London. Alex Cobham, director of the British Tax Justice Network, a British NGO, yesterday denounced the UK’s responsibility, through its overseas territories tax havens, in the massive evasion he highlighted pandora leaves.
“The British government, and particularly the current government, is putting off fiscal transparency. There is even a real danger that the UK, at the time Britain’s exit from the European UnionGo back to the old post-colonial model of tax authorities with the city at the center,” Cobham said.
The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists revealed the project on Sunday pandora leaves, which revealed part of the secret paradise of the world’s political and economic leaders by identifying at least 336 politicians and senior officials in 91 countries, including Mexico, and 130 billionaires including celebrities and various criminals, as participants in sophisticated maneuvers to evade taxes, launder Money and storing the fruits of corruption in a secret international financial system.
The investigation is based on the leak of about 11.9 million documents from 14 financial services companies around the world, in which about 600 journalists from dozens of outlets participated, including Washington PostAnd Watchman And Country.
“If I were a political leader in the European Union, I would take a closer look at the UK and start suggesting that there may be reasons to act on the threats it poses in terms of tax evasion,” Cobham said.
In addition to exchanging information about taxpayer accounts between countries, “there should be no front companies, trusts or foundations that allow their owners and ultimate beneficiaries to remain anonymous, as this practice is at the center of all corruption or tax evasion issues,” he said. “Multinational corporations must also publicly declare their profits and taxes paid in all countries,” not just in their country of registration.
“As long as there are no criminal investigations and penalties for banks, law firms or accountants who sell services that circumvent the law and undermine tax returns that benefit everyone, we will see that these practices continue,” Cobham said.
The BVI is home to two-thirds of nearly 1,000 front companies employed by hundreds of executives and politicians named in pandora leaves, the Caribbean archipelago tops Tax Justice Network’s list of the world’s most opaque tax jurisdictions, followed by the Cayman Islands and Bermuda.
For its part, the British government confirmed that it “leads the world in the fight against tax evasion and tax fraud” and announces its intention to turn the United Kingdom into a “hostile place for illicit financing”, according to what was reported by Agence France-Presse. .
I have collaborated with ICIJ: Lasso
It also caused the political earthquake it caused pandora leavesIn Ecuador, the association’s audit committee demanded that President Guillermo Laso provide information about his alleged ties to companies in tax havens.
In a statement, the watchdog requested these documents to verify whether the president currently has any “commercial, financial or labor relations with the funds, companies and institutions mentioned in the report.”
Once the ICIJ investigation became known, Lasso asserted that the companies had been “legally dissolved” in the past and that existing companies had “no relation” to it.
Moreover, he stressed in a statement that he has “voluntarily and openly” cooperated with ICIJ and its allied media, and emphasized that it abides by Ecuadorean law prohibiting candidates for popularly elected office and public officials from owning real estate in tax havens.
Pinochet Communities
It was also known that Chilean lawyer Oscar Aitken used up to six companies in the British Virgin Islands to hide the assets of Augusto Pinochet (1973-1990).
In these companies, payments were received from the sale of weapons and information shows that the office that managed them tried to disavow when they learned who their real owner was.
The companies were run by the Panamanian law firm Alemán, Cordero, Galindo and Lee (Alcogal), which, according to the ICIJ, asked Aitken to close or move it after learning some of it was owned by the dictator.
Of the six companies, Bellevue was the most prolific, through which the dictator executed his real estate deals, through a subsidiary set up by his first man in Santiago, buying several apartments and real estate for about 700 million euros. Cornwall, linked to the illegal sale of guns.
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