ICIJ releases THE PARADISE PAPERS

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ICIJ releases THE PARADISE PAPERS

Postby seemslikeadream » Sun Nov 05, 2017 2:17 pm

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International Consortium of Investigative Journalists
INVESTIGATIONS
>
PARADISE PAPERS

NOVEMBER 5, 2017
REPORTING BY

Hamish Boland-Rudder
Paradise Papers

ICIJ releases The Paradise Papers
The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists today releases The Paradise Papers, a global investigation that reveals the offshore activities of some of the world’s most powerful people and companies.

ICIJ and 95 media partners explored 13.4 million leaked files from a combination of leaked files of offshore law firms and the company registries in some of the world’s most secretive countries.

The files were obtained by the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung, and shared with ICIJ.

The Paradise Papers documents include nearly 7 million loan agreements, financial statements, emails, trust deeds and other paperwork over nearly 50 years from inside Appleby, a prestigious offshore law firm with offices in Bermuda and beyond.

The leaked documents include files from the smaller, family-owned trust company, Asiaciti, and from company registries in 19 secrecy jurisdictions.

The Paradise Papers reveal offshore interests and activities of more than 120 politicians and world leaders, including Queen Elizabeth II whose private estate indirectly invested in a rent-to-own loan company accused of predatory tactics. At least 13 allies, major donors and Cabinet members of U.S. President Donald J. Trump appear, including Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross’s interests in a shipping company that makes millions from an energy firm whose owners include Russian President Vladimir Putin’s son-in-law and a sanctioned Russian tycoon.

The leaked files from Appleby, the offshore law firm, include details of tax planning by nearly 100 multinational corporations, including Apple, Nike and Uber.

ICIJ and its media partners will be publishing multiple stories in the coming days and weeks, including:

On Monday afternoon, stories on strategies used by multinational corporations to shift profits to low-tax jurisdictions; and a look into the world of private jets and yachts registered by wealthy owners in offshore tax havens;

On Tuesday afternoon, stories that look behind the huge offshore trust funds held by rich and powerful people; how prominent political donors in the U.S. make use of offshore financial structures; and reporting on tax haven shopping sprees by multinational companies in Africa and Asia that use shell companies in Mauritius;
And more to come on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and into the next week.

ICIJ will also release the structured data connected to the Paradise Papers investigation in the coming weeks on its Offshore Leaks Database.

In the meantime, you can explore the offshore connections of some of the politicians and their associates in the Paradise Papers through our Power Players interactive, and also the offshore connections of 13 of Trump’s allies, major donors and Cabinet members through our Influencers interactive.
https://www.icij.org/blog/2017/790/icij ... se-papers/


Paradise Papers: Tax haven secrets of ultra-rich exposed
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-41876942


What is the leak and who is behind the firm Appleby?
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-11-06/w ... by/9075640


The Paradise Papers: Massive New Leak Links Russia and a Trump Cabinet Member
Trove of 13.4 million leaked documents exposes U.S. Commerce Secretary's ties to a company partly owned by Putin; Trudeau's top fundraiser also seen to have ties to Russian busineses
https://www.haaretz.com/us-news/1.821174


Paradise Papers: Who is in control of Everton?
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-41878954


Paradise Papers: Kremlin-owned firms linked to Facebook, Twitter investments
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https://www.irishtimes.com/business/par ... -1.3280789


Paradise Papers: The Influencers

November 05, 2017

The Paradise Papers leak details the offshore activities of 13 advisers, donors and members of President Donald J. Trump’s administration, including Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross’s interests in a shipping company that makes millions of dollars from an energy firm whose owners include Russian President Vladimir Putin’s son-in-law and a sanctioned Russian tycoon.

President Donald Trump vowed to fight the power of global elites and told voters he would put “America First.” But surrounding Trump are a number of close associates who have used offshore tax havens to conduct business.

There is nothing illegal about doing business offshore, but the offshore industry’s role in allowing tax avoidance and financial secrecy has generated significant public interest.

Each of these Influencers, featured in this interactive graphic created by ICIJ’s journalists, artist Rocco Fazzari and Alvaro Ortiz’s Populate firm, has appeared in the leaked Paradise Papers files, either personally or through a related company.

The Pulitzer Center partnered with ICIJ to fund this interactive and an animated video explainer on how the offshore accounts are used to shield profits from taxation. The Center is also working with ICIJ on educational curricular materials to take this important project out to our network of schools and universities.
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Last edited by seemslikeadream on Sun Nov 05, 2017 3:26 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Mazars and Deutsche Bank could have ended this nightmare before it started.
They could still get him out of office.
But instead, they want mass death.
Don’t forget that.
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Re: PARADISE PAPERS

Postby NaturalMystik » Sun Nov 05, 2017 3:01 pm

Maybe it's just a slow news cycle, but this story seems to be moving with great speed and momentum... Is this the next wikileaks or bigger even? Seems significant.

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Re: ICIJ releases THE PARADISE PAPERS

Postby Wombaticus Rex » Sun Nov 05, 2017 3:56 pm

This is such a well-timed masterstroke of delivery and timing, I can't help but think: "There's probably going to be another mass shooting tonight."

