THE PANAMA PAPERS

Mossack  Fonseca when he observed "nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes", and the pannama based law firm might have changed his mind. Mossack is at the centre of a huge tax and money-laundering scandal, now coming to light thanks to the so called “Panama papers”.

WHAT EXACTLY ARE THESE PAPERS AND WHT DO THEY MATTER ??:-

Companies such as Mossack specialise in helping foreigners hide wealth. Clients may want to keep money away from soon-to-be ex-wives, avoid sanctions, launder money or escape taxes.

The main tools for doing so are unknown shell companies which exist only on paper and which often come with perks such as banking secrecy and low to no taxes.

These structures obscure the identity of the true owner of money parked in or routed through jurisdictions such as Panama. But authorities (and irritated ex-wives) just caught a split. Over 11m documents have been leaked from Mossack’s  secretive offices.

Here, contain information about 214,500 companies in 21 offshore jurisdictions and names of over 14,000 middlemen such as banks and law firms.

THE INDIAN CONNECTION AND GOV’T ON ITS TOES :-

Over 500 Indians figure on the firms list of offshore companies, trusts and foundations.

From Politicians, film stars, businessmen etc. The paper include cricket franchise deals and, in several cased linkages to those who have previously been under CBI or Income-tax scrutiny.

Government said it was constituting a special malty-agency group to look into all cases of Indians setting up offshore entities in tax havens after The panama Papers came into the press.

Welcoming the information brought out any investigative journalism, The finance Ministry in a statement said group comprising officers from the investigative units of the Central Board of Direct Taxes and its Foreign Tax and Tax Research division,   The reserve bank of India (RBI), the finance Intelligence Unit will monitor the flow of information in each case.

The leak will greatly add to pressure on Panama to adopt emerging global standards on the exchange of tax information and to enforce new anti-money-laundering laws properly.

More broadly, the revelation will inject some urgency into a global anti-corruption summit, which is to be held in London in May.