Showing posts with label Panama Papers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Panama Papers. Show all posts

Thursday, January 31, 2019

An angry historian ripped the ultrarich over tax avoidance at Davos. Then one was given the mic.; The Washington Post, January 31, 2019

Eli Rosenberg, The Washington Post; An angry historian ripped the ultrarich over tax avoidance at Davos. Then one was given the mic.

"Rutger Bregman, a Dutch historian and author who studies poverty and global inequality, had a first this year: being invited to the world’s most prominent gathering of wealthy people — the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Switzerland — as a speaker...

[Bregman]...decided to say something during the panel discussion about income inequality he was on, hosted by Time magazine on Friday. He started by saying that he found the conference’s mix of indulgence and global problem-solving a bit bewildering.

“I mean 1,500 private jets have flown in here to hear Sir David Attenborough speak about how we’re wrecking the planet," he said. "I hear people talking the language of participation and justice and equality and transparency. But then almost no one raises the real issue of tax avoidance. And of the rich just not paying their fair share. It feels like I’m at a firefighters conference and no one is allowed to speak about water.

“This is not rocket science,” he said. “We can talk for a very long time about all these stupid philanthropy schemes, we can invite Bono once more, but, come on, we got to be talking about taxes. That’s it. Taxes, taxes, taxes — all the rest is bulls---, in my opinion.”

Saturday, April 16, 2016

Panama Papers: inside the Guardian's investigation into offshore secrets; Guardian, 4/16/16

Juliette Garside, Guardian; Panama Papers: inside the Guardian's investigation into offshore secrets:
"The security guard handed over a key with a small yellow label. The Guardian’s secure room had housed the team that in 2013 worked through data leaked by Edward Snowden to expose unchecked surveillance by British and American spy agencies.
Now it was to be home to a small group of journalists gathered from all corners of the newsroom to work on a project code-named Prometheus. Our investigation into the murky world of tax havens, underpinned by the biggest leak in history, would eventually surface eight months later with the publication of the Panama Papers."

Monday, April 11, 2016

Panama Papers Leak Signals a Shift in Mainstream Journalism; New York Times, 4/10/16

Jim Rutenberg, New York Times; Panama Papers Leak Signals a Shift in Mainstream Journalism:
"But the leak signaled something else that was a big deal but went unheralded: The official WikiLeaks-ization of mainstream journalism; the next step in the tentative merger between the Fourth Estate, with its relatively restrained conventional journalists, and the Fifth Estate, with the push-the-limits ethos of its blogger, hacker and journo-activist cohort, in the era of gargantuan data breaches.
Back at the dawn of this new, Big Breach journalism, The Times’s then-executive editor, Bill Keller, wondered aloud in the paper’s Sunday magazine whether “The War Logs,” a huge cache of confidential war records and diplomatic cables published by WikiLeaks in conjunction with The Times, Der Spiegel, The Guardian and others, represented “some kind of cosmic triumph of transparency.” He concluded, “I suspect we have not reached a state of information anarchy, at least not yet.” That was in 2011.
Five years later, it is safe to say that we are getting much closer. This is changing the course of world history, fast. It is also changing the rules for mainstream journalists in the fierce business of unearthing secrets, and for the government and corporate officials in the fiercer business of keeping them."

Wednesday, April 6, 2016

Panama Papers reveal offshore secrets of China’s red nobility; Guardian, 4/6/16

Juliette Garside and David Pegg, Guardian; Panama Papers reveal offshore secrets of China’s red nobility:
"Since Monday, China’s censors have been blocking access to the unfolding revelations about its most senior political families. There are now reports of censors deleting hundreds of posts on the social networks Sina Weibo and Wechat, and some media organisations including CNN say parts of their websites have been blocked."

“A remarkable feat of collaboration”: The incredible story of how the Panama Papers came to be; The Conversation via Salon, 4/6/16

Richard Sambrook, The Conversation via Salon; “A remarkable feat of collaboration”: The incredible story of how the Panama Papers came to be:
"The ICIJ has been criticised by some on social media for not putting all the material into the open for anyone to look through. For open media evangelists this would be the most transparent action to take. However, with such a huge trove of documents, any media organisation will want to ensure they act legally and responsibly – putting the material through an editorial and legal filter before publishing.
This is one of the defining differences between professional media and open data activists. In broad terms these are literally stolen documents – can news organisations justify publishing them in the greater public interest? Will undue harm to innocent figures be caused by open publication? The public interest seems clear in this case – but without knowing what else the documents contain it is hard to make a judgement about whether they should all be placed online.
The Panama Papers – like The Pentagon Papers in the 1970s, like Wikileaks Iraq War logs and like the Snowden revelations – lifts the lid on the activities of political and business elites in ways which will be discussed for many years to come.
They are also a rich example of how investigative journalism increasingly works in the age of big data and global media. We can expect to see more leaks, more international media collaborations and more reaction from governments trying to clamp down on embarrassing revelations."