Let us pray this makes the monday morning news cycle, it's dynamite stuff.
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Re: ICIJ releases THE PARADISE PAPERS

Postby seemslikeadream » Sun Nov 05, 2017 3:59 pm

They are reporting more Monday Tuesday and for weeks to come ...plenty of time for more mass shootings


yes the tv was covering the PAPERS but now they are all mass shooting ...they will get back to Wilbur tomorrow

Several Killed as Gunman Opens Fire in Texas Church: Official
A gunman opened fire at a church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, Sunday morning, killing several people and injuring at least 15, sources told NBC News.
A senior law enforcement source familiar with the investigation told NBC News at least 15 people were injured in the shooting and several people were killed.
Wilson County Commissioner Albert Gamez Jr. told NBC News that the town's sheriff told him a single gunman walked into First Baptist Church in the town and began shooting.
Law enforcement agents from the FBI and the ATF were heading to the scene Sunday, officials told NBC.
https://www.nbcdfw.com/news/national-in ... 91403.html



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Revealed: Justin Trudeau's close adviser helped move huge sums offshore
Stephen Bronfman, who played key role in Canadian PM’s rise, was involved in complex offshore web, leaked papers show

Ed Pilkington in New York
@edpilkington

Sunday 5 November 2017 13.00 EST Last modified on Sunday 5 November 2017 14.57 EST
The chief fundraiser and senior adviser to the Canadian prime minister, Justin Trudeau, who played a critical role in the rise to power of the charismatic politician, was involved in the movement of millions of dollars to offshore havens, the Paradise Papers reveal.

Stephen Bronfman, heir to the Seagram fortune, who was instrumental in Trudeau’s successful bid for the leadership of the Canadian Liberal party in 2013 and the premiership two years later, engaged through his family investment business in a complex web of entities in the US, Israel and the Cayman Islands. Multimillion-dollar cashflows between the three jurisdictions might legally have avoided taxes in the US, Canada and Israel.

The leaked documents unveil a close relationship between two wealthy families who collaborated to shift millions of dollars to the Cayman Islands. On one side were the Bronfman family, inheritors of the Seagram distillery fortune in Montreal.

On the other side was the Cayman Islands-based trust of Leo Kolber, a former Canadian senator and powerhouse within the Liberal party Trudeau now leads.

Accountants working for the families discussed the possibility of recasting interest owed by the Kolber trust to two US-based Bronfman funds as “services rendered”, on the basis that the loans were not “in substance (only in form)”. Tax experts say that such interest-free loans would generally be barred under US tax laws.

The disclosures are likely to generate political heat for the Canadian premier, who swept to power in October 2015 partly on his promise to tackle economic inequality and take on tax avoidance. Last year, Trudeau came under pressure in the fallout from the Panama Papers, the trove of leaked documents from the offshore law firm Mossack Fonseca, during which his family inheritance was scrutinised.

It is absolutely unacceptable that there be people not paying their fair share of taxes
Justin Trudeau

At that point Trudeau insisted his personal assets, which he put into a blind trust after he won his party’s leadership, were “completely transparent”. But he came under renewed pressure this year following a Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) investigation into a KPMG scheme to help wealthy Canadians move money to the low-tax Isle of Man.

“It is absolutely unacceptable that there be people not paying their fair share of taxes,” the Canadian prime minister said in March, pledging to do “a better job of going out and getting tax avoiders and tax frauders”.

The Paradise Papers put the spotlight once again on Trudeau’s record on tax fairness, only this time the focus falls within his inner circle. Specifically, on Bronfman, one of his closest advisers.

The two men are childhood friends who in recent years have revived their bond to assist Trudeau’s meteoric rise. Bronfman, 53, raised $2m for Trudeau’s leadership campaign and was was rewarded by being made the Liberal party’s chief fundraiser with a seat on its national executive.

Bronfman runs Claridge, the Montreal-based investment firm set up by his father, Charles Bronfman, to manage the vast wealth of the Seagram liquor empire, which came to prominence in the 1920s supplying the illicit alcohol trade during US prohibition. The distinctive Seagram Building in Manhattan, designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, still stands as a monument to the family’s status.


One of Claridge’s clients was the Cayman Islands-based trust of Kolber, Stephen Bronfman’s godfather and predecessor as chief fundraiser of the Liberal party who for decades was in charge of the Bronfman family’s investments. Kolber was appointed to the Canadian senate in 1983 by Pierre Trudeau, Justin’s father, towards the end of his stint as prime minister.

The tight triangle between Kolber, Bronfman and Trudeau was on display last December when a Liberal party fundraiser, at $1,500 a ticket, was held at Kolber’s Montreal home with Bronfman as co-host and Trudeau as its prize draw.

Confidential emails contained in the Paradise Papers reveal that links between the Bronfman and Kolber businesses were so close they were almost intertwined. In 1991, a Kolber family trust was set up in the Cayman Islands and Leo Kolber’s son Jonathan named as one of its beneficiaries.

The Bronfmans helped kickstart the Kolber trust with an injection of millions of dollars of funds, the leaked files show, including a $5.3m loan made by Stephen Bronfman personally in 1997. By then the trust was flush with almost $40m in assets.

From the beginning, the arrangement between the two families over the repayment of the Bronfman loans was unusual. A contract tied to a Charles Bronfman loan in 1991 of almost $10m said: “The loan shall bear interest at such rate as may be determined between the parties from time to time.”

In 2002, the Kolber trust took on an $8m debt to the Israeli offshoot of the Bronfman empire, Claridge Israel – an enterprise that, in a further sign of the close ties between the two families, Jonathan Kolber had helped set up and run after he relocated from Canada to Israel in 1991.

For reasons that are unclear but do not suggest anything unlawful, the Kolber trust debt was transferred from Claridge Israel to two other Bronfman entities. The entities, Charles Bronfman Trust and Charles R Bronfman Trust, were US-based and thus liable to pay US taxes on any interest accruing, which would be treated as income.

In October 2005, Jonathan Kolber fired off an 18-page fax from his business offices in Israel about the Cayman Islands trust of which he was beneficiary. He hand-wrote on the cover sheet: “CONFIDENTIAL!!”

