PANDORA PAPERS - TARGETS SPAIN & LATIN AMERICA - ANDORRA - PANAMA - BVI

[gnud]

I knew a few European media owners (holidays neighbors and hobbies)...
After a while we ended up talking about taxes, accountants, businesses, and how to protect/shield our wealth.
I'm not talking about Bloomberg size, but smaller yet national sized ones, tvs and newspapers.
Guess what... they used offshore corps and trusts to shield their wealth and it was perfectly normal for them.
They owned villas in Switzerland and Caribbeans too.
One of them still owns a very left-wing newspaper. His name was on panama papers.
It just made a bit of noise for maybe one day in some medias, he didn't even had to comment.
Then everyone forgot about it, or it was just a few lines in the least important page of the newspaper.
His employees are pretty much all ex/wannabe commies... and they were the first ones to quiet the things down once other left-wing politicians names came up.
Their right-wing main political enemy was in panama papers too, but they could't write too much about it otherwise other would call on their boss...

Do you think these left-wing journos care about their boss and his offshore money?
Do you think they understand how business or finance works, what's legal and what's not?
they don't give a damn, as long as he pays them, and the newspaper stays in the "hammer and sickle" line.
They only care about chilling and drinking with their champagne socialist friends in 5 star hotels, go skying in the most exclusive french resorts (off cameras), eating daily in starred restaurants.
And wine, boy they love wine!
Their job is being paid easy money to write unproductive mental gymnastics all day long and throw s**t at "right-wing capitalists"... while maybe spending like 3k for a red sweater, 2k for a bag, 10k for holiday and 5k+ of new apple products EVERY YEAR.
But yeah they tell me Steve Jobs wasn't a capitalist...
I don't care as I am not politically affiliated, but surely it's fun to see it from the outside!

short story: do what you feel and don't take moral lessons from these kind of journos.

Sounds like just about every woke libtard that I've met. It's all about feeling good about themselves to soothe their deep insecurity issues, and nothing else.
In general, moralistic busybodies are the biggest cunts around. Doesn't matter what religion or ideology they subscribe to, it's always just a thinly veiled excuse for their real issues beneath.

 

[daxbr]

Finally people start asking the right questions about the provenance of the leak.

“The idea that there are 14 trust companies around the world whose data was simultaneously handed over to the ICIJ or members of the same network, suggests to me a government intelligence agency with a lot of resources behind this, or a group of high-net-worth individuals who have it in their mind that the ‘1 percent’ need to pay their share,” Martin Kenney, an attorney in the British Virgin Islands (BVI), told The Epoch Times.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/rumors-swirl-about-source-of-pandora-papers_4032634.html

 

[RexS9999]

Curious about something. Wealthy people used trusts, companies, nominee's etc to hide their ownership of assets. I have opened accounts in so called "tax havens" and was always asked for the name of the beneficial owner. Had to provide my passport.

I notice that most of the assets mentioned in the Pandora Papers seem to be real estate. Property is exempt from a lot of required disclosure.

Anyone know how these people open bank accounts without producing a passport?

 

[Sols]

By using some form of nominees (legally or illegally) and structures whereby they cease to be the beneficial owner. For example, if you place an asset in a foundation or trust controlled a third party, you no longer control or own the asset and as such are no longer the beneficial owner. That's an oversimplification and the exact details vary, but that's the gist of it.

 

[RexS9999]

Right. But ultimately the bank/brokerage asks for the name and the passport of the benficial owner. Extemely risky using a nominee. Whoever's name and passport is used is then faced with his/her tax considerations. Of course Putin and some others have the use of violence and worse as leverage. The simple wealthy do not.

 

[Sols]

Your experience with opening bank accounts is different from more sophisticated structures, whereby it is both legal and possible to not disclose the wealthy individual's identity to the bank.

Wealthy people don't walk into banks, open bank accounts in their own name or a company that they control, and wire money into that. There is a lot more going on behind the scenes. For the right sum of money and as long as they can show that hey have fulfilled their legal KYC/EDD obligations, the banks are in on it.

As you write, the bank will need to know the beneficial owner. The key, then, is to make the beneficial owner be someone else. Legally.

 

[boomy]

As you write, the bank will need to know the beneficial owner. The key, then, is to make the beneficial owner be someone else. Legally.

That must be the hardest part and goes not for cheap as already indicated by you.

But would you mind to elaborate just a little on this part, maybe just the basic on what such a setup looks like?

 

[Sols]

But would you mind to elaborate just a little on this part, maybe just the basic on what such a setup looks like?

Let's take a trust and company ownership as an example. You own a business and it's doing well, but for whatever reason, you want to no longer be the UBO but you also don't want to sell it outright.

You go to a trustee and draft up a trust deed, whereby you as the Settlor settle the company (or at least your shares of the company) in a trust, which is managed by the Trustee. You might appoint your cousin, best friend, or long-time trusted attorney as Protector of the trust. The Protector's role is to ensure that the trustee does with the entrusted assets what was laid out in the deed. In the trust deed, you can stipulate further control mechanisms to ensure that the trustee doesn't just liquidate the company and run with the money. You can for example mandate that other people you trust hold senior positions or directorship roles within the company.

You no longer own the company and will become irrelevant for reporting purposes, if the whole structure is set up correctly.

Now, the OECD and its ilk aren't stupid. They know about these arrangements and have worked mechanisms into the AEOI/CRS protocol to ensure this isn't exactly as easy as described above. For example, when the company then goes to open a bank account, the Settlor's identity needs to be disclosed (SOF/SOW checks on the trust). To avoid also that, you need to take extra steps, which are tailored to your specific situation, hence the need to work out custom arrangement each time. But that's kind of the gist of it.

Above is a massive oversimplification. I can't stress enough that these arrangements need to be thought out in detail by qualified people. It frustrates me to see certain CSPs selling trusts and foundations for a few thousand, because it gives people the impression that would somehow work. In reality, these setups almost always include several layers and chains of trusts and foundations, Anstalt, Stiftung, SPIC, and all sorts of other arrangements and entities that creative lawyers all over the world have helped write into law.

One of the hardest parts tends to be the return of assets to the Settlor in a way which does not fracture the integrity of the initial trust.

 

[GPT]

Curious about something. Wealthy people used trusts, companies, nominee's etc to hide their ownership of assets. I have opened accounts in so called "tax havens" and was always asked for the name of the beneficial owner. Had to provide my passport.

I notice that most of the assets mentioned in the Pandora Papers seem to be real estate. Property is exempt from a lot of required disclosure.

Anyone know how these people open bank accounts without producing a passport?

Another option to avoid the passport thing is to open a company that falls under the rules used for exchange registration.

They have stricter accounting rules but don’t have to disclose nor keep track of who owns the shares in that company.

In Switzerland specifically that can be accomplished with opening an AG instead of a GmbH.

If the capital is high enough the accounting costs are irrelevant so to say.