The revelations began last week and may last until 2014. The identification of politicians and millionaires around the world who keep money in offshore escaping taxation that the common citizen is subject, has so far had only one consequence: French President François Hollande declared war on tax havens.
A hard disk mailed to the association of journalists based in Washington International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) triggered the investigation. A network of 86 journalists from 46 countries began working several months ago in a huge mass of information - 260 gigabytes in 2.5 million files, including emails, databases, spreadsheets, PDF, images and texts in the rough .
An amount of information more complex and 160-fold higher than the matched U.S. diplomatic revealed by Wikileaks.
The information relates only to 10 offshore, so it is an astronomical amount of sample that is in tax havens - according to the association Tax Justice Network, somewhere between 21 and 32 billion dollars, more than the wealth produced in a year by Member States and Japan together.
It is not illegal to have a company or a bank account in a territory with a tax exception - provided that they should declare the movements to the tax authorities of the country of origin. But we know that this is not the option for those who hides behind a myriad of front companies, as did the late Gunter Sachs. With the help of a law firm, the German playboy created 15 companies in territories friends opacity (Luxembourg, Panama, Cook Islands and British Virgin Islands).
The Offshoreleaks had to have the virtue of undermining one of the characteristics of those looking to park their wealth outside of your country: anonymity. Politicians such as Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili Georgian, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev dO (and family), Governor Philippine Maria Imelda Marcos, relatives of politicians as the wife of former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, the son in law of former Burmese dictator Ne Win, the wife of Deputy Russian Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov (who for days said the citizens to keep the money in Russia), the husband of Senator Pana Merchant and Canadian sons of former Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, and famous personalities such as art collector Carmen Thyssen-Bornemisza or quoted Sachs are some examples of people who profited from the scheme.
Another name that made the dent was the treasurer of the campaign of François Hollande, Jean-Jacques Augier. Former college classmate of the President, stated that this entrepreneur used an offshore company formed to make an investment in China. But in this case joined another, the budget minister. Jérôme Cahuzac was fired after it was revealed that in 2009 had tried to divert 15 million to Switzerland and lied to the Head of State.
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