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The disclosure rules for BVI, Panama, etc are far less though. If you have a company in the UK it's some effort to hide who the owners are, etc and it's becoming ever more difficult with AML, KYC, etc
In Panama they've made an industry out of offering that as a service.
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I must admit I don't have an excellent understanding of the relative merits of the various tax havens. From my own experience (in my job, rather than through my own offshore investments) Panama is used quite extensively by British high net worth individuals for tax efficiency purposes. I do a lot of research on BVI and Panama registered companies and public information is very difficult to come by.
The Guardian and the BBC are focusing on the Russian connection (Putin's corrupt - no shit), and I've read somewhere that they are the only British outlets with access to a searchable directory of the leaked documents. The American news networks are largely ignoring it. I'm just wondering who has a vested interest in fingers being pointed in particular directions.
As an aside I'm also trying to figure out why the Arab oil barons keep offshore accounts when they own everything in their countries and don't pay tax anyway. I assume it's more for money laundering purposes than tax evasion/avoidance?
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aggi
spiderpie
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It's a hunch, but I suspect that London is a pretty good place to be if you want to find ways of hiding money. Jersey and Man aren't too far away either. If I was a wealthy immoral Brit, that's probably where I'd be putting my money. If I were an autocrat stealing from my own people, however, I'd be keeping the money as far away from Western scrutiny as possible. Not because we're "better," but because it's quite possible we'll take the money if we find it.