Peter Vaines wonders what all the fuss is over the Panama Papers & reports on other recent developments in the world of tax
All this business about the Panama Papers is driving me bonkers. Everybody is getting themselves all worked up about the tax issues relating to funds deposited in Panama—but these revelations have got very little to do with tax. It seems much more likely that most of the money is not put there to escape tax (such people are hardly likely to have been paying tax anyway) but to conceal the proceeds of crime, money laundering and corruption—on a biblical scale. Indeed, in the published list of people who had money in Panama, there is a whole section entitled “Organised Crime”.
It never ceases to amaze me how in some countries, a perfectly ordinary person can be elected to high office and before very long is able to accumulate untold millions (or billions) of pounds without anybody really getting too fussed about it. It is difficult to see any legitimate way in which such riches can have been acquired—and they obviously need to be
