Ok now find their hidden assets and take them. Criminals shouldn’t be allowed to get away with crime right? These are some of the worst, IMO, as they rose on our backs and then turned around and stole the fair share they owed to society via tax cheating.
All I'm mad about is I don't have access to the same sorts of instruments. I pay an _excessive_ amount of taxes that return at like a 0.0001% for society. I could make 12% on them and give 5% directly at a much better rate.
Just want to point out that this was all possible because of the hard work of people at the icij. They do amazing work (same group that did the Panama papers and one of the last real independent investigative news organizations in the US) and deserve your support!
As an aside, I would also ask this question: why not democratize this and make billions using the same loopholes so that everyone gains access or they are forced to fix it? Surely it’s a good startup opportunity.
Is there a good primer on how this kind of offshoring works, for people ? I have notions of how tax evasion / optimization works (things like the irish-dutch sandwich, where you manage to pretend that Google does not make any money in France because it has to pay a very expensive license to Google Ireland , etc..)
But for offshoring, I'm clueless as to how manage to "reshore" the money, so to speak, so that you can eventually... Spend it to buy stuff. (Or isn't that the purpose of hiding the money ?)
Maybe a bit late to comment, but for what it's worth: There is no primer that could be actually useful, because the "tax optimization" landscape is fragmented and constantly shifting. Everything depends on where you live, where you do business, how much much money is involved, etc.
But there is a central driving force behind it all: governments constantly fight for "tax justice" with one hand and create various "incentives" and exceptions with the other, in an effort to briefly gain the upper hand over other countries in the zero-sum game of attracting international capital. The former tends to plug all possible loopholes for the "ordinary wealthy", while the latter always leaves options for the truly big fish, they just don't stay the same decade-over-decade.
This is so surprising to see research on. It’s also very brave. It’s the kind of investigation that could get a drone or a hitman sent after the investigator.
> Yet, elites who come from countries where their assets are likely to be seized due either to a lack of civil rights or a government with effective regulations tend to use a “concealment strategy” to remain anonymous.
Not to be a defender of criminal money laundering, but this is an important caveat. When all money is traceable, digital and controlled, good luck funding anything against the government in an authoritarian setting.
Unfortunately that's a catch-22
I'm well aware of the impact of corruption and organized crime and how it affects billions worldwide, I've read more than one book on the subject. but it's analogous to the issue with cryptography, privacy and protecting people, especially minors, on the internet for example
It's kind of sad that whenever there's an article about the very rich using alternate, shadow financial systems to avoid paying taxes and (often illegally) hide their wealth, most of the comments are "Why can't I do that, too?" instead of "Why can't we find and punish the people doing that?"
>Billionaires, oligarchs, and other members of the uber rich, known as “elites”
it's a small point but, "elites" usually refers to those with good educational credentials who hold down white collar jobs at universities, newsmedia, law and finance firms, political campaigns, non-profits, etc., jobs they got because their parents know how to help them network and who can afford to pay their rent in major cities while they "pay their dues" as interns in these same organizations. Yes, they do have higher than average incomes, but I heard a great word for them (from a left-leaning source fwiw) who called them "the 19%". They are not the 1%, but they make up the rest of the 20% and they work for the 1%, and though they often have left leaning political ideals, it's human nature to want to defend what you have and feel you earned it, and also to pass it along and take care of your own children's futures. According to this guy, they control 2x the wealth that the 1% controls and flex a lot of political muscle.
Billionaires, oligarchs, and other members of the uber rich are generally referred to as just those things. The people behind this study I would guess are in the 19%, and by labelling the billionaires and oligarchs as elites, unconsciously they shed the shame of being elites themselves (Dartmouth? pure ivy league).
If you are an activist of any kind, it's a good idea to be offshore. A UK Palestinian support group had their account frozen and access to the funds blocked just this week
I've just concluded that the ultra wealthy are in some aspect stateless people. Sure, they have a passport - or multiple - but they'll emigrate to another country without blinking, if it means slightly less taxes and less transparency. And that's on top of their offshore assets, managed by other people.
Using your assets/wealth as political power seems to have become more popular here in northern Europe. Taxes too high? Fuck you, I'll take my money and companies to Switzerland. If politicians buckle, they'll move back home. Seems like a race to the bottom, where the tax havens will just compete for the best terms to the ultra wealthy.
The authors write that it's "counterintuitive " that in states with low crime and efficient beaurocracies, the uberrich tend to conceal or relocate their wealth more. See:
"This suggests a counterintuitive result: use of offshore finance is driven not only by negative political conditions such as corruption and lack of civil justice, but by positive conditions, such as regulatory enforcement and civil justice."
But it's not counterintuitive at all. Those people aren't concerned about getting mugged and they're definitely not concerned about how long it takes to get a construction permit in a corrupt country. They're concerned about state-sponsored expropriation.
Given so many of the comments here about tracking the offshore accounts down and confiscating the contents, it's no surprise.
Irrespective of whether their practices are immoral, unethical, unfair, or unjust, they're definitely not counterintuitive.
It's genuinely hard for me to understand how the authors could believe otherwise.
I have to say that as an American in 2025, this kind of news hits a little different than it used-to.
In prior years, I didn't have nagging anxieties about people's life savings being arbitrarily frozen/seized as a form of political retribution, or the imposition of China-style capital controls to ensure "patriotic investing."
