is probably not by accident. It absolutely is not by accident, not most of it. There are a lot of interests that make money keeping racial tensions high. News outlets are one. Bacon's Rebellion is a very significant historical event that happened in 1676 that still gets taught and still has an effect. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacon%27s_Rebellion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacon%27s_Rebellion The alliance between indentured servants and Africans (most enslaved until death or freed), united by their bond-servitude, disturbed the ruling class, who responded by hardening the racial caste of slavery in an attempt to divide the two races from subsequent united uprisings with the passage of the Virginia Slave Codes of 1705. Indentured servants both black and white joined the frontier rebellion. Seeing them united in a cause alarmed the ruling class, historians believe the rebellion hastened the hardening of racial lines associated with slavery, as a way for planters and the colony to control some of the poor. The reason the ruling class is allowed to rule (today and through history) was because the underclass was divided. Kings would keep nobility fighting with each other and not the kings. The US racial divide is an implementation of the same thing. If poor blacks and poor whites constantly bicker (and worse) at each other, they certainly aren't bickering with the powers that be. Divide and conquer. One of the oldest strategies in the book. Hell, look at what the Hippies were able to do as far as civil unrest with the government in the late 60s. Hippies weren't known to be racist, infact the opposite. That certainly wouldn't do. Enter the drug war.

mrleiter 9y ago

It's the wrong angle. One should not look at corporations as the moral saviours. As Supreme Court Judge Learned Hand once said: "Over and over again courts have said that there is nothing 851*851 sinister in so arranging one's affairs as to keep taxes as low as possible. Everybody does so, rich or poor; and all do right, for nobody owes any public duty to pay more than the law demands: taxes are enforced exactions, not voluntary contributions. To demand more in the name of morals is mere cant."[1] Rather, it is the governments of the world we should be going at if we want this behaviour to change. But then again, it is always easier to find a fat scapegoat with a shiny appearance. [1]https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=6284821606579578514 https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=628482160657957... (last paragraph)

Parcissons 9y ago
That fat scape-goat basically has made a market of law- where the lowest bidder wins the company of the scape-goat. Companys are the new governments. Deal with it.
mjw1007 9y ago
I suppose it's easier to pressure governments to change what's going on when we have journalists willing to tell us what's going on. When it comes to reporting information obtained from "secrecy jurisdictions", I think a standard of "if it's not illegal to report, it's OK to report" is reasonable. After all, that's the same standard you're advocating for managing your tax affairs.
- pohl 9y ago
  Wasn’t the reporter behind the Panama Papers killed by a car bomb?
  - dredmorbius 9y ago
    s/the/a/ Panama Papers and the ICIJ are a very large effort. But yes, a Maltese reporter, Daphne Caruana Galizia, who worked on Panama Papers (about 80 reporters in total) was assassinated by car bomb in Malta last month. ICIJ are now over 200 journalists. https://www.icij.org/blog/2017/10/investigative-malta-journalist-killed-bomb-blast/ https://www.icij.org/blog/2017/10/investigative-malta-journa...

hhtoyou 9y ago

Thanks !

killjoywashere 9y ago

You're all missing the extremely immediate issue for YCombinator: Yuri Milner's money is from Russian oligarchs. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15631084 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15631084

hacker_9 9y ago

So how bad is this exactly? I'm all for equality, but the world is built on the game known as capitalism, and this stuff exists because people optimise their playing strategy. I know the starting conditions can be unfair, but we kinda need people at the top to make the whole thing work. If the world runs on money, then there will always be a poorer place that wants to attract the rich, and so havens are born. Let's not forget the rich spend a lot of money in their own country too, which is an essential part of a thriving economy.

confounded 9y ago
> this stuff exists because people optimise their playing strategy. There any a great many reasons why it’s important to know what the latest strategies are. Few of the people concerned here are passive capitalists looking for ROI. Even if they were, politics is ultimately a contest over resources. Information is power.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
killjoywashere 9y ago
The havens are not the issue. The fact that YCombinator start-ups are funded by Russian oligarchs (via Milner) is an issue. The fact the the US Commerce Secretary is in business with Putin's family is an issue. The fact that Facebook and Twitter are funded by Russian oligarchs (again, via Milner) is an issue. There are a lot of issues here. These oligarchs have no problem killing people wholesale. You want to give them a positive ROI on their investment? WTF?
- charlesdm 9y ago
  I'm pretty sure plenty of people wouldn't care. If someone offers you $100m for your business today (Ford), and a Russian company offered you $300m (Gazprom) -- guess which one most would sell to? Facebook might not like it now, but at the time, you could be quite certain they didn't care.
  - 9y ago

NN88 9y ago

The Facebook and Twitter ties to Gazprom and VTB need to be investigated. ASAP.

