Round The World
New Delhi, 13 April 2016
The Panama Papers
‘LEAKS’ THAT SHOOK THE WORLD
By Amrita Banerjee
(School of International Studies,
JNU, New Delhi)
The leak of over 11.5 million secret
documents from Panama
based-law firm Mossack Fonseca continues to shake political leaderships across
the world and the arising international fallout. The data reveals secret
information about offshore holdings of politicians, film actors, sports stars,
businessmen and crime lords and exposes the illegal practices to hide wealth,
disguise sources of wealth and evade taxes.
Undeniably, the Panama revelation is larger than the US diplomatic
cables exposed by Wiki Leaks in 2010 and the intelligence documents revealed
by Edward Snowden in 2013. These were obtained by German newspaper Süddeutsche
Zeitung from an anonymous source which shared them with the International
Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) which divulged these to its
international partners including India’s
Indian Express and UK’s
BBC and Guardian.
The documents show the myriad ways
in which the rich exploited secretive offshore tax regimes. Scandalously,
already 12 national leaders are among 143 politicians, their families and close
associates who have been using offshore tax havens.
Predictably, the firm hasn’t
discussed any specific cases of alleged wrongdoing, citing client confidentiality;
instead it has defended its conduct by arguing it has complied with
anti-money-laundering laws and carried out thorough diligence on all clients.
Yet, the fact is that Mossack Fonseca helped the world’s rich and powerful hide
their financial assets and dealings.
Notably, over 214,000 offshore
entities appear in the leak connected to people in 200 countries including well
known politicians. Ironically, those who embraced anti-corruption platforms
stand exposed in their hypocritical double standards.
Already, the leak has brought down Iceland’s Prime Minister and raised questions
about Russian President Vladimir Putin and his counterparts in Argentina and Ukraine,
two Prime Ministers Pakistan’s Nawaz Sharief and UK’s
David Cameron, Saudi Arabia’s
King and senior Chinese politicians.
More shocking, the Panama papers point
fingers at 500 Indians: two politicians, bureaucrats, industrialists and
Bollywood celebrities. Interestingly, only a few American names have cropped up
due to two reasons.
First, the Panama firm doesn't
like taking on American clients. Second, such companies can be easily created
in US states like Wyoming, Delaware
and Nevada.
Therein, attracting less attention than they might in Panama, known
for shady financial deals and money laundering.
Recall, till recently, Mossack
Fonseca had operated in the shadows, but came under scrutiny as Governments
obtained partial leaks of its files and Germany
and Brazil
authorities began probing its practices.
Another worrisome aspect is it
includes 33 individuals and companies blacklisted by the US Government for
doing business with Mexican drug lords, terrorist organizations like Hezbollah
or rogue nations like North Korea
and Iran.
These findings highlight how deeply ingrained criminality and harmful practices
in the offshore world.
Importantly, these disclosures should
prompt Governments to seek ‘concrete sanctions’ against jurisdictions and
institutions that peddle offshore secrecy.
Moreover, the leaked data covers
nearly 40 years from 1977-2015 allowing a peek inside the offshore world --- providing
day-to-day, decade-by-decade look at how dark money flows through the global
financial system, breeding crime and stripping national treasuries of tax
revenues.
Undoubtedly, the Panama Papers has
done the world good as financial records reveal the global array of crime and
corruption. But this is only the tip of the iceberg as Mossack Fonseca relates
to just one offshore law firm even if it is the world’s fourth largest.
Clearly, the Papers throw up several
issues. One, the need to get greater clarity on the issue of offshore
remittances and investments given it is perfectly legal in many countries to park
money in shadowy companies in tax havens today. This holds true for India too.
Alas, lack of clarity in our country
exists despite the Reserve Bank evolving guidelines on offshore remittances and
investments since 2004. While procedures, like the Liberalized Remittance
Scheme are specific to remittances utilized by residents to service various
overseas requirements such as medical treatment and education, stipulations
regarding tax avoidance are few.
One of the few stipulations given by
the Government is that money cannot be sent to countries identified as
“non-cooperative” by the global Financial Action Task Force.
Despite the Modi-led NDA Government
passing the Undisclosed Foreign Income and Assets (Imposition of Tax) Act, 2015
and providing a one-time compliance window to declare foreign assets and
income, so far, these have yielded little by way of repatriation of transferred
assets.
Two, the investigation into the Panama
Papers along-with scrutiny of accounts of Indians named in them should pave the
way for further tightening of norms. As global investigation reveal large-scale
tax avoidance and parking of income in shell companies, possibly earned through
graft and cronyism by powerful political and Governmental actors.
However, only global tightening of
norms would not be enough. As Mossack Fonseca is just one company. Europe is
also home to countries that provide banking secrecy which provide haven from
taxes, such as Luxembourg, Switzerland and Andorra. Efforts should be
taken to unearth activities in such wealthy countries also.
Indeed, these revelations provide helpful hints about data security, breach
response and breach impact-information which security
professionals should learn. It is heartening to hear Panama President Juan
Carlos Varela’s assurances to all nations that his Government would help each
of country get maximum information about all activities of Mossack Fonseca.
But in the long run, a global tax
avoidance problem would require a coordinated response. There is urgent need
for more transparency in the movement of global finance capital. The problem of
black money stashed overseas has to be dealt with both at the multilateral
level through tightened capital flow norms and domestically through a zero
tolerance approach to illegal transfers. ---INFA
(Copyright, India
News and Feature Alliance)
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