One of the documents in the fax was an email that was sent to him from a financial adviser. It noted that as a result of the switch of the debt from Claridge Israel, the Kolber trust had paid the US-based Bronfman trusts about $40,000 in interest charges.

The email went on to say: “As there was never supposed to be interest paid on this debt in substance (only in form), the [Kolber trust] needs to be compensated by the Bronfman trusts for these cash outlays, in some manner to be agreed upon by both parties.”

A second email from the financial adviser contained in the fax gives details of the “manner” by which the interest issue might be resolved. It records that senior Bronfman officials told Kolber that they would “‘make you whole’ somehow”.

One idea floated in the email was to get Kolber to “invoice Claridge a fee for services rendered, equal to the interest which Claridge has charged to the [Kolber trust] on these loans”. The Kolber trust would then mark on its books the sums as receivable fees instead of describing them as they really were – reimbursement of the interest payments.

Experts consulted by news organizations investigating the Paradise Papers said both the US and Canadian tax authorities viewed no-interest loans as red flags for potential tax avoidance schemes. Grayson McCouch, a tax professor at the University of Florida, told CBC that in his view the US Internal Revenue Service (IRS) would probably want to interrogate the transactions.

“If it’s done to disguise or to reverse the purported interest payments, then it could look to an observer, particularly a revenue service, like evidence of fraudulent intent,” he said.

You can’t have interest-free loans between related parties
Reuven Avi-Yonah, University of Michigan
Steven Rosenthal, a senior fellow at the Tax Policy Center, told the Guardian that under US tax law any loan greater than $10,000 that charged no or below-market interest rates would be assumed by the authorities to bear imputed interest that would bring it up to applicable federal levels. “The lender must report it as taxable income and pay taxes on it,” he said.

The head of the international tax program at the University of Michigan, Reuven Avi-Yonah, told the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists that tax laws generally barred transactions that failed to report interest. “You can’t have interest-free loans between related parties,” he said.

Jonathan Kolber stressed to CBC that he had relocated his family’s trust from the Cayman Islands to Israel a few years ago following a change in Israeli tax law. “The trust declared Israeli status and we paid back taxes and whatever they asked for,” he said.

Kolber went on to deny any wrongdoing: “I’ve never broken any laws and this was all reported and so transparent, and is now an Israeli entity. This has all been declared and above board and properly handled with full transparency.”

Stephen Bronfman and Leo Kolber declined to comment.

A lawyer representing Jonathan Kolber and Bronfman father and son denied any improper activity on their part. He said: “None of the transactions or entities at issue were effected or established to evade or even avoid taxation. My clients have always acted properly and ethically, including fully complying with all applicable laws and requirements.”

The lawyer said that the Cayman Islands trust was set up because of volatility in Israel at the time. Kolber was not liable for tax in Canada under existing law given that he no longer lived there; nor was there any tax owing in his adoptive Israel.

The lawyer confirmed that Stephen Bronfman did make a $5.3m loan to the Kolber trust in 1997, but said it was repaid within five months.

Of the proposed reimbursement of interest from the two Bronfman trusts based in the US to the Kolber trust and the suggestion that it be portrayed as “services rendered”, the lawyer said: “No invoices were sent and nothing was paid.” He added that “non-interest-bearing loans by a US person do not violate US law”.

Trudeau was contacted at his official prime ministerial residence, 24 Sussex Drive, but chose not to respond.https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/n ... ise-papers
Mazars and Deutsche Bank could have ended this nightmare before it started.
They could still get him out of office.
But instead, they want mass death.
Don’t forget that.
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Re: ICIJ releases THE PARADISE PAPERS

Postby MacCruiskeen » Sun Nov 05, 2017 5:17 pm

The BBC have given it an XXL headline, accompanied by a big photo of Her Majesty The Quoon. Also an unusually frank description of what "Lord" Ashcroft is doing in that video. Is the Apocalypse at hand? Has the Beeb been hacked by the Communist Party of Cuba?
Tax haven secrets of ultra-rich exposed

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A huge new leak reveals how the wealthy and powerful, including the Queen's private estate, invest offshore.

3 hours ago UK

Video
Lord Ashcroft hides from questions
Are we taming offshore finance?
Revelations hit Trudeau fundraiser
Four years of finance leaks

http://www.bbc.com/news

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-41876942
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Re: ICIJ releases THE PARADISE PAPERS

Postby seemslikeadream » Mon Nov 06, 2017 10:17 am



Leaked documents reveal financial habits of the Queen and Trump officials
By Rick Noack November 6 at 7:05 AM

Among the most prominent included in the Paradise Papers financial leak was Queen Elizabeth II (Facundo Arrizabalaga /EPA-EFE)
A huge leak of financial documents revealed by a group of about 100 media organizations on Sunday, provided deep insights into some of the mechanisms used by top politicians or celebrities to escape paying taxes.

Offshore funds are often used to escape high taxes and their use is not necessarily illegal, though when they are being used by the same people who set those tax rates, it tends to raise eyebrows. The majority of the individuals featured in the leaks come from the U.S., followed by Britain.

What do the “Paradise Papers” reveal?

The concealing of the wealth of billionaires, politicians and at least one head of state in offshore accounts comes as a major embarrassment to the individuals included in the documents.

The material could also end up being used as evidence in investigations looking into links between members of the Trump administration and entities affiliated with the Russian government.

In Britain, the revelations could support accusations that the ruling Conservative Party indirectly benefited from some of the offshore tax haven funds it has publicly condemned, which could add to the mounting pressure on Prime Minister Theresa May who has struggled to deal with multiple scandals recently.

Among the individuals or groups who are named in the 13.4 million documents is Queen Elizabeth II, whose private estate invested over $12 million offshore, according to the reports. Other documents in the leak refer to Trump administration officials, an aide of Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau, a major donor of Britain’s Conservative party and a Russian oligarch.

