Why few Americans in Panama Papers? Lawyer doesn't want them

[WhiteTara]

https://www.yahoo.com/news/why-few-americans-panama-papers-040253370.html?nhp=1

PANAMA CITY (AP) — Rich and influential people around the globe have found themselves under siege since a major data leak revealed their ties to secretive financial accounts and shell companies in low-tax havens used to hide wealth.

The uproar has brought down the prime minister of Iceland and raised questions about the presidents of Argentina and Ukraine, senior Chinese politicians, and the circle of friends of Russian President Vladimir Putin. On Thursday, British Prime Minister David Cameron became the latest politician ensnared when he acknowledged having profited from his father's investments in an offshore tax haven before being elected.

Yet few American names have cropped up in the "Panama Papers," a trove of 11.5 million confidential records detailing such accounts. That's because the Panama-based Mossack Fonseca law firm at the center of the scandal doesn't like taking on American clients, one of its founders says.

snip

One reason for the dearth of American clients may be because such companies can be easily created in U.S. states such as Wyoming, Delaware and Nevada, attracting less attention than they might in Panama, a country with a reputation for shady financial deals and money laundering

[nichomachus]

1. Right. Americans don't need to go to Panama

We've convinced so many people that no taxes or low taxes are good that the billionaires can hide their money right here in plain sight. Just look at Mitt Romney passing hundreds of millions of dollars to his sons tax free. You can't do that in other countries with rigid tax laws.

Or -- you could just set up a money-laundering scheme by calling it a "foundation" and get billionaires around the world to "donate" money to it, while giving out a pittance in direct aid.

[KamaAina]

2. Then why did they set up a subsidiary in Vegas

and wipe all its hard drives?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10027739967#post3

The law firm tried to block the subpoena by denying that its Las Vegas operations, run by a company called M.F. Corporate Services (Nevada) Limited, were part of the Mossack Fonseca group.

The firm’s Panama-based co-founder, Jürgen Mossack, testified under oath that “MF Nevada and Mossack Fonseca do not have a parent-subsidiary relationship nor does Mossack Fonseca control the internal affairs or daily operations of MF Nevada's business.”

But secret records obtained by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung and more than 100 other media partners raise new doubts over that sworn testimony.

Not only do they show that the Nevada subsidiary was wholly owned by Mossack Fonseca but that, behind the scenes, the firm took steps to wipe potentially damaging records from phones and computers to keep details of their clients from the United States justice system.

https://www.publicintegrity.org/2016/04/03/19506/offshore-law-firm-runs-trouble-las-vegas

[WhiteTara]

3. Interesting. Thanks

[Politicalboi]

4. They must have used a big rag

[muriel_volestrangler]

5. That says it was to launder money from Argentina

Legal papers filed in U.S. District Court in Las Vegas claimed that the Panama-based law firm had created 123 companies in Nevada that had been used by a crony of Argentina’s former president to steal millions of dollars from government contracts. A subpoena demanded that Mossack Fonseca turn over details about any money that had flowed through the Nevada companies.

Don't think of the USA only as a place where dodgy rich people have money they need to hide. People from all round the world buy assets in the USA too. That's how the current account deficit is sustained. Americans buy goods from abroad; foreigners buy American assets with the money.

[Yavin4]

6. Money laundering -- the one industry that gets protection from going overseas! nt