Proven 9y ago

Lol.. who gives a crap. The first batch did nothing. You are all state slaves.

alekseypo 9y ago

On one end of the scale the benefit of transparency and on the other the inevitable subversion of these types of info dumps in the future, as a way to manipulate public opinion...

return0 9y ago

Its not clear what "secrets" they have revealed. Appleby seems to be an "advising company", so presumably no Trust data have been exposed. We might as well be looking at something we knew to be public all along. Is this really serious?

patall 9y ago
Example: If the british monarch exploits her very poorest subjects by promoting ill-adviced (vacuum cleaner) loans, that is a 'secret' that has been uncovered. And in a normal political environment the queen should step down or at least donate most of the involved trusts money to the people hurt by it.

noobermin 9y ago

Since there are no top level comments putting this out for probably obvious reasons, here is a supportive comment for the article. This is what people feel in their guts when they drive out on tattered roads and avoid going to the hospital even though they are sick, when they don't have a real increase in wages but are working longer hours. They have the sense that something isn't right, that there are two sets of rules and they got the shaft when it comes to that. Where police forces are cashstrapped and turn to civil forfeitures and ticket quotas while they see famous celebrities and politicians get off for things magnitudes more illegal than what they've done, whether it's smoking a joint or driving while black. People already have a sense that things aren't fair. There's a reason why tax reform is polling so poorly. There's a reason why most of the country thinks taxes should be higher on the wealthy and corporations. They have a feeling that they are not seeing the rise of productivity in their own life, and they want justice. My SO lives in SG. She is lower middle class (going to school, father works in a factory) and I asked her about income inequality, for there it's quite extreme. She says it's not that bad because people there have a reasonable standard of living; they can go to school, they can go to the doctor, they have access to affordable food, etc. Income inequality I think isn't a bad thing as long as the poorest among us have some basic level of livelihood. The problem is that in the US, that isn't true, and so, people clamor for justice.

thecrazyone 9y ago
I empathize with your condition and your thoughts. However, the problem is not the rich. This is a classic case of [tall poppy syndrome](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tall_poppy_syndrome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tall_poppy_syndrome). There indeed are a two sets (or multiple striated on your lobbying power) of rules. The rich lobby to get exceptions, we don't 'cause we can't (afford it). TL;DR It's the government which is to blame here for the rich stashing their wealth in tax havens rather than deploying them productively in the economy. Details: - The rich don't like stashing their wealth in tax havens. I'm not rich myself to have first hand experience, but let's logically think this through. - If you've capital, you want it deployed and earning money for you. And you'll choose the best risk adjusted ROI you can get (you'll be especially rational about this if you have the means to hire consultants like the rich do). - Therefore, we can reach the poignant conclusion that stashing it away in tax havens, which in fact costs money to do, is the best option you've. There is a lot of cost involved even if you want to re-route money to invest it via tax havens - 1) Risk of government(s) confiscating your money 2) Cost of setting up and operating complicated corporate structures. - Taxation is theft. Pretty radical, but please humor me and read through. This is not even an original idea, this is a common notion in libertarian circles (eg: https://mises.org/blog/taxation-isnt-only-theft-its-destruction https://mises.org/blog/taxation-isnt-only-theft-its-destruct...). Let me share a few points why: - Why #1: Government is a bad monopoly. The ditches on the road you referenced, is because you can't stop paying govt for doing a bad job on roads and enlist an alternative vendor. The reason why it's _bad_ is because it's forced upon you - you cannot stop paying taxes to enlist someone else to make your roads better, you'll be put in jail. Google is a good monopoly, because we all voluntarily use google. If something better comes around, you can use it and google wouldn't (shouldn't) force you to use theirs. They can persuade, but not force. - Why #2: Government (policy makers) are humans. They put their self interest above yours (just like you do) and make bad public policy as a result. Paying them money (tax) blindly is silly. - Why #3: Government (policy makers) don't understand (or perhaps deliberately mislead everyone on) economics. We still think public roads are good, public healthcare is good, public police, public (fiat) money, rent control, import tariffs, export controls and more are all good. They are all patently bad for reasons which you can google out. This distortion is a wealth destroyer and distorts & cripples the economy. Paying them money (tax) when the policies don't benefit you is insane. ## Conclusion: There is an alternative system to government which works - privatize everything a.k.a Free Markets. This is also known by the rather dire name "Anarcho Capitalism" (please don't go by the bad connotations of the name). Why use free markets: - Why #1: They're ethically, morally superior to government. All transactions in an economy are voluntary and involve no force. Force is immoral, and unethical. Every action that government does implies force - if you don't pay taxes, you get jailed => force; etc. - Why #2: Good monopolies. Everyone competes to be a monopoly by providing the best service at the lowest cost, which is a benefit to society, if they don't, you can choose an alternative. Note: Monopoly here rarely means the strict definition of just one compnay providing a good, there are usually alternatives. Edit - formatting

tomkat0789 9y ago

These leaks are juicy and all, but have our oligarchs had to change anything as a result of them? What were the big effects of the Panama Papers?

