Fonseca is actually a very transparent firm when it comes to its services. It's just people perception of the elites "cheating"... actually... taking advantage of their resources ($$$) and our complex tax system to optimize their tax efficiency, demands a fair or equal treatment among all taxpayers.

Of course there would be people who use such system for illegal activities, but what Mossack Fonseca is doing (the procedure itself) is totally legit.

It charges about u$1200 to register an offshore company. With some more money, it finds an associate to represent your company... pay even more, you get to hide pretty much all the information of shareholders. This is actually done in pretty much every single legal firm that specializes in offshore and no, it's not illegal to remain anonymous.

The part where it gets tricky is what they do with these companies... and of course it costs more money. But it usually involves insurance, trust, or some form of gifting to achieve the tax-free status.

Think it this way... let's say you want to buy an income property somewhere outside of Canada. You gift the money to your dad (or someone outside of CDN tax system) and your dad creates offshore entity in his name to own the property and get all the money. The company also invest the rent in whatever you feel like investing, and finally, it uses a gift clause (cash gift is tax free in Canada... unlimited, while both entities are alive) to give cash gift from dad to son.

Yup, the PM of Iceland is one:

Panama Papers: Iceland PM's investments questioned - BBC News

TLDR: He hid a bunch of money in a company there, transferred it to his wife before entering office, rather than declaring it, then used it to profit from the banking crisis.

Here's Iceland's reaction:

http://assets.nydailynews.com/polopo...e-accounts.jpg

24,000 people in a country with a population of 323,000 show up at his front door wanting him out.

There will be plenty more to come I'm sure

Let's burn him, and the rest of them, at the stake... because you know, tax evasion is a new concept.

And just in case we forgot about a former PM and trudeau supporter/adviser...Prime Minister Paul Martin’s ship empire was based in Barbados, beyond taxation in Canada, and only a few of us dared to raise a fuss.

We didn't have access to information back then like we do now. The internet has changed a lot of things, and this is one of them. While in the 90's we knew that PM's company was based offshore, not too many of us knew what that meant. I was guilty myself when the Panama papers came out. But spend an hour online reading and watching, and my knowledge base has grown immensely.

I wish that Canadians were as angry as the Icelanders. But frankly, I'm too busy chasing the dream to protest. Welcome to North America in 2016. We know we're being shafted, but no one really has the energy to care. Modern slavery wins again.

looks like he resigned
Icelandic PM Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson offers resignation amid offshore tax questions | CTV News

Democracy fucking rules :thumbs:

Wtf? How?

He was able to hide his assets and was elected.

He profited from the position of power he was in.

He resigns without any penalty.

Probably still entitled to benefits of being in office.

Tax evasion scheme is vast. Most people who make serious coins does it, in different levels of course. Wouldnt be suprised if the company you work for does it. Its unethical but for some part, not illegal as it targets loopholes.

Because he got booted out the day after people found out all that

And you can be sure charges will follow

Compare that to shitty countries where he would still be in power, even more corrupt, and probably arresting anyone who spoke out against him.

That's "wtf" how

Here is some more education for you about Iceland that was never publicized for obvious reasons.
Instead of signing up their offspring/future generations to the debt of the current generation they refused to kick the can down the road. The average Icelander is much more politically involved/aware.

Revenue Canada and the IRS are going to be busy squeezing every ounce of blood they can get from Canadians and US Citizens/Residents with Panamanian off-shore accounts.

For those who are interested, here is the complete (global) list of individuals and companies with off-shore accounts in Panama.

Edit: The list, I just realized, contains all created in 10 off-shore jurisditions including the BVI, Cook Islands, and Singapore. Panama list is not yet in that database.

As long as the economy is doing relatively well, and people are living relatively good lives, you are not going to see any kind of major protests or social unrest, regardless of how corrupt the government / leadership is. For the most part, most people just want to live a decently happy life of their own, and it would take too much time, energy, and effort for them to pursue justice -- pursuing that would dramatically reduce their own quality of life.

Case in point -- China has one of the world's most corrupt government + political leaders, but mass protests pretty much only happen when the poor are pushed to the brink of their existence.

unless youre a billionaire or part of a politically connected family your political power/influence is almost nil.

you can start a protest/uprising but in the end of the day you still have to elect a leader, and whos to say that leader will fulfill their promises?

we're lucky we live in Canada where most of our leaders are fairly reasonable and less corrupt than other place.

America will be awesome if only they'd vote in Bernie.
The guy who said white people dont like what it's like to be poor.
The guy who was not employed until age 40 living off the tax payers.
The guy who thinks social justice is taxing the rich and giving to the poor.

CRA is too weak/not enough resources to go after rich people represented by the Big 4 accounting firms.
They'll rather go after 10 small business owners than 1 rich person.

IRS on the other hand makes anybody bend over like UBS.

oh wow, what a surprise... people wanna keep their money and not pay taxes cuz... they can? so they do?

LOL.

Hmmm i just sold my used rims... i better report that as income... like all of you guys do.

Ulic's, you are just so fucking stupid sometimes.....

I think Ulic is schizophrenic.

With a dash of psychopathy?
PogChamp


lol, I'm sorry for going there Ulic. But sometimes your replies are just so asinine, that I can't help myself.

According to some people blackmail is the strongest form of currency.
BrokeBack Just ask Hillary Clinton BrokeBack
So do you think theres a chance the reason why the US citizens involved is because they might be delegates or superdelegates? PogChampPogChampPogChamp

I'm confused, what's the big deal? If it's legal, it's legal. Change the laws, but I don't really see a big deal in someone having an offshore company.

You are correct. No big deal for a company to have off-shore accounts for legit business purposes. However, it is a very well known fact that a lot of off-shore accounts in tax haven countries are meant to skirt around the tax laws of the country where the individual resides. A lot of these off-shore accounts are used to stash ill-gotten wealth that would otherwise be easily traceable if hidden in bank accounts in the country where the owner resides.

For example, a government official that steals money from his/her government can open an off-shore bank account to keep the money in a jurisdiction that is out of reach of his/her country. No one was supposed to know until all these off-shore bank accounts got leaked to the press. Now, these people are in hot water and need to explain where they got their wealth since they did not declare it in their tax declarations or returns.

i wonder if anyone tried black mailing panama first before leaking the information...send me 1 billion dollars and no one knows...no?..okay heres the information of you clients.

You know some people are probably already dead because of these. Fucking dirty business but c'est la vie.