Offshore Trust Panama Leak is Tip of Iceberg

Offshore Trust Panama Leak is Tip of Iceberg.

Papers, details and documents have been leaked from a Panama based law firm, Monsack Fenseca, in connection with people who set up offshore trusts and international business companies (IBC’s), mainly in the British Virgin Islands.  The key point being that these types of companies have anonymous beneficial owner, shareholders and professional managers of the same company and trust, usually based locally in the ‘tax haven’ state so that no one need know how much money you have.

The fall out has already started, with the Prime Minister David Cameron’s father being linked alongside other ‘premiers’ such as Putin in Russia, Iceland’s Prime Minister and relatives of one of China’s leaders and many others in the public eye.

The accusation is that people are trying to hide their money and not pay tax.  We have to say we agree with the accusation but we are staggered that this is a shock to all and particularly journalists that people hide their money.

Wow!  Really?  People do that?  Wake up and smell the coffee ….

Have we not had anonymous Swiss Bank accounts for years?  Anonymous Swiss Accounts are still around today, albeit with a withholding tax charge now applied.  Likewise, the business of offshore tax havens, low tax jurisdictions and anonymous ‘shell’ companies has been around for many years.

We have also produced a video on the same and explained a little more about our view but we ask you to think “what of the future”?:

This is just one legal firm in Panama and already hundreds of people are being named.

There are hundreds of Offshore Trust and International Business Company (IBC) establishment firms and lawyers across many countries. 

Do the numbers, this means there are millions of people involved in hiding their monet.

The number of tax haven and low tax countries is huge, Channel Islands, Isle of Man, Gibraltar, many Caribbean states, Monaco – for the rich and famous is well known, San Marino, Delaware in the US, we could go on.  There are ones that you may never have heard of: Nauru, Marshall Islands, Cook Islands, Vanuatu and more.

Even London is a TAX HAVEN!  Why do you think so many rich pop stars, big business owners and film stars move to UK?  For the simple reason that under the ‘remittance basis user’ rules, there is a period when they can live in the UK and not pay tax on any overseas income or growth if they do not bring it in i.e. remit it to the UK.

Do you really think globally, governments will come together to force disclosure?  They should, but we don’t think they will.

Politicians, big companies, their bosses, all have too much to lose.

Equally, many of the offshore are dependent territories e.g. the British Virgin Islands is a British Dependent Territory i.e. without a trade, business and income they would ask the UK for financial help. 

Comment

We guarantee that some of the ‘accused’ this week will say they are not entitled to any benefit from the trust – which would be the truth.

Why?  Because usually they are discretionary trusts!  i.e. Distribution of wealth is at the discretion of the trustees, i.e. they don’t have to give you the money, the reality is that the whole trust industry would collapse if they could not be ‘trusted’ to do and comply with the trust rules.