Last year, the Panama Papers — revealed by the same consortium of journalists — exposed a number of companies, top officials, oligarchs and politicians that benefited from tax evasion. At the time, the Panama-based law firm Mossack Fonseca was being portrayed by law firm industry representatives as an outlier. The companies where most of the new leak’s documents originated from are generally considered to be industry leaders, however, which exposes the extent to which questionable practices may still be the norm rather than the exception.

Where do the documents come from?

The 1,400 GB of data were first leaked to German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung, which shared the documents with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. The consortium collaborates with hundreds of media partners around the world, who were subsequently involved in the research, including the New York Times and Britain’s Guardian.


About half of the leak’s documents are believed to have come from the Bermuda-based Appleby law firm, and corporate services provider Estera which recently became its own entity after having operated as a part of Appleby for years.

Appleby assists corporations or individuals with setting up companies offshore and is considered the world’s most important player in the field. Some of the documents date back to 1950, whereas others were modified as recently as last year.

Who are the individuals the documents refer to?

Queen Elizabeth II

Over $12 million of her private funds were invested offshore by the Duchy of Lancaster — a portfolio of assets which provides the Queen’s income. Although a private estate on the same name may be the most well known part of the portfolio, it also held funds in Bermuda and the Cayman Islands and invested in a company accused of shady lending practices.

Speaking to the BBC in response to the allegations, Chris Adcock, the chief finance officer of the estate defended the investments, saying: “The Duchy has only invested in highly regarded private equity funds following a strong recommendation from our investment consultants.”


U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross

The leaked documents reportedly show that U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross holds business investments in companies tied to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s inner circle, according to The Post's Carol Morello, who put the revelations into context:

“The documents leaked as the administration faces several investigations into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, including a probe by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III that brought its first indictments last week. The reports said Ross has maintained a financial interest through offshore investments in a shipping company called Navigator Holdings. One of the firm’s largest clients is the Russian energy firm Sibur, a huge gas processing and petrochemicals company.

Among the firm’s major stakeholders are Putin associate Gennady Timchenko, who individually is under U.S. sanctions, and Leonid Mikhelson, whom Forbes magazine lists as Russia’s richest man and whose company, Novatek, is under sanctions. Another shareholder in Sibur is Kirill Shamalov, who is married to Putin’s daughter. Neither Sibur nor Putin’s son-in-law are sanctioned.”

Yuri Milner, Facebook and Twitter

Separately, the leak also appeared to show that a Russian billionaire, Yuri Milner, bought shares in American tech companies Twitter and Facebook. The purchases of Twitter and Facebook shares came from Russia’s VTB Bank and the state-led Gazprom company which are both under U.S. sanctions. Milner has disputed that the two entities financed his purchases.

There is so far no evidence that shareholders have used their influence in Silicon Valley to undermine the U.S. electoral system but the revelations follow new concerns that ads and fake accounts were used to sway voters in the run-up to last November's U.S. elections.

Top U.S. administration advisers and officials

Other individuals directly or indirectly mentioned in the leaks include President Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner. A start-up company co-owned by Kushner and his brother received funding from Russian billionaire Milner in 2015.

The revelation is particularly relevant because Kushner later told the Senate Intelligence Committee that he had never “relied on” Russian money to finance his private business dealings, according to The Post’s Carol Morello. Other references in the documents refer to the chief economic adviser Gary Cohn and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.

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Other top political advisers or former officials the documents refer to include Stephen Bronfman, a key adviser to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as well as Britain’s Lord Ashcroft, a top donor of Britain’s Tory Conservative party who fled to a bathroom trying to escape questions about the issue. An offshore fund allegedly operated by Lord Ashcroft and revealed by the documents may have been worth over $330 million.

Following the release of the allegations, the opposition Labour party urged British Prime Minister Theresa May on Monday to reveal what she knew about the origins of the money flowing into her Conservative party's funds.

In the U.S., Canada and Britain, the web of complex offshore dealings appeared to extend far into the top ranks of politics, although it largely remained unclear to what extent the practices had been illegal or were conducted with the knowledge of some of the individuals named by the media outlets involved in the revelations.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wor ... 1fd207ecae
Mazars and Deutsche Bank could have ended this nightmare before it started.
They could still get him out of office.
But instead, they want mass death.
Don’t forget that.
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Re: ICIJ releases THE PARADISE PAPERS

Postby norton ash » Mon Nov 06, 2017 4:58 pm

Liz Windsor investment:

... purchasing a stake in the controversial British rent-to-buy chain BrightHouse. The company was accused of "preying on the vulnerable" by the Financial Times due to sky-high interest rates on home appliances and other fixtures.


C'mon, mum, rent-to-own? That's just fucking sleazy.
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Re: ICIJ releases THE PARADISE PAPERS

Postby stickdog99 » Mon Nov 06, 2017 8:41 pm

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/n ... -oligarchy

Bernie Sanders warns of 'international oligarchy' after Paradise Papers leak

US senator warned that leak of documents exposing offshore tax havens show ‘rapid movement’ toward a group of billionaires controlling the global economy

Bernie Sanders has warned that the world is rapidly becoming an “international oligarchy” controlled by a tiny number of billionaires, highlighted by the revelations in the Paradise Papers.

In a statement to the Guardian in the wake of the massive leak of documents exposing the secrets of offshore investors, Sanders said that the enrichment of wealthy individuals and companies in tax havens was “the major issue of our time”.

He said the Paradise Papers opened the door on a “major problem not just for the US but for governments throughout the world”.

