Massive Data Leak Reveals How the Ultra Rich Hide Their Wealth 893
bshell writes "According to the CBC, there was a massive leak of 'files containing information on over 120,000 offshore entities — including shell corporations and legal structures known as trusts — involving people in over 170 countries. The leak amounts to 260 gigabytes of data, or 162 times larger than the U.S. State Department cables published by WikiLeaks in 2010...In many cases, the leaked documents expose insider details of how agents would incorporate companies in Caribbean and South Pacific micro-states on behalf of wealthy clients, then assign front people called "nominees" to serve, on paper, as directors and shareholders for the corporations — disguising the companies' true owners.' Makes a good read and there are some good interactive components. Perhaps Slashdot readers can figure out how the source of the leak, the D.C.-based International Consortium of Investigative Journalists got their hands on this data."
It is as if there is no law (Score:5, Interesting)
Oh, No, Don't Look Behind that Curtain! (Score:5, Interesting)
The files contain information on over 120,000 offshore entities — including shell corporations and legal structures known as trusts — involving people in over 170 countries.
Oh, no no no, tax evasion for the ultra rich that can play international games isn't the reason the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. No! From Forbes' response to the viral video "Wealth Inequality in America" [forbes.com] they say:
Look — we’re moving into the opening years of an economic revolution. The floods of Big Data pouring from the Internet and related technologies are washing away the foundational reasons for the existence of several of our most critical – and comforting – societal structures, potentially changing forever the very notion of what a company is, what a job is, what a brand is, what an educational degree means, and how we’ll work and govern and care for ourselves while attempting to live long and prosper. Almost every part of our existence is being restructured, and quickly, by the stunning power of nearly infinite information.
Don't you see? It's not tax evasion or unfair taxation, it's just the magical power of the internet. Stop asking questions and demanding an equal opportunity to skirt income laws! It's "Big Data" that's changing things rapidly and excitingly. Stop fighting the Economic Revolution!
What an absolute crock of shit.
That's a lot of records but not a lot of shells (Score:4, Interesting)
100,000 shell companies over thirty years is significant but not, I think, a large share of the overall market. I gather that these sorts of businesses process millions of new shell companies a year.
It'll be interesting to see who gets caught as a result.
Political aftermath (Score:4, Interesting)
What are the politicians going to do to address these loopholes?
Re:That's a lot of records but not a lot of shells (Score:5, Interesting)
The data seen by the Guardian shows that their secret companies are based mainly in the British Virgin Islands.
But this might be a quirk of how the data was released (apparently, news organizations have access to the data from their country, meaning that the British Virgin Islands may be the preferred destination for UK money).
Re:Note this is not the "top 1%" (Score:5, Interesting)
Imagined class warfare?
As Warren Buffet stated âoeThereâ(TM)s class warfare, all right, but itâ(TM)s my class, the rich class, thatâ(TM)s making war, and weâ(TM)re winning.â
You know who pits Americans against each other? The richest few. They want you feeling superior to those who make a little less than you, lest you both realize you should fight together to improve your station in life.
Re:Tax evasion is good for some of us (Score:5, Interesting)
More importantly, who keeps the tens of thousands of employees from stealing from your companies. Who keeps all those employees safely returning to work each day??
That was the KEY vision Henry Ford had... That you couldn't run a company off the least cost labor and have everybody AROUND your employees live in shit. His high wages were to keep more productive employees... And force them to pull up the other people around them... Very Victorian values.
Was this the Wikileaks leak we heard about? (Score:5, Interesting)
Recall long ago when the US State Department cables thing was going on that Wikileaks said they had something MUCH MUCH bigger. I wonder if this is what they had to offer. They said it would embarass and damage a lot of people and it kind of sounds like this. It would seem like enough to keep honest law enforcement and tax offices business for a decade. (Note that I said "honest" because we generally know how it will play out in the U.S. We'll hear things like "too big to prosecute" and massive offers like 10 cents to the dollar or less.)
Re:'give back to the system' works so well (Score:4, Interesting)
Wait, where do you live where rule by the intelligent has actually been tried? From where I'm standing, it looks like your average high school student knows more about science and technology than half of Congress, and it looks like most of them don't even have enough intelligence to learn about these subjects before legislating on them. Intelligent, indeed.
I'm pretty sure we live on a planet that is largely ruled by the lawyers. This is why we have complex bodies of law designed to be utterly impenetrable for the average person. Lawyers create laws designed so that everyone will have need of their services in the future. The result is that the laws are written not by people who actually understand anything about the real world, but rather by people who mostly only understand the law.
Re:Hypocrisy (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:It is as if there is no law (Score:4, Interesting)
It's worse than if there were no law. In the state of nature, the strong prey on the weak. In the United States of America, the strong prey on the weak with the help of the government.
Re:Take it (Score:5, Interesting)
I saw a blurb somewhere that summed it up for me:
"Which is more likely: that 150 million Americans are lazy or that 400 Americans are greedy?"
The context being that the top 400 have wealth equivalent to the bottom 50%.
Income and wealth inequality is not some abstract concept.
It is real and it is not about how whether the bottom 50% own TVs or a microwave.
Re:It is as if there is no law (Score:5, Interesting)
Absolute rubbish, and here is why. People like you are complacent, and believe yourself to be a tool for the people abusing you. Not only do you have that belief, but you are advocating this belief to others. That complacency, and willingness is normal, but sad behavior.
The answer to the dilemma does come in time. Every so often, citizens behead the king and redistribute the wealth. Historically this is true, and the founding of the USA was an extreme example of this happening.
The USA was built to have peaceful mechanisms in place to make this transition. What it could not do however, is make people become active in forcing changes. Fifty years of brain washing has people like you believing that you have no power, no voice, and no choices. We still have the power in the Constitution to make changes peacefully, but people like you have to stop being complacent and advocating complacency.
Fortunately, there are people demanding changes and they will come eventually. I'm sure that you will be riding their coat tails when it happens to try and get a slice of the pie. Until that time you will sit on the coat tails of those currently abusing society happy to get their crumbs.
Study "The Republic" and learn some history and you will realize that I'm correct on all accounts.