Hard News: Media Take: The Panama Papers
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Yeah baby! Love your work Russell. Talking truth to power. I recall, Key refused to come back on my show when he got a harder time than he expected - would love to see if you can get him to front at some stage and answer some fucking questions straight up.
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I'll look forward to it. Completely agree that it is more about ethics than law. Tax avoidance can be unethical when the law is wrong.
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Today's Tremain
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WaterDragon, in reply to
Love that cartoon
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spitting tax...
The work was coordinated not by any one media organisation but by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists.
Who also broke the earlier Luxembourg Leaks in 2014 - highlighting the sterling work of PricewaterhouseCoopers and their 'sweetheart tax deals'
PricewaterhouseCoopers has helped multinational companies obtain at least 548 tax rulings in Luxembourg from 2002 to 2010. These legal secret deals feature complex financial structures designed to create drastic tax reductions. The rulings provide written assurance that companies’ tax-saving plans will be viewed favorably by Luxembourg authorities.
oddly the man shoulder tapped by Mr Key to 'independently inquire' into the propriety of NZ's situation was a boss within PwC's global juggernaut at that time - retiring in 2012 before the story broke...
Just sayin'... -
It is odd that NZ journalists were left out of the loop since we feature so prominently in the story. More so since Nicky Hager did so much work on a similar story with the ICIJ that looked at NZ trusts but was scuppered by a rogue Guardian journo. It's great these guys are working collectively to shine light onto such murky and complex issues.
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It's preceded by Fog of War, which is quite the curtain-raiser. Pentagon Papers, Panama Papers ...
So anyway, thanks. I'll check it out.
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Ian Dalziel, in reply to
Pentagon Papers, Panama Papers …
I was so grateful that it didn't become the default 'Panamagate'!
...though something along the lines of 'Mossad Fundseeker' would've been fun...
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Kumara Republic, in reply to
I was so grateful that it didn't become the default 'Panamagate'!
...though something along the lines of 'Mossad Fundseeker' would've been fun...
Oscar Kightley put it best: "NZ: where money goes on holiday"
The Panama Papers: It sounds like one of those thick novels about international espionage written by the likes of Frederick Forsyth.
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If Deborah Russell is not New Zealand's Minister of Finance in waiting, I'll scoff my chapeau on toast with cheese sauce.
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Russell Brown, in reply to
If Deborah Russell is not New Zealand’s Minister of Finance in waiting, I’ll scoff my chapeau on toast with cheese sauce.
She needs to get elected as an MP first, but yeah, she's got the goods.
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A timely t-shirt available from RedBubble.
Guardian cartoonists Steve Bell and Martin Rowson have also been producing some stunning work since the Panama Papers broke.
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EE,
Thank you for some interesting TV last night.
Go Bus has a lower tax rate because the Tainui recipients are mainly low-income earners, yet they pay lower wages to their drivers than their competion... ? NZ Buses, who lost the South Auckland contract to Go Bus, pays their drivers above $20, I heard Go Bus pays somewhere in the $18 range. No wonder Go Bus can undercut their rivals. It's a mad rush to the bottom?
P.S. Toi got pwned by .David Seymour... I look forward to round 2
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simon g, in reply to
Seymour was allowed to get away with two basic tricks from the politician's playbook: 1) Taking Fake Offence, and 2) History Began With Me.
He should simply have been asked: "So, just to be clear, you're now repudiating Don Brash?".
ACT change the riders (Hide, Brash, Whyte, Seymour), not the hobby horse. It would have been a headline picked up by other media if he had been called on it, and broken with his predecessors. Opportunity missed, to be honest.
However, all the Dann-Nippert-Russell contributions were good, certainly more insightful than anything from the major networks on the Panama papers so far.
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As Thomas Piketty notes in a recent issue of the Guardian
Panama Papers: Act now. Don’t wait for another crisis
Thomas Piketty – Financial secrecy represents a huge threat to the fragile global system, and we won’t solve the problem by politely asking tax havens to stop behaving badly"There is still a complete lack of transparency as far as private assets held in tax havens are concerned. In many areas of the world, the biggest fortunes have continued to grow since 2008 much more quickly than the size of the economy, partly because they pay less tax than the others."
and continues
"There is still one question outstanding: why have governments done so little since 2008 to combat financial opacity? The simple answer is that they were under the illusion that there was no need to act. Their central banks had printed enough currency to avoid the complete collapse of the financial system, thus avoiding the mistakes which post-1929 led the world to the brink of complete collapse. The outcome is that we have indeed avoided a widespread depression but in so doing we have refrained from the necessary structural, regulatory and fiscal reforms. “
Ironically whether it is the good guys avoiding tax on a massive scale like the Nippert articles show or the really dodgy “bad guys” skirting around the edges like the #panamapapers shows – that governments need to work together to be more transparent so that there is some fairness in global business.
I’d also note that Deborah Russell went on record to say that the Governments appointee ( Shewan) is not independent and in fact he famously was on the record with advising Westpac bank to on $918m IRD tax claim against them. In that instance he was definitely on the side of the poachers – not the game keepers.
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Sacha, in reply to
Taking Fake Offence
No, he was still offended when the cameras stopped rolling.
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Sacha, in reply to
He should simply have been asked: "So, just to be clear, you're now repudiating Don Brash?"
That could have been entertaining, yes.
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steve black, in reply to
That could have been entertaining, yes.
And topical. Lest you think the whole Don Brash Iwi vs Kiwi is just history and things have moved on...
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/te-manu-korihi/301222/iwi-vs-kiwi-campaign-slogan-returns
Brash is still ACTing up again in cahoots with New Zealand Centre for Political Research [SIC] run by former ACT MP Muriel Newman. Same old same old.
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nzlemming, in reply to
It is odd that NZ journalists were left out of the loop since we feature so prominently in the story. More so since Nicky Hager did so much work on a similar story with the ICIJ that looked at NZ trusts but was scuppered by a rogue Guardian journo.
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Russell Brown, in reply to
Nicky Hager has been part of the investigation
Ah. I totally missed that.
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We have John Key's word on this.
Prime Minister John Key said he sought an assurance from his lawyer that he was not linked to Mossack Fonseca, the law firm at the heart of the Panama Papers scandal.
As Mossack Fonseca is only the world's fourth biggest offshore tax haven specialist, Key's lawyer presumably told him exactly which offshore outfit he is linked to. And provided there's nothing shady about the arrangement, the Prime Minister should have no trouble naming the company and their jurisdiction.
In the public interest.
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Ian Dalziel, in reply to
a man a plan a canal panama
We have John Key’s word on this.
Not that the Herald used his exact words;
Mr Key said that the foreign trust industry was "a legitimate business" and was not "the devil incarnate"
he actually said "the devil incarnated"
Nice of them to make him look like he knows what he's talking about.... -
Kumara Republic, in reply to
a man a plan a canal panama
Lyndon Hood and the Economist's Ryan Avent went one better:
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"We have John Key’s word on this."
He is a man of many roles. Was he commenting wearing his Panama hat?
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I wonder, I wonder, why the focus on Key and not his wife or even son and daughter, as it is so common practice by those in high office, also in business, to ensure their wealth does not stick to their name, and is instead registered and kept under the name of a wife, partner or child.
It seems hopeless what the MSM and opposition do in NZ, it is all focused on John Key, by now they must have learned, the man is much smarter than most of them, and as former merchant banker, well familiar with alternative investment vehicles, he will know all the legal and other ins and outs to do business.
Dig where you may not have thought the trusts and wealth may be hidden, dig into Bronagh and Max and his sister's accounts, too, I suggest.
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