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  • - [Narrator] In 2016, 11.5 million files were leaked

  • from Mossack Fonseca, the world's fourth largest

  • offshore law firm.

  • These were called the Panama Papers.

  • Hundreds of thousands of offshore entities

  • and shell companies connected to over 200 countries

  • and territories appear in the papers.

  • Prominent world leaders, politicians, business people

  • and the super wealthy were exposed to have been using

  • offshore accounts for tax avoidance and other purposes.

  • So, why should you care?

  • Every year, about 70 billion dollars

  • that the US could be using for infrastructure,

  • law enforcement, healthcare or education is missing.

  • It's hidden deep within shell companies

  • and anonymous entities

  • in places like the British Virgin Islands.

  • Now, let's back up.

  • What exactly is a shell company anyway?

  • - Setting up a shell company is really quite easy.

  • You can go to a place like Panama

  • or the British Virgin Islands or Delaware or Nevada

  • and usually the places where you're doing it

  • have tough laws where they will not reveal

  • who the beneficial owner is and they just layer on

  • different aspects of anonymity.

  • So for example, you could have fake directors

  • where you pay a little bit extra and someone pretends

  • to be the public face of this company.

  • Just because you have a shell company does not mean

  • necessarily that you're doing anything illegal.

  • Say for example, you wanna have some business activities

  • but you don't want certain business partners to know

  • what you're doing.

  • The more normal one is some form of legal tax avoidance.

  • I think that a lot of people in the US

  • think that tax evasion and tax avoidance is something

  • that happens in a far off place with palm trees

  • and ocean breezes.

  • And the reality is it's a big deal here.

  • The US Treasury estimates

  • that something like 300 billion dollars a year

  • is laundered through the United States.

  • Foreigners are coming in and buying up property

  • with anonymous shell companies

  • and some of that is perfectly legitimate

  • but some of it is clearly money laundering

  • and corrupt officials and other people using their cash

  • to park it in property and making it impossible

  • for the people who live there to afford it.

  • And our government is claiming

  • that it doesn't have enough money for infrastructure

  • or for healthcare or for police or for education

  • and at the same time, there's just huge amounts

  • of tax avoidance and tax evasion going on

  • through this secrecy world.

  • Worldwide tax authorities have collected

  • more than a half a billion dollars

  • based on the Panama Papers leak.

  • - [Narrator] Of the 214,000 entities identified

  • in the Panama Papers, about one half of them are located

  • in the British Virgin Islands.

  • How did this tiny area become such a huge tax haven?

  • Mossack Fonseca is a Panama based law firm founded in 1977.

  • After instability in Panama was pushing clients away

  • during the '80s, the firm discovered

  • the British Virgin Islands were ripe new territory

  • for anonymous shell companies.

  • - Their vision was to be McDonald's

  • of the offshore system, right?

  • It was high volume, low cost

  • and so they were going to pump out

  • these anonymous shell companies and make them available

  • to a wider audience.

  • In the beginning, that's a great business model, right,

  • because all you're doing is

  • you create this anonymous shell company, you give it a name,

  • you don't care who actually is behind it and you stick it

  • in a folder and you forget about it

  • until a year passes and it's time to invoice

  • for the renewal.

  • Later on, there's more vetting.

  • Governments start to realize that these are being used

  • by criminals and money launderers and things like that

  • and so they say, "We need more information."

  • And I asked Jurgen Mossack, "Did you ever see that wonderful

  • "I Love Lucy episode where she's in the chocolate factory

  • "and she's trying to keep up with the conveyor belt

  • "and it's going faster and faster?"

  • And he said, "Yes."

  • It was very much like that at a certain point.

  • - [Narrator] So we know it's a big problem

  • but how is this still happening?

  • - There's a lot of bureaucratic inertia and timidity

  • in the IRS for sure.

  • But another big part of it is that Congress has eviscerated

  • the IRS and they've starved it of funds, there's been a lot

  • of retirements and so you've deliberately hobbled the IRS

  • and made it impossible for them to go after this kind

  • of tax evasion.

  • A lot of this information is being held in banks

  • and in jurisdictions where they do not cooperate

  • with US authorities easily.

  • The only way that the IRS can really figure out

  • what's going on is through these leaks.

  • And it's really these leaks in recent years

  • that have allowed the IRS and the rest of the public

  • to really get a vision of how this system works

  • and how big it is, how all-encompassing.

  • It's gonna take people being aware

  • that the reality is we don't have to accept the austerity

  • that is being forced on us.

  • The Europeans are ahead of us on this because they got hit

  • very hard after the financial crisis.

  • There were major cutbacks in multiple countries.

  • And so when these leak investigations started coming out

  • and they found out that the mega wealthy amongst them

  • were not paying their fair share, people got very upset

  • about that and it really hasn't penetrated

  • in the United States quite as much

  • but I suspect that it will in the future.

- [Narrator] In 2016, 11.5 million files were leaked

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富人如何利用避稅天堂隱藏數十億財富? (How The Wealthy Hide Billions Using Tax Havens)

  • 13 1
    Samuel 發佈於 2021 年 01 月 14 日
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