“The major issue of our time is the rapid movement toward international oligarchy in which a handful of billionaires own and control a significant part of the global economy. The Paradise Papers shows how these billionaires and multinational corporations get richer by hiding their wealth and profits and avoid paying their fair share of taxes,” the US senator from Vermont said.

Sanders, who came in a close second to Hillary Clinton in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination last year, pointed the finger of blame for the flourishing of offshore holdings on both Congress and the Trump administration. He told the Guardian that Republicans in Congress were responsible for providing “even more tax breaks to profitable corporations like Apple and Nike”.

The same tax breaks, he said, were being seized upon by super-wealthy members of Trump’s cabinet “who avoid billions in US taxes by shifting American jobs and profits to offshore tax havens. We need to close these loopholes and demand a fair and progressive tax system.”

Sanders’ intervention in the debate sparked by the Paradise Papers marks the most prominent political response to the leak in their opening 24 hours. The investigation stems from the leak of some 13m files obtained by Süddeutsche Zeitung in Germany and shared with almost 100 news organisations around the world including the Guardian by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists.

One of the most pointed disclosures in the Paradise Papers was that Wilbur Ross, Trump’s commerce secretary, has continued to do business with the son-in-law of the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, as well as a member of Putin’s inner circle who is under US sanctions. Ross, himself a billionaire, has retained since joining the Trump administration his investment in a shipping company, Navigator, that has a partnership with the Russian gas giant Sibur. In turn Sibur is part-owned by Kirill Shamalov, the husband of Putin’s daughter.

The emergence of Ross’s ongoing ties to business interests so close to the Russian president at a time of intense scrutiny of the relationship between the Trump administration and the Kremlin has incensed prominent Democrats involved in Ross’s confirmation to office. Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat who sits on the US Senate commerce committee, accused Ross of deceiving the public as well as lawmakers who had allowed the confirmation to go through having heard Ross promise to divest himself of any interests that carried potential conflict.

“If he fails to present a clear and compelling explanation, he ought to resign,” Blumenthal told MSNBC in an interview.

Senator Tammy Baldwin, a Democrat from Wisconsin, said: “In February, I opposed Mr. Ross’ nomination because there were a number of unanswered questions about his ownership stake in the Bank of Cyprus and his connections to Russian President Vladimir Putin, as well as his refusal to divest from a $1 billion co-investment made with the state-owned Chinese Investment Corporation.

“Despite assurances from the Commerce Department and the White House on the eve of his nomination, these questions remain unanswered over eight months later. These unanswered questions and recent revelations certainly warrant a Commerce Committee hearing and I think an Inspector General investigation is in order. We should get to the bottom of this.”

On Monday, Ross denied that he had done anything wrong in his handling of his investment in Navigator. In the course of a visit to London, he told UK media that “there is nothing wrong with it. The fact that it happens to be called a Russian company doesn’t mean there is any evil in it.”

Further responses to the Paradise Papers came from the Democratic leader in the US Senate Chuck Schumer, and the ranking Democratic member of the Senate finance committee, Ron Wyden. In a joint statement they accused Republicans in Congress leading the push towards a reform of the tax code of failing to close egregious loopholes revealed by the leaks.

As a result Republicans were rewarding, the duo said, “wealthy billionaires like secretary Wilbur Ross for dodging taxes, while punishing many in the middle class with new tax hikes. If you deduct medical expenses or student loan interest from your taxable income, the Republican plan comes after your wallet. But if you stash your billions in secret bank accounts overseas, their plan gives you the green light to keep doing what you’ve been doing.”

They added that the Paradise Papers were “proof positive that the Republican tax plan favours the wealthy and betrays the middle class in this country, who are the ones left carrying the financial burden of massive corporate tax avoidance”.
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Re: ICIJ releases THE PARADISE PAPERS

Postby seemslikeadream » Fri Nov 10, 2017 10:14 am

Paradise Papers

Trump ally Robert Kraft revealed as longtime owner of offshore firm

The New England Patriots’ billionaire boss is among several major US sports team owners who appear in the Paradise Papers
by Jon Swaine in New York

Thursday 9 November 2017 06.00 EST Last modified on Thursday 9 November 2017 08.32 EST
Donald Trump likes to style Robert Kraft as his blue-collar conscience – a whisperer to the white working-class football fans whose support he craves.

Trump has said that Kraft, the owner of the New England Patriots, urged him to “tax the rich people” and take care of the poor. During a Super Bowl celebration at the White House in April, Kraft hailed “hard work” as the essence of America.

Kraft, who donated $1m to Trump’s inaugural celebrations, claims he buys his coffee at Dunkin’ Donuts, not Starbucks – and pays for those in line behind him.

Kraft gives Trump a New England Patriots jersey at the White House in April after their Super Bowl win.
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Kraft gives Trump a New England Patriots jersey at the White House in April after their Super Bowl win. Photograph: Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images
At the same time, files leaked in the Paradise Papers reveal, Kraft has for more than two decades quietly owned an offshore company that could be used to legally avoid or reduce US taxes.

The 76-year-old chairman of the reigning Super Bowl champions is identified deep within a June 2012 file as the owner of a holding company and bank accounts on the Atlantic tax haven of Bermuda.

Kraft is one of several owners of major US sports teams to appear in the leak through involvement in firms in tax havens. Wealthy bosses at franchises in the NFL, NBA and NHL are named in the leaked files as senior figures at firms incorporated in zero-tax jurisdictions such as Bermuda, the Bahamas and Barbados. Several have, like Kraft, made significant donations to political campaigns at home.

Also named among the leaked files are the NBA team owners Micky Arison of the Miami Heat and Steve Pagliuca of the Boston Celtics, along with Peter Karmanos of the Carolina Hurricanes hockey team.

