Mossack Fonseca

[Lightspeed]

Originally Posted by Ab

Edit update: So far the the impact of the Panama leak on NZ seems to be nothing. Under NZ's current foreign trust laws, which as far as I can tell have been in place forever, tax professionals are legally setting up trusts for legitimate clients to legally minimise tax, which as far as I can tell has been going on since at least the eighties. This again looks like a Moment of Truth bowl of fuck and I fully expect it to give National a bounce in the polls.

Is this exclusively a National thing? Not general political scum baggery that may have been going on since the 80s, if not forever?

[Ab]

huh?

[Lightspeed]

That's my line.

I mean, I get political sniping is the juiciest and quickest gratification we might get from this leak, but is that what the leak is about? That's what the Moment of Truth was expected to be, but aren't the Panama Papers something completely different, both in nature and scope?

[Ab]

Again, IANA international tax expert - but the Panama papers seem to reveal that some very canny tax experts have worked out which countries' tax laws and trust laws say what, and accordingly have set up an informal partnership of referrals between accounting and law firms in different countries to ensure that those tax experts' clients are able to legally structure their finances in ways that minimise tax. While it sounds like most of this is perfectly legit, of course a non-zero number of these clients have turned out to be kinda shady - Russian oil billionaires invisibly moving their money out of Russia to cover their arses in case Putin decides to disappear them, etc.

If you're a politician, or someone who lives in the public eye, being revealed as one of these clients is potentially embarrassing because you might not want to look like you're being too enthusiastic about avoiding paying tax, or in current mediaspeak "paying your fair share". If you're one of the accounting and law firms, it's just "meh, that's our job".

From what I can see NZ's tax and trust laws have made it one of the countries through which these deals are done. No NZ laws are being broken, no-one is accused of committing a crime, so my reaction is "meh". If there's a way for the country to make money out of this, great - tax the fuckers. I have to pay tax on the revenue from my investments, no reason why some Russian oligarch shouldn't too.

Because NZ's left are collectively insane they are highlighting this system as evidence that:

a) NZ is literally taking money out of the pockets of poor people in foreign countries. If NZ had stronger tax laws, the reasoning goes, these rich clients would instead choose to "pay their fair share" in their home countries, and those countries' increased tax revenue would inevitably go straight into the pockets of poor people. Therefore NZ is to blame for world poverty and/or inequality.

b) Because John Key is a Machiavellian mastermind of pure black-hearted evil, anything bad in the world inevitably must have John Key's fingerprints all over it. Therefore these law and accounting firms must be acting under John Key's personal orders, and John Key has personally written these tax and trust laws into the books, and because John Key's former lawyer now works for a firm that made a referral to another firm that something something Panama therefore John Key is a money launderer for Big Pharma something something FUCK JOHN KEYS.

[pxpx]

When lefties see the word "trust" all rational and reasoned thought leaves the building. It's pretty fucking funny to watch.

[Ab]

Greens Leader James Shaw clarified that the party were not against Kiwis having trusts overseas, they just wanted more transparency and disclosure on their details. He said a lot of foreign trusts were being used for illegitimate purposes, but some were legitimate.

Huh. that's surprisingly sane, I wonder wh--

Panama Papers: Green Party donor listed in offshore leaks

http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/7981...offshore-leaks

[Jodi]

I like it how we charge a 0% tax for some sort of thing, so with countries we have a double-taxation policy with, they don't get taxed at home, since there have already been taxed in NZ ... by 0%

[pxpx]

This is pretty funny

http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/poli...foreign-trusts

Labour leader Andrew Little later defended Mathers and said Key's comments were "dumb" and "totally tasteless".

"If he was a man he would stand up and apologise, he didn't do that."

"She should never have been put in that position. She's the only deaf member in the House and this is New Zealand sign language week. It was just totally tasteless," he said.

[Ab]

with that little whinge Little has achieved fractal wrongness. the whole thing is wrong, but if you zoom in you see that each individual piece has a wrongness that resembles the wrongness of the whole.

[Lightspeed]

So this is definitely all just about scoring political points? There's absolutely no scope for reflection on nature and state of wealth in our society and the world? Our focal point is on the insane elements, rather than the sane?

[Ab]

Putting aside for a moment John Key's poisonous evil heart, and Andrew Little's incoherent incompetence... what do you propose? what about the current situation do you think is bad, and how would you change it?

[Heyzoos]

Originally Posted by Lightspeed

So this is definitely all just about scoring political points?

Yes.

Originally Posted by Lightspeed

There's absolutely no scope for reflection on nature and state of wealth in our society and the world? Our focal point is on the insane elements, rather than the sane?

No.

[Lightspeed]

Originally Posted by Ab

what do you propose? what about the current situation do you think is bad, and how would you change it?

How about we take some time, actually find out what is the current situation? From what I understand there is a lot of data over a long time frame that has or will be exposed. If so there's a lot of previously hidden insight to be gained about the state of global wealth over time.

