November 06, 2017

Just another day in Paradise

located:	United Kingdom
editor:	Gurmeet Singh

After the Panama Papers comes the Paradise Papers – a new batch of documents, reported to have been sat on for a year by the Süddeutsche Zeitung, demonstrating how yet again elite individuals and organisations use loopholes in laws to avoid paying monumental sums in tax. (From The Guardian).

• Millions of pounds from the Queen’s private estate has been invested in a Cayman Islands fund – and some of her money went to a retailer accused of exploiting poor families and vulnerable people.
• Extensive offshore dealings by Donald Trump’s cabinet members, advisers and donors, including substantial payments from a firm co-owned by Vladimir Putin’s son-in-law to the shipping group of the US commerce secretary, Wilbur Ross.
• How Twitter and Facebook received hundreds of millions of dollars in investments that can be traced back to Russian state financial institutions.
• The tax-avoiding Cayman Islands trust managed by the Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau’s chief moneyman.
• A previously unknown $450m offshore trust that has sheltered the wealth of Lord Ashcroft.
• Aggressive tax avoidance by multinational corporations, including Nike and Apple.
• How some of the biggest names in the film and TV industries protect their wealth with an array of offshore schemes.
• The billions in tax refunds by the Isle of Man and Malta to the owners of private jets and luxury yachts.
• The secret loan and alliance used by the London-listed multinational Glencorein its efforts to secure lucrative mining rights in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
• The complex offshore webs used by two Russian billionaires to buy stakes in Arsenal and Everton football clubs.

After the Panama Papers, the Paradise Papers are the world's second biggest paper leak. Describing how the global elite and multinational corporations hide their wealth, the papers show how offshore tax havens engineer the conditions for inequality to continue to grow.

What's even more galling is that in the case of the British Royal Family, the wealth being hidden is almost certainly that of British taxpayers. Large sums of money are taken from the national tax income – expenditure which is usually justified through 'tradition'; furthermore, it is often argued that the British monarchy is worth the investment, since they also 'bring in' millions to the British economy through tourism. Now we see that this 'bringing in' is patently not true.

But this is how it is – it is another day in Paradise for the world's elite. While much of the global population lives on less than $1 a day, hypocrites like Bono from U2 can find ways to invest in exploitative projects while decrying capitalism.

It's enough to make you sick. But hopefully energy surrounding this will not simply peter out as it did with the Panama Papers.