{"id":19951,"date":"2013-04-04T07:17:18","date_gmt":"2013-04-04T06:17:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/?p=19951"},"modified":"2013-04-04T07:17:18","modified_gmt":"2013-04-04T06:17:18","slug":"the-evidence-is-clear-lawyers-bankers-and-accountants-run-a-web-of-corruption-in-tax-havens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2013\/04\/04\/the-evidence-is-clear-lawyers-bankers-and-accountants-run-a-web-of-corruption-in-tax-havens\/","title":{"rendered":"The evidence is clear: lawyers, bankers and accountants run a web of corruption in tax havens"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.icij.org\/blog\/2013\/04\/likely-largest-journalism-collaboration-history\" target=\"_blank\">International\u00a0Consortium of Investigative Journalists<\/a> has published a vast array of articles on offshore today, based on hundreds of thousands of leaked documents. The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.guardian.co.uk\/uk\/2013\/apr\/03\/offshore-secrets-offshore-tax-haven\" target=\"_blank\">Guardian <\/a>and BBC are the main UK partners in the international work.<\/p>\n<p>In many ways what the work reveals is what we already knew. I'm not criticising it for that: having evidence to back up what we know is happening is vital. I applaud all involved. And some\u00a0scalps\u00a0are named, which always interests me less. So let's concentrate on what the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.icij.org\/offshore:\/\/\" target=\"_blank\">ICIJ says are the main findings<\/a>:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Government officials and their families and associates in Azerbaijan, Russia, Canada, Pakistan, the Philippines, Thailand, Canada, Mongolia and other countries have embraced the use of covert companies and bank accounts.<\/li>\n<li>The mega-rich use complex offshore structures to own mansions, yachts, art masterpieces and other assets, gaining tax advantages and anonymity not available to average people.<\/li>\n<li>Many of the world\u2019s top\u2019s banks \u2014 including UBS, Clariden and Deutsche Bank \u2014 have aggressively worked to provide their customers with secrecy-cloaked companies in the British Virgin Islands and other offshore hideaways.<\/li>\n<li>A well-paid industry of accountants, middlemen and other operatives has helped offshore patrons shroud their identities and business interests, providing shelter in many cases to money laundering or other misconduct.<\/li>\n<li>Ponzi schemers and other large-scale fraudsters routinely use offshore havens to pull off their shell games and move their ill-gotten gains.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>So we have corruption, tax fraud, theft and deliberate opacity, all aided and abetted by bankers, lawyers and accountants.<\/p>\n<p>This is the world of offshore. None of this will be new to long term reaers of this blog or of the\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/taxjustice.blogspot.co.uk\/\" target=\"_blank\">Tax Justice Network blog<\/a>. But it's good that the world is hearing, again, what we have been saying for a long, long time.<\/p>\n<p>Now, when will we get action to stop it?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The\u00a0International\u00a0Consortium of Investigative Journalists has published a vast array of articles on offshore today, based on hundreds of thousands of leaked documents. The Guardian and<br \/><a class=\"moretag\" href=\"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2013\/04\/04\/the-evidence-is-clear-lawyers-bankers-and-accountants-run-a-web-of-corruption-in-tax-havens\/\"><em> Read the full article&#8230;<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67,70,14,10,55,32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19951","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-accountancy","category-banking","category-corruption","category-tax-avoidance","category-tax-evasion","category-tax-havens"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19951","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19951"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19951\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19951"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19951"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19951"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}