The Miami Heat owner Micky Arison.
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The Miami Heat owner Micky Arison. Photograph: Michael Cohen/Getty Images
A spokesperson for Kraft said the Bermuda company had been established to do business with certain customers, which the spokesperson declined to identify. The spokesperson insisted the offshore vehicle dealt with relatively small sums.

“These entities are not organized or maintained for any reason other than to facilitate doing business in any particular location and decisions are not income tax motivated,” said the spokesperson.

Trump left his own Super Bowl party at half-time in February, when his favoured Patriots were down 21 points to 3. His early departure meant he missed one of the great sporting comebacks of all time.

But the president made sure to bask in the glory when Kraft brought his victorious team to the White House a couple of months later. Kraft, a longtime friend, presented a “Trump 45” shirt to the 45th president, along with a personal Super Bowl ring.

In remarks at the event, Kraft spoke of toil and perseverance as “the foundation of everything that is great about this country”. But his financial arrangements have not always been so flag-waving.

Kraft’s Bermuda firm was incorporated as a branch of International Forest Products, a wood and paper exporting division in his privately held Kraft Group. The Bermuda vehicle is an investment holding company, meaning it collects returns on investments or property rather than trading in goods or services.

The June 2012 document was produced by Appleby, a corporate services company that handles administration for Kraft’s firm. Internal communications show that Appleby’s executives classed Kraft as a “PEP” client – a politically exposed person whose affairs should be handled with particular care.


Kraft’s firm’s classification under Bermuda law means that in return for an annual fee it pays no tax on profits, income or dividends. It is not allowed to do business in Bermuda itself.

Kraft is listed in the document as the owner of all 12,000 shares of the Bermuda company. His ownership would have been declared to Bermuda authorities, who promise to hold this information in strict secrecy. Kraft was also listed as authorized to sign for transactions involving two bank accounts on Bermuda: one at HSBC that holds US dollars and another at the island’s Butterfield bank that contains British pounds.

The value of the offshore company’s holdings was not disclosed in the files. Separate Appleby documents from 2013 said Kraft and his fellow directors had decided – as Bermuda law allows – that on an indefinite basis they would not be holding annual meetings, appointing an auditor or presenting audited financial statements.

While Bermuda imposes no income tax, capital gains tax or estate tax, it warns American investors that they may incur some US taxes on money they earn through companies incorporated on the island.

Arison, the billionaire owner of the Miami Heat in Florida, appears in the leaked files in relation to his work in the luxury cruise industry, which Forbes estimates has made him a personal fortune of $9.5bn.

The 68-year-old is the chairman of Carnival Corporation, the world’s biggest cruise operator, which was founded by his father, Ted. Carnival, headquartered just outside Miami, posted a company-record $2.8bn profit in 2016. Arison has donated to Republicans and Democrats in recent years, most notably $505,000 to a Pac supporting Jeb Bush in the 2016 Republican primary.

A Carnival cruise ship leaving the port of Miami
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A Carnival cruise ship leaving the port of Miami. Photograph: Cristobal Herrera/EPA
A 2012 document lists Arison as a director of Trident Insurance Company Ltd, a Bermuda-based subsidiary of Carnival that is a so-called captive insurer. Captives are in-house insurance firms created within corporations, used to insure their operations instead of buying coverage from an outside insurance company.

Forming a captive insurance company in Bermuda, which has no corporation tax, can lower a corporation’s tax bill. The insurance premiums that a company pays to its in-house insurance firm may be tax-deductible. The premiums themselves remain within the corporation, without being taxed as profits would be. Companies are not required to make the captive insurer’s accounts public.

In 2015, the US Internal Revenue Service (IRS) included the use of captive insurers on its “dirty dozen” list of tax schemes and said it was looking into potential abuse of the system. The same year, Arison’s Trident Insurance Company was inducted into Bermuda’s Captive Hall of Fame, which marks contributions to the island’s economy.

Roger Frizzell, a spokesman for Carnival, said in an email: “According to our financial experts, we are seeing very little, if any, income tax benefits. For us, this is a vehicle to allow us to access consumers to provide travel insurance. As you know, our business is global, operating in more than 700 cities and ports around the world.”

A separate leak of documents from the Bahamas corporate register also names Arison as having been a director of five companies incorporated on the islands since the 1980s, including Carnival Leisure Industries, a sister company of the cruise corporation that operated hotels and casinos.

Pagliuca, a co-owner of the Boston Celtics in Massachusetts, appears in the leaked files in connection with Virgin Voyages, a joint venture of Richard Branson’s Virgin Group and Bain Capital, a private equity group of which Pagliuca is co-chairman.

The privately held cruise venture was unveiled in 2014, with Bain reported to be investing hundreds of millions of dollars alongside an estimated $100m from Virgin. The company, previously named Virgin Cruises, describes itself as based in Florida. But, like other divisions of Branson’s empire, it is held offshore.

Virgin Voyages was incorporated in Bermuda in 2014, with Pagliuca as one of six directors. The leaked files show that Bain’s stake in Virgin Voyages is held through a limited liability company formed in Delaware, which does not disclose filings that would state what Pagliuca’s own holding in the cruise venture was worth.

A private list of the cruise company’s shareholders within the leaked files shows that in addition to Bain and Virgin, investors include the Liechtenstein royal family’s private banking arm and an investment vehicle in the Cayman Islands named Portland Ltd. Pagliuca is also a director of a holding company in Bermuda that owns Virgin’s cruise ships.

Pagliuca, 62, was recruited to the Boston-based investment firm by the 2008 Republican presidential nominee, Mitt Romney. His net worth was once estimated at $410m by Boston Magazine. He ran unsuccessfully for the Massachusetts US Senate seat after the death of Ted Kennedy in 2009.