Before anybody decries that as (still) far-fetched, consider that the federal government forced banks to drain millions from the accounts of states (NY), announced $365,000/yr "fines" on undocumented immigrants, and imposed arbitrary (illegal) import taxes while threatening companies against showing it on the bill.
Because the author's definition of Blacklisted jurisdictions is not clear in the article or the research paper without buying the footnoted book:
The current EU blacklist includes 11 jurisdictions: American Samoa, Anguilla, Fiji, Guam, Palau, Panama, the Russian Federation, Samoa, Trinidad & Tobago, US Virgin Islands, and Vanuatu. (Source: EU List of Non-Cooperative Nations for Tax Purposes - European Commission)
If anyone has a better definition or has read the underlying book, please let me know, but I found the research hard to follow without this being well defined as the OECD apparently no longer maintains a blacklist.
Also, I wondered why more famous countries are not on the list and it says that these large commissions often identify small weak islands, because large players like the US, Britain, Switzerland, Luxembourg, China have enough political power to not be placed on the list.
I'd like to see a move to eliminate the entire idea that a corporation can own a stake in another corporation. Make it individual owners only. Clear the haze.
Why do bigger countries not invade offshore tax paradieses? It seems they could be a worthy target and mostly have no defence at all. So do a tax invasion to counter tax evasion.
25 comments
[ 4.9 ms ] story [ 48.7 ms ] threadhttps://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...
More info here: https://www.icij.org/
As an aside, I would also ask this question: why not democratize this and make billions using the same loopholes so that everyone gains access or they are forced to fix it? Surely it’s a good startup opportunity.
But for offshoring, I'm clueless as to how manage to "reshore" the money, so to speak, so that you can eventually... Spend it to buy stuff. (Or isn't that the purpose of hiding the money ?)
But there is a central driving force behind it all: governments constantly fight for "tax justice" with one hand and create various "incentives" and exceptions with the other, in an effort to briefly gain the upper hand over other countries in the zero-sum game of attracting international capital. The former tends to plug all possible loopholes for the "ordinary wealthy", while the latter always leaves options for the truly big fish, they just don't stay the same decade-over-decade.
Not to be a defender of criminal money laundering, but this is an important caveat. When all money is traceable, digital and controlled, good luck funding anything against the government in an authoritarian setting.
Unfortunately that's a catch-22
I'm well aware of the impact of corruption and organized crime and how it affects billions worldwide, I've read more than one book on the subject. but it's analogous to the issue with cryptography, privacy and protecting people, especially minors, on the internet for example
it's a small point but, "elites" usually refers to those with good educational credentials who hold down white collar jobs at universities, newsmedia, law and finance firms, political campaigns, non-profits, etc., jobs they got because their parents know how to help them network and who can afford to pay their rent in major cities while they "pay their dues" as interns in these same organizations. Yes, they do have higher than average incomes, but I heard a great word for them (from a left-leaning source fwiw) who called them "the 19%". They are not the 1%, but they make up the rest of the 20% and they work for the 1%, and though they often have left leaning political ideals, it's human nature to want to defend what you have and feel you earned it, and also to pass it along and take care of your own children's futures. According to this guy, they control 2x the wealth that the 1% controls and flex a lot of political muscle.
Billionaires, oligarchs, and other members of the uber rich are generally referred to as just those things. The people behind this study I would guess are in the 19%, and by labelling the billionaires and oligarchs as elites, unconsciously they shed the shame of being elites themselves (Dartmouth? pure ivy league).
What is 'civic participation' in this context ?
https://x.com/declassifiedUK/status/1945077503996895319
If you are an activist, have stuff offshore in a country other than the one you campaign in. And Crypto.
Using your assets/wealth as political power seems to have become more popular here in northern Europe. Taxes too high? Fuck you, I'll take my money and companies to Switzerland. If politicians buckle, they'll move back home. Seems like a race to the bottom, where the tax havens will just compete for the best terms to the ultra wealthy.
Given so many of the comments here about tracking the offshore accounts down and confiscating the contents, it's no surprise.
Irrespective of whether their practices are immoral, unethical, unfair, or unjust, they're definitely not counterintuitive.
It's genuinely hard for me to understand how the authors could believe otherwise.
I wonder what sort of political event would change that, probably when EU countries realize they need money to rebuild their military.
In prior years, I didn't have nagging anxieties about people's life savings being arbitrarily frozen/seized as a form of political retribution, or the imposition of China-style capital controls to ensure "patriotic investing."
Before anybody decries that as (still) far-fetched, consider that the federal government forced banks to drain millions from the accounts of states (NY), announced $365,000/yr "fines" on undocumented immigrants, and imposed arbitrary (illegal) import taxes while threatening companies against showing it on the bill.
_Secrecy World: Inside the Panama Papers Investigation of Illicit Money Networks and the Global Elite_ by Jake Bernstein
The current EU blacklist includes 11 jurisdictions: American Samoa, Anguilla, Fiji, Guam, Palau, Panama, the Russian Federation, Samoa, Trinidad & Tobago, US Virgin Islands, and Vanuatu. (Source: EU List of Non-Cooperative Nations for Tax Purposes - European Commission)
If anyone has a better definition or has read the underlying book, please let me know, but I found the research hard to follow without this being well defined as the OECD apparently no longer maintains a blacklist.
Also, I wondered why more famous countries are not on the list and it says that these large commissions often identify small weak islands, because large players like the US, Britain, Switzerland, Luxembourg, China have enough political power to not be placed on the list.