brown9-2 9y ago
The biggest thing I can think of is the Prime Minister of Iceland resigning.
- wallace_f 9y ago
  Wasnt SK's record-breaking protests an indirect result of the Panama Papers?
  - ionised 9y ago
    No, their civil unrest was due to an issue with their president being under the thrall of a cult figure and the corruption between government and various Chaebols. There may have been some South Koreans mentioned in the Panama Papers, but their protests started way before those leaks dropped.
fragmede 9y ago
No, it didn't cause a Fight Club/Mr. Robot-style overnight collapse of capitalism, but it did force a number of politicians and business people in a number of different countries to step down and face fines. Pakistan in particular disqualified their Prime Minister, in what was called a "defining moment" for the country. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reactions_to_the_Panama_Papers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reactions_to_the_Panama_Papers
- fjsolwmv 9y ago
  So, a few scapegoats got turned out, an business as usual continued.
patall 9y ago
I do not quite understand what you want to tell us with such a comment? So what? If injustice is done, but we were not able fix it the last time it was brought up, we should just let it be? (And honestly, I am also surprised that something like this shows up on hackernews. (In 2007:) Why does Apple come up with a touch screen mobile phone, those did not make profit the last time they come up. (Early 2010s:) Why does Musk invent an electric car, those things disappeared after the 20s for a reason.)

stanislavb 9y ago

I like how they are using neo4j to untangle the relationships...

nickthemagicman 9y ago

My parents always taught me to be honest and care about those around you. The older I got the more I realized that was mal-adaptive behavior in capitalistic society. The real goal of capitalism is exploit or be exploited.

cobookman 9y ago
It's possible to do both. Look at the kibbutzim of Israel. Many after 50ish years have > 1mil/resident in assets. Many are a communist society with bad actors kicked out. and sell their goods in a capitalistic way. So you get the best of communism and capitalism. It doesn't scale for everyone but it's a good in between.
nickysielicki 9y ago
You're posting on a website of a venture capital group.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
forapurpose 9y ago
If we say, 'others are doing wrong; therefore I must do the same in order to compete', then we always will do wrong because there always will be people like that out there. If we say 'this system can be gamed by people willing to do bad things, therefore I must do them or I'm at a disadvantage', then we always will do bad things - every system is vulnerable.
icelancer 9y ago
> The real goal of capitalism is exploit or be exploited. The real goal of capitalism is to increase the amount of capital available. This fundamentally is not possible via exploitation alone. Capitalism - nor the economy - is not a zero-sum game. This type of simplistic thinking makes people dismiss real criticisms over the real-world implementation of American capitalism.
- 9y ago

haaen 9y ago

Comment from economist Tyler Cowen when the same group of journalists released the Panama papers: Was it wrong to hack and leak the Panama Papers? Let’s say a group of criminal defense lawyers kept a database of their confidential conversations with their clients. That would include clients charged with murder, robbery, DUI, drug abuse, and so on. In turn, a hacker would break into that database and post the information from those conversations on Wikileaks. Of course a lot of those conversations would appear to be incriminating because — let’s face it — most of the people who require defense attorneys on criminal charges are in fact guilty. When asked why the hack was committed, the hacker would say “Most of those people are guilty. I want to make sure they do not escape punishment.” How many of us would approve of that behavior? Keep in mind the hacker is spreading the information not only to prosecutors but to the entire world, and outside of any process sanctioned by the rule of law. The hacker is not backed by the serving of any criminal charges or judge-served warrants. Yet somehow many of us approve when the victims are wealthy and higher status, as is the case with the Panama Papers. Furthermore most of those individuals probably did nothing illegal, but rather they were trying to minimize their tax burden through (mostly) legal shell corporations. Admittedly, very often the underlying tax laws should be changed, just as we should repeal the deduction for mortgage interest too. But in the meantime we are not justified in stealing information about those people, even if some of them are evil and powerful, as is indeed the case for homeowners too. Once again, politics isn’t about policy, it is about which groups should rise and fall in relative status. And many people believe the wealthy should fall in status, and so they will entertain the morality of all crimes and threats against them. These revelations will of course lead to some subsequent cases of blackmail, against Chinese officials for one group. I had tweeted “Are your views on privacy and #PanamaPapers consistent? Just asking…” and my goodness what a response, positive and negative. Most interesting of all, many people had never pondered the question before. Somehow “good things” such as “privacy” and “transparency” cannot stand in such conflict because all good things, like all bad things, must come together. (...) http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2016/04/the-morality-of-panama-papers.html http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2016/04/the...

natural219 9y ago
Excuse me while a shed a single tear for the world's uberrich.

dmitriid 9y ago

Remember Panama papers? The outcome of those was..? Nothing? Or close to nothing? The same will happen to Paradise Papers. There will be a "public outcry", there will be multiple opinion pieces, someone will create a nice website to show you cool infographics based on data. A year from now everyone will forget about this ever happening. Which is a shame.