Once what we've learnt is clear, at that point we might consider what it is that we might want to be different.

[pxpx]

gets asked direct question
responds with weasel words

did you expect something better, Ab?

[spigalau]

And so it starts...

"Good day,

I'm a private lawyer to a prominet nigerian politician if you can be off assistance i will appreciate it a lot .I have a financial project i will like to talk to you about ..all i need is trust and i hope i can trust you .. my email is( [email protected] ) I want to withdraw my clients funds from his panama offshore holdings firm because his details was leaked.The process is simple.

Looking forward to your replies.


Regards,

Jost Dieter"

[Lightspeed]

Originally Posted by pxpx

gets asked direct question
responds with weasel words

did you expect something better, Ab?

You and your expectations can get fucked. You can choose to be blinded by constant political one-upmanship if you want. I'm interested in something else.

[pxpx]

My expectations of you are so low James Cameron couldn't reach them.

[CCS]

That is a icy hot burn.

[MadMax]

*an

[CCS]

I can assure you it was quite deliberate. And now you've ruined it.

[MadMax]

Oh stop shifting the goal posts.

[CCS]

Ruiner.

[Ab]

Revealed today: Australian PM Malcolm Turnbull was once on the board of a company set up in the British Virgin Islands by Mossack Fonseca.

http://www.smh.com.au/business/banki...11-got0di.html

So far the reaction in the media has been "can we talk about something relevant to Australia, like, now?"

Imagine if this were NZ and John Key. Labour would be losing its fucking mind.

[CCS]

In an article originally titled 'No Kiwis dodging tax obligations', Claire Trevett says:

Inland Revenue staff have trawled through the Panama Papers and found fewer than 200 foreign trusts registered in New Zealand had links to Mossack Fonseca and all had been disclosed.
...
He said of 500,000 entities and organisations Mossack Fonseca had a link to, fewer than 200 were trusts with any link to New Zealand. All of those were disclosed, which Mr Key said meant they were subject to information sharing requests from other countries and Inland Revenue.

I remain uncertain as to what the big fucking deal is.

[Ab]

Moment of Truth, Episode 2

[CCS]

KEEN

[BoyWonder]

At least the first moment of truth had the vacuum cleaner moment. I supose "do we ban Elvis impersonators?" will be the take away from this one.

[[Malks] Pixie]

My 2c on the matter is I'll wait until some actual research has been done on the data - if anything interesting is going to come out of the PPs then it won't be for months, possibly years.

[Ab]

CAN'T YOU SEE THAT THE PANAMA PAPERS PROVE THAT JOHN KEYS IS EVIL??!1

[crocos]

All politicians are evil. Never trust someone that wants to be in power.

[Lightspeed]

Originally Posted by pxpx

My expectations of you are so low James Cameron couldn't reach them.

I don't have any expectations of you at all...

[Lightspeed]

Originally Posted by crocos

All politicians are evil. Never trust someone that wants to be in power.

Never trust anyone in power. Not because they're evil, but because they're human. We tend towards using power for our own interests. That's no surprise or scandal. That's why many governments, certainly all Western governments, use systems of checks and balances.

[crocos]

Way to kill a joke LS

Sure it wasn't a very GOOD joke, but you still killed it. You murderer.

[Lightspeed]

I wish I could kill the joke. I really wish I could. Cause the joke is on us.

Anyway, another quality article from RNZ that will fall to the wayside:
Panamania - do Kiwis care about the Papers?

[Ab]

Summary: Moment of Truth Episode 2. After all the buildup, JUST WAIT FOR MAY 10 THEN WATCH THE GOVERNMENT FALL, noone gives a shit because noone has had it explained in clear terms why they should.

[pxpx]

self-ag·gran·dise·ment (sĕlf′ə-grăn′dĭz-mənt)
n.

The act or practice of enhancing or exaggerating one's own importance, power, or reputation.

New Zealand warranted some mention, but the real focus on this country has only been since a team of journalists from RNZ and TVNZ, and the investigative journalist Nicky Hager, was given access to the Papers about a fortnight ago.

"Quality"

[Ab]

But journalists are IMPORTANT, it says so right here in this newspaper

[CCS]

My favourite thing to have come out of the Moshpit Feijoa saga is the video clip that TVNZ plays over and over and over (they really love it) of their own reporters collaborating with Fairfax reporters and Nicky Hagar. They're sitting around a conference, poring over reams of paper. I look at it and I'm like "Holy fuck, man. This is just like All The President's Men!" Super duper important business.

[CCS]

Oh, and all their Panama Papers reporting has its own Panama Papers logo as a watermark on all the video. Shit bro. Serious.

[Ab]

I guess leaving the data on a computer and just using grep never occurred to them. Gotta print that shit out and look for words and highlight stuff in yellow for the photographs!