Pagliuca and Bain Capital did not respond to requests for comment. A spokesman for Virgin Voyages said: “As it relates to offshore registration, including Bermuda, given the international nature of the cruise ship industry and the voyages themselves, it is a universal and legal practice.”

Karmanos, the owner of the Carolina Hurricanes in Raleigh, North Carolina, appears in a leaked registry of Barbados corporations in his former capacity as chairman of the software company Compuware.

He founded Compuware in 1973 and built a fortune once estimated by Forbes to total more than $1bn. The leaked files show that he formed a Compuware subsidiary in Barbados in 1988. The company was a foreign sales corporation, a type of company that faces no taxes from Barbados authorities.

Karmanos, 74, as the chairman and chief executive of Compuware, was a director of the offshore subsidiary. The Barbados company was dissolved in September 2011. Karmanos retired the following year.

In an interview, Karmanos said he had set up the offshore firm “for tax purposes”, which he said “was perfectly appropriate” given the laws at the time.

Under tax reforms signed by Ronald Reagan a few years before Karmanos formed the vehicle, Americans were able to keep a third of their overseas income completely away from the IRS by operating foreign sales corporations in jurisdictions such as Barbados. The loophole was later closed under international pressure.

“Everybody was doing it,” said Karmanos. “That’s why they ended it.”
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/n ... collection




The ‘Paradise Papers’ expose Trump’s fake populism
By Ishaan Tharoor November 8
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President Trump entered the White House on a platform of populist rage. He channeled ire against the perceived perfidy and corruption of a shadowy world of cosmopolitan elites. He labeled his opponent Hillary Clinton a “globalist” — an establishment apparatchik supposedly motivated more by her ties to wealthy concerns elsewhere than by true patriotic sentiment.

“We will no longer surrender this country, or its people, to the false song of globalism,” Trump declared in a campaign speech in 2016, setting the stage for his “America First” agenda. The message was effective, winning over voters who felt they had lost out in an age defined by globalization, free trade and powerful multinational corporations.

Fast-forward a year, though, and it's worth asking whether Trump — a scion of metropolitan privilege and a jet-setting tycoon who has long basked in his private world of gilded excess — ever seriously believed any of his own populist screeds. Little he has done since coming to power suggests a meaningful interest in uplifting the working class or addressing widening social inequities. Indeed, much of the legislation that he and his Republican allies are seeking to push through suggests the exact opposite.


Now there's even more evidence underscoring his administration's flimsy commitment to the rhetoric that brought it to power. This week, we've been confronted by a steady drip of revelations contained in the leaked trove of documents known as the “Paradise Papers.” These are about 13.4 million files obtained in part from a Bermuda-based law firm that helped corporations and wealthy individuals set up offshore companies and accounts. In many cases, the moves allowed the firm's clients to avoid paying taxes at home. A similarly mammoth leak last year, dubbed the “Panama Papers,” prompted, among other things, the resignations of leaders in Pakistan and Iceland.

Hundreds of journalists from 96 media organizations around the world are sifting through the documents and following up on what leads they provide (The Washington Post is not among the publications to have reviewed these documents). That's because the list of prominent figures implicated in these dealings is vast, ranging from the Queen of England to Irish pop-legend-turned-philanthropist Bono to a string of Russian oligarchs. They cast light on the offshore schemes of the chief financier behind the election campaign of Canada's liberal prime minister, a big donor to Britain's Conservatives and huge U.S. corporations such as Nike and Apple.


And, significantly, they include figures intimately connected to Trump. The most startling revelation involved Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, who maintained his stake in a shipping firm called Navigator Holdings after assuming public office — and even as a Russian natural gas firm called Sibur increased its business dealings with Navigator. Sibur happens to be closely connected to Russian President Vladimir Putin: Both his son-in-law and favored judo partner are owners of the company.


“The latest document leaks raise more questions about business ties between Russia and some of the most prominent members of Trump’s Cabinet,” my colleague Carol Morello noted. “The New York Times reported that the documents include references to offshore holdings by Gary Cohn, the chief economic adviser, and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. There is, however, no evidence that any of the holdings were illegal.”

“I'm not embarrassed at all,” Cohn told CNBC on Tuesday. Cohn was named in the papers as an officer of 22 business entities in Bermuda, dating back to when he was a senior Goldman Sachs executive. “This is the way that the world works.”

That is certainly true. As my colleague Rick Noack noted, the Paradise Papers may generate a media-led uproar, but the loopholes revealed in them still exist and are, in most cases, legal.

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Leaked documents dubbed the “Paradise Papers” shed light on the financial habits of high-profile people like U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II. (Joyce Lee/The Washington Post)
So, why does this all matter? Consider the argument of a more genuine economic populist, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.): “The major issue of our time is the rapid movement toward international oligarchy in which a handful of billionaires own and control a significant part of the global economy,” Sanders said in a statement this week. “The Paradise Papers shows how these billionaires and multinational corporations get richer by hiding their wealth and profits and avoid paying their fair share of taxes.”


That's something the populist, antiglobalist Trump would, in theory, be upset about. But Trump has not said or tweeted a word about the leaks. The Republican tax changes being unfurled under his watch specifically benefit corporations and the superwealthy. New York Times columnist (and Nobel Prize-winning economist) Paul Krugman calculated that, if enacted, the Trump tax cuts would even yield a $700 billion windfall to wealthy foreigners who own U.S. equities.

And perhaps the greatest irony revealed in the documents is that Trump's campaign attacks on his “globalist” opponent were themselves partially sponsored by offshore cash. According to the Guardian, the billionaire Mercer family — which funds alt-right website Breitbart and is closely linked to ultranationalist ideologue Stephen K. Bannon — “built a $60m war chest for conservative causes inside their family foundation by using an offshore investment vehicle to avoid U.S. tax.”

