2. What
are
The
Panama
Papers?
• The 'Panama Papers' are a set of confidential documents leaked from one of the
biggest law firms of Panama - 'Mossack Fonseca'.
• The Panama Papers provide information about thousands of offshore entities,
identities of their shareholders and directors. It listed various world leaders, public
officials, billionaires, celebrities, sports stars and politicians.
3. The Panama Papers is the largest financial data leak in history. It
covers nearly 40 years, from the late 1970s through the end of
2015.
2.6TB
of data from
Mossack
Fonsecca’s
database
11.5M
documents
exposed
214,488
offshoreaccounts
Revealed
across 200+ countries
4. What is Mossack Fonseca?
Mossack Fonseca is a Panamian law firm known for helping clients
set up offshore accounts.
Their clients include criminals and members of
various Mafia groups, in addition to government
officials.
5. Were Indian individuals allowedto set up offshore entities?
Pre-2004: we Indian individuals were not allowed to set up offshore entities.
Liberalised Remittance Scheme: In 2004, Indian individuals were allowed to
take $25000 out side the country. It could be for children education, gifts,
donation, medical treatment, etc. but still not allowed to set a company
abroad.
Later in 2013, RBI passed ODI scheme, Overseas Direct Investment.
6. Aren’t offshore accounts illegal?
No offshore accounts are not illegal.
In fact, having an offshore company can be seen as a logical business decision.
However, these accounts are often used for tax evasion, money laundering and
corruption.
Howmuch money is there in offshore tax havens?
Estimated at least $7.6 trillion – Gabriel Zucman, Economics professor at UC Berkeley.
That’s upwards of 8% of the world’s financial wealth, with a growth of 25% over the
past 5 years.
7. Why should we care?
These reports show how many of the top 1%
have moved around upwards of billions to
evade tax or make undocumented deals.
Money that the governments could have used in improving
healthcare, education or infrastructure. Some of those using
offshore tax havens were also accused of financially backing
the Syrian air force.
8. Who has been exposed so far?
11 most notable politicians who have been named:
1. Icelandic Prime minister- Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson
2. The late father of British Prime Minister David Cameron
3. UAE President- Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan
4. Russian President- Vladimir Putin
5. Saudi Arabian King- Salman bin Abdulaziz
6. Former Iraqi Vice and Prime Minister- Ayad Allawi
7. Brother-in-law of Chinese President- Xi JinPing
8. Ukrainian President- Petro Poroshenko
9. The Spanish Royal Family
10.Argentinian President- Mauricio Macri
11.Cousins of Syrian President Bashar Assad
9. The most surprising
revelation so far….
An offshore trail of$2 Billion
through banks and shadow companies
leading to Vladimir Putin.
---ICIJ ( The International Consortium of Investing Journalists )
10. What’s next?
At the moment, only 149 documents out of
11.5 million have been publicly released and more
incriminating evidence have yet to surface….