Tag: International Consortium of Investigative Journalists

British Virgin Islands publishing a PUBLIC register of the owners of its offshore companies.

@ericgarland

Notorious tax haven British Virgin Islands to introduce public register of company owners

The territory’s secrecy rules have long attracted criminals and secretive companies created there have featured in several ICIJ investigations on offshore finance.

The British Virgin Islands, a popular tax haven where secrecy rules have long attracted criminals, will introduce a public register of owners of companies created on the island.

The BVI, an overseas territory of the United Kingdom located east of Puerto Rico, has a well-documented history of being misused by drug traffickers, corrupt politicians, and tax evaders. Successive scandals, including exposés by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, have placed the BVI under pressure to increase transparency.

Andrew Fahie, BVI’s premier and minister of finance, told the island’s House of Assembly in September that his government would work “towards a publicly accessible register of beneficial ownership for companies,” albeit “subject to reservations.” Liz Sugg, the U.K. minister with responsibility for territories like the BVI, later tweeted that the public register would be adopted by 2023.

“Every time that there’s a global exposé on illicit finance, the BVI’s name comes up,” said Ava Lee, anti-corruption campaign leader from the nonprofit Global Witness. “The recent leak of files from FinCEN showed that at least 20% of the occasions when banks in the US raised suspicions of money laundering involved BVI companies, and half the companies exposed by the Panama Papers were registered there.”

There is currently no simple way for members of the public, journalists, or lawyers to identify a BVI company’s owner.

Knowing a company’s owner can be key to determining whether laws have been broken and help trace money, homes or other assets in a divorce or other dispute. Countries and law enforcement can officially request information from the BVI. However, not all countries can make such requests and, even if they can, information can take significant time to arrive.

BVI, and secretive companies created there, have played an outsized role in major ICIJ investigations since 2014.

snip

The BVI was the secrecy jurisdiction of choice for customers of the Panama-based law firm Mossack Fonseca, according to an ICIJ analysis of leaked files that formed the basis of the 2016 Panama Papers investigation. Mossack Fonseca created more than 113,000 BVI companies, outstripping Panama as the most popular tax haven.

The Laundromat https://www.netflix.com/title/80994011

#Mercer revelation in Paradise Papers #ParadisePapers

Leaked documents … show how the billionaire Mercer family built a $60m war chest for conservative causes inside their family foundation by using an offshore investment vehicle to avoid US tax,” The Guardian reports:“The offshore vehicle was part of a network of companies in the Atlantic tax haven of Bermuda led by Robert Mercer, the wealthy hedge-fund executive and Bannon patron whose spending helped put Trump in the White House and aided a resurgence of the Republican right.”

“Mercer, 71, appears as a director of eight Bermuda companies in the Paradise Papers

a trove of millions of leaked documents on offshore finance reviewed by the Guardian, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and other partners.”
Paradise Papers

“The files include a copy of Mercer’s US passport and other private data.”

POLITICIANS PASS ANOTHER TAX LOOPHOLE FOR THE .01%

Mercer has personally donated $41m to federal election campaigns over the past decade, according to public filings.

Mercer was  a major investor in Breitbart  rightwing propaganda website that Bannon led before joining Trump’s campaign.

You take retirement plans or foundations, you invest them in a hedge fund, and even if the value rises 100%, you can sell off the investments with no tax consequences. ~ Bill Parish

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has been pursuing Renaissance for $6.8bn in federal taxes that it was accused of improperly avoiding through practices described as “abuses” in a 2014 investigation by a Senate committee.

► Mercer Family Foundation nonprofit led  daughter Rebekah gave out $62m to conservative  republican “research” propaganda  thinktanks  including the Heritage Foundation, the Federalist Society, and the Media Research Center.

$4.7m to Bannon’s Government Accountability Institute
Bannon founded GAI in Florida in 2012 with Peter Schweizer, the conservative author of Clinton Cash. Since then, the GAI has paid Bannon $379,000 and Schweizer $781,000. Rebekah Mercer was a director of the group until 2014.

$3.8m to the nonprofit arm of Citizens United, best known for the deregulation of political spending it won in a 2010 supreme court ruling.

$1.2m to the Young America’s Foundation, another conservative nonprofit, which paid Bannon more than $577,000 between 2010 and 2012 for filmmaking service

Resources

Secrets of the Global Elite

Offshore leaks database
Find out who’s behind almost 500,000 offshore companies, foundations and trusts from the Panama Papers, the Offshore Leaks and the Bahamas Leaks investigations.

An ICIJ Investigation The Panama Papers:
Exposing the Rogue Offshore Finance Industry

July 4 2015 London is now the global money-laundering centre for the drug trade, says crime expert Gomorrah author Roberto Saviano says ‘the British treat it as not their problem’ ~ James Hanning, David Connett