Donald J. Trump ✔@realDonaldTrump
Hillary says things can't change. I say they have to change. It's a choice between Americanism and her corrupt globalism. #Imwithyou
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It's not surprising, then, that Trump parrots Bannon's divisive blood-and-soil ethno-nationalism while coming up short on his economic promises.

“Taxes are, as a noted American jurist put it, the price we pay for civilization,” noted an editorial in the Guardian, which is one of the publications scrutinizing the documents. “Voters tax themselves, among other things, for schools, roads, a health service, for welfare provision, to pay their soldiers and build a diplomatic corps. When a group at the top of society secedes and forms a globally mobile republic, able to choose which jurisdiction they wish to operate under, the public is right to ask why we allow this to happen. Why should taxes just be for the little people?”


Trump campaigned for the “forgotten people.” But he seems increasingly bound up with the “globally mobile republic” he so vehemently decried.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wor ... 4b935029a9
Mazars and Deutsche Bank could have ended this nightmare before it started.
They could still get him out of office.
But instead, they want mass death.
Don’t forget that.
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Re: ICIJ releases THE PARADISE PAPERS

Postby seemslikeadream » Fri Nov 17, 2017 8:21 pm


The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists publishes today new data in the Offshore Leaks Database on close to 25,000 entities connected to the Paradise Papers investigation.

The new records come from the offshore law firm Appleby and cover a period of more than six decades through to 2014 of entities registered in more than 30 offshore jurisdictions. It includes information from shareholders, directors and other officers connected to offshore companies, foundations and trusts. It also reveals the names of the real owners behind those secret structures, when available.

More than 70 percent of the new records belong to entities incorporated in Bermuda and the Cayman Islands. Other jurisdictions that also include hundreds of new records are the Isle of Man, Jersey and Mauritius. Most of the online registries from these jurisdictions don’t provide ownership or shareholder information.

CLICK TO EXPLORE THE OFFSHORE LEAKS DATABASE

The Offshore Leaks Database also includes information from close to 500,000 additional offshore entities linked to ICIJ’s 2016 Panama Papers and Bahamas Leaks investigations and its 2013 Offshore Leaks investigation.

ICIJ is publishing the information in the public interest.

The data released today comes from the the Paradise Papers investigation, a global journalistic collaboration that exposed offshore deals of political players and corporate giants. The team of journalists explored a trove of 13.4 million records that come from two offshore firms and 19 secret jurisdictions.

The leaks were obtained by German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung and shared with ICIJ and a network of more than 380 journalists in 67 countries.

ICIJ is now making available only the structured portion of the Paradise Papers connected to the offshore law firm Appleby and some politicians featured in the Paradise Papers investigation. ICIJ is not publishing the totality of the leak and is not disclosing raw documents or personal information en masse.

The documents revealed offshore interests of the queen of England and more than 120 politicians around the world. It also exposed ties between Russia and U.S. President Donald Trump’s commerce secretary, the secret dealings of chief fundraiser for Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and tax engineering of more than 100 multinationals, including Apple, Nike and Uber.

The first data release comes almost two weeks after the first series of Paradise Papers publications, which have already captured the attention of the world and produced reactions in several countries.

Where the new entities are incorporated.

Members of the European Parliament said that the European Union member states should take steps to clamp down on tax avoidance schemes while discussing the Paradise Papers revelations.

In the United States, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said he will divest his stake in shipping firm Navigator Holdings, while a group of senators have requested two official investigations into Ross’ financial holdings and potential conflicts of interest.

In Chile, two government agencies announced investigations into Paradise Papers revelations, while in Argentina a prosecutor issued arrest warrants for four officials at the University of Tucuman, in connection to an alleged money laundering scheme involving a mining company.

The new structured data added to the searchable database connects with more than 75,000 individuals and companies that play a key role in connection to offshore entities. The U.S., the United Kingdom, China and Canada are among the countries with the most officers represented in the new data.

The Offshore Leaks website now also connects profiles of politicians featured in the Paradise Papers and Panama Papers investigations with the full datasets from these projects.

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Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross benefits from business ties to Putin’s inner circle
‘Offshore Magic Circle’ Law Firm Has Record of Compliance Failures
In all, the Offshore Leaks Database has now information on more than 520,000 entities connected to 200 countries.

In addition to the Paradise Papers records, the database also includes information on more than 100,000 entities that come from Offshore Leaks, more than 210,000 entities from Panama Papers and more than 175,000 from Bahamas Leaks. ICIJ will release more data connected to the Paradise Papers in the coming weeks.

The new design of the Offshore Leaks database keeps some of the key features from the application that allow users to filter the information by country and by offshore jurisdiction. It is possible to explore details on trusts and offshore structures including data on company owners, proxies and intermediaries.

While the database contains otherwise unavailable information on offshore companies and their shareholders and officers, it does not necessarily include details on financial deals or all the significant personalities featured in Paradise Papers reporting. In many cases, the type of detailed information included in ICIJ and its partners stories was found buried in letters, emails, board meetings summaries, company reports, audits, financial statements, internal notes of Appleby employees. This unstructured data cannot easily be extracted in a systematic manner.

There are still more stories coming out from ICIJ’s Paradise Papers reporting partners, and more revelations will surface as regulators and ordinary citizens around the world begin to explore the new available data. The full dataset of the Offshore Leaks database is available for download.

https://www.icij.org/investigations/par ... ign=buffer
Mazars and Deutsche Bank could have ended this nightmare before it started.
They could still get him out of office.
But instead, they want mass death.
Don’t forget that.
User avatar
seemslikeadream
 
Posts: 32090
Joined: Wed Apr 27, 2005 11:28 pm
Location: into the black
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