Synaesthesia 9y ago
It's up to us to make a change.

pera 9y ago

Appleby claims these documents were obtained during a security incident last year: https://www.applebyglobal.com/news/news-2017/media-coverage-of-the-offshore-sector.aspx https://www.applebyglobal.com/news/news-2017/media-coverage-...

nevi-me 9y ago

Are there any downloadable documents one could sift through? I'm interested in finding which individuals and politicians in my home country are implicated; this coming a at a time where our sitting president is guilty of fraud, racketeering, corruption, tax evasion (hasn't submitted a tax return since 1995). Civil society and citizens are working behind the scenes to put pressure on the remaining good people in the system. This information could help. Thanks.

croatoan 9y ago

What a crock of shit. Hilary Clinton, John Podesta, and Robert Mueller knowingly sold 20% of Americas HIGHLY ENRICHED URANIUM to Russia and Barack Obama knew about it. Its high treason that would have gotten each and every one of them executed just 30 years ago, but now the msm and the shills want to still say trump is tied to Russia. Trump before the campaign has almost zero ties to Russia, and even if he did it's not illegal for a real-estate mogul to have ties with Russia. Trump after starting his campaign has had zero ties with Russia. ZERO. Comey,McCabe,Clapper,Brennon,Yates,Nunes,Fienstien,Schiff,Burr, and even Maxine "dead horse" Waters have stated on record multiple times, "There is absolutely no evidence of Russian collision with the trump campaign during the election." That's 2 FBI directors, a director of national intelligence, a CIA director, an assistant attorney general, 2 highest ranking senators on senate intel committee, 2 highest ranking congressman on house intel committee, and a dead horse all saying no Russian collusion. Multiple CNN executives have said (hidden camera) that the entire Russian collusion that they pushed for 7-8 months is 100% a nothing burger. Wikileaks emails show that the dnc used the Russian collusion narrative as a smokescreen since day fucking 1. Seymour hersh, one of the most respected multi-pultzer prize winning journalists confirmed it was Seth rich, not Russia that gave Wikileaks the emails of the dnc. Julian Assange, the creator of wikileaks hinted at seth rich being the source for dnc leaks on many different occasions. Kimdotcom has evidence seth rich was the source of the dnc leaks through his supposed contact with seth before the dnc killed him. IT specialists mathematically proved that the dnc leaks could have only been downloaded through a USB connection, and that it was mathematically impossible for Russia to have hacked and downloaded the dnc leaks with current tech. Trump and Russia collusion is a complete and utter lie. Enough is a fucking enough, how long are shills gonna protect the lying scumbags from the fbi (mueller, comey, mccabe), the clinton crime family, and the podesta crime family?

NN88 9y ago

FYI HN: Jeffery Carr wrote about Milner's ties to the FSB/KGB in 2011 http://archive.li/2Lv1b#selection-549.14-549.39 http://archive.li/2Lv1b#selection-549.14-549.39 ...and got fired from Forbes Magazine for writing about it... https://twitter.com/JamesFourM/status/915361529012289536 https://twitter.com/JamesFourM/status/915361529012289536 Theres certainly a major back story here.

stevenwoo 9y ago
There are 95 news organizations sharing the 13.4 million documents so it would be hard for anyone to hide it now.

jorblumesea 9y ago

Trump was one of the dirtiest candidates in history. How a rich oligarch billionaire got elected as a blue collar populist is one for the history books. These scandals will haunt him for the rest of his political career, as it's just so easy to dig up dirt on him. Almost every business deal in his past has been marred by some kind of controversy. The man is a walking scandal magnet.

libpcap 9y ago

How do we get a piece of that pie? In other words, how do we play the same game? How do we put our money offshore like them?

baki 9y ago

The Trump foundation sold 20% of US uranium assets and earned 145 million dollar on it. The Russians passed it on to the very peaceful Iranians, who are don't building nuclear warheads and ballistic missles. Trum ordered a fake damning dossier on Hillary Clinton from the Russians... etc... etc... etc

baki 9y ago

Ridiculous

daveheq 9y ago

I always wonder about the timing of these releases... Are they really released as soon as possible after they're found, or just piecemeal when it's revealers find it most politically convenient?

Pffffffff 9y ago

The way the icij acts, is like 4chan with the Adult Friend Finder dumper.

jMrL 9y ago