The Pandora Papers expose over 30 former and current world leaders and over 100 more powerful people from around the world. These people include Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis, one of Putin’s ex-lovers, King of Jordan, and former prime minister of the United Kingdom Tony Blair. "Many of the power players who could help bring an end to the offshore system instead benefit from it — stashing assets in covert companies and trusts while their governments do little to slow a global stream of illicit money that enriches criminals and impoverishes nations," the ICIJ said in there introduction to the paper. Throughout the paper, there is a strong theme of not only using smaller countries to hide money but also using smaller regions within powerful countries. Now in Pandora’s Papers, it shows the extent of the U.S.’s involvement within the shady underbelly of tax evasion specifically through some very liberal laws in places like Alaska, South Dakota, Nevada, and Delaware have become go-to tax havens for global clients setting up multibillion-dollar trust companies in rural towns of midwestern states.
Tony Blair
In Tony Blair's case, the documents show why the stamp duty, the tax governments place on legal documents, usually in the transfer of assets or property, was not payable when the couple bought a £6.45m property. Using a Tax loophole the ex-prime minister bought the offshore parent company to the building. Although not directly illegal to do this in the United Kingdom it is an extremely bad look for the old prime minister especially because of his previous hypercritical viewpoints on using these special tax loopholes to avoid paying huge amounts to the government when buying larger purchases.
Countries Responses
-The United States has released a statement saying the state department is currently reviewing the findings within the Pandora papers and investigating the claims made against United States business within the document. They have declined to comment any further however because the investigation is still ongoing.
-The United Kingdom released a statement saying it is “cracking down on money laundering with tougher laws and enforcement, and that it will introduce a register of offshore companies owning UK property when parliamentary time allows.” although it is unknown how quickly they will move to prevent the rich elite from laundering and tax-evading in the UK.
-Jordan is yet another country whose monarch was named within the paper showing how the King of Jordan secretly amassed a property empire in the UK and the U.S. worth more than $100m. The royal palace said “king's property ownership was not unusual nor improper" and Abdullah himself told tribal leaders “the cost of the properties and related expenditures had been personally funded by himself, not by the state budget or treasury.” Although it is too early to tell how the people and tribal leaders of the country will side.
Sources
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-58780465
https://www.reuters.com/business/state-department-says-us-is-reviewing-findings-pandora-papers-2021-10-04/
https://www.cnn.com/2021/10/04/media/pandora-papers-five-takeaways/index.html
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/interactive/2021/pandora-papers-offshore-finance/
https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/976/cpsprodpb/E6DB/production/_120799095_pp_how_big_v3_2x640-nc.png
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BtMKezDN8iM
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/10/4/pandora-papers-ukraine-leader-seeks-to-justify-offshore-accounts
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