The Panama Papers’ Sprawling Web of Corruption; New York Times, 4/5/16

Editorial Board, New York Times; The Panama Papers’ Sprawling Web of Corruption:
"The first reaction to the leaked documents dubbed the Panama Papers is simply awe at the scope of the trove and the ingenuity of the anonymous source who provided the press with 11.5 million documents — 2.6 terabytes of data — revealing in extraordinary detail how offshore bank accounts and tax havens are used by the world’s rich and powerful to conceal their wealth or avoid taxes.
Then comes the disgust. With more than 14,000 clients around the world and more than 214,000 offshore entities involved, Mossack Fonseca, the Panama-based law firm whose internal documents were exposed, piously insists it violated no laws or ethics. But the questions remain: How did all these politicians, dictators, criminals, billionaires and celebrities amass vast wealth and then benefit from elaborate webs of shell companies to disguise their identities and their assets? Would there have been no reckoning had the leak not occurred?
And then the core question: After these revelations, will anything change? Many formal denials and pledges of official investigations have been made. But to what degree do the law and public shaming still have dominion over this global elite? A public scarred by repeated revelations of corruption in government, sports and finance will demand to know."

Tuesday, April 5, 2016

Obama calls for international tax reform amid Panama Papers revelations; Guardian, 4/5/16

Rupert Neate and David Smith, Guardian; Obama calls for international tax reform amid Panama Papers revelations:
"Barack Obama has called for international tax reform in the wake of the revelations contained in the Panama Papers.
“There is no doubt that the problem of global tax avoidance generally is a huge problem,” he told reporters at the White House on Tuesday. “The problem is that a lot of this stuff is legal, not illegal.”
The US president said the leak from Panama illustrated the scale of tax avoidance involving Fortune 500 companies and running into trillions of dollars worldwide.
“We shouldn’t make it legal to engage in transactions just to avoid taxes,” he added, praising instead “the basic principle of making sure everyone pays their fair share”.
Obama described the Panama revelations as “important stuff” and highlighted the impact upon ordinary citizens, adding that “a lot of these loopholes come at the expense of middle-class families, because that lost revenue has to be made up somewhere.
“Alternatively, it means that we’re not investing as much as we should in schools, in making college more affordable, in putting people back to work rebuilding our roads, our bridges, our infrastructure, creating more opportunities for our children.”"

What are the Panama Papers? A guide to history's biggest data leak; Guardian, 4/5/16

Luke Harding, Guardian; What are the Panama Papers? A guide to history's biggest data leak:
"The Panama Papers are an unprecedented leak of 11.5m files from the database of the world’s fourth biggest offshore law firm, Mossack Fonseca. The records were obtained from an anonymous source by the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung, which shared them with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ). The ICIJ then shared them with a large network of international partners, including the Guardian and the BBC.
What do they reveal?
The documents show the myriad ways in which the rich can exploit secretive offshore tax regimes. Twelve national leaders are among 143 politicians, their families and close associates from around the world known to have been using offshore tax havens."

Unpacking The Panama Papers; NPR, On Point, 4/5/16

[Podcast 45 min. 48 sec.] Tom Ashbrook, NPR, On Point; Unpacking The Panama Papers:
"A massive leak of more than 11 million documents reveals a global web of corruption and tax hidden wealth. What we’re learning about the Panama Papers.
Everybody’s talking about the Panama Papers. The biggest leak of financial data in history, and it’s all about the shadowy world of hidden offshore money. Wealth. Terabytes of data lighting up the hidden finances of presidents and prime ministers. Celebrities. Soccer stars. FIFA. A cellist who is the best friend of Vladimir Putin and two billion offshore dollars. The prime minister of Iceland has resigned. This hour On Point, hidden wealth, and the story told by the Panama Papers."