Pandora Papers Explained | Money Trail of Super Rich People | Sohail khan

 Hello, friends!

Some days ago, in the world of Finance, we got to witness a shocking revelation. The Pandora Papers. These papers contain the names of many influential people. Billionaires, top government officials, public figures, celebrities, and even sportspersons like Sachin Tendulkar. But what exactly has been revealed in these Pandora Papers? Come, let's try to understand it in today's Article

Friends, the word Pandora comes from Pandora's Box. It is from Greek mythology. Opening a Pandora's Box' is an idiom. It basically means that you do something, and because of what you did, some unexpected problems are created. For example, if I say that religion can be involved in politics, it would basically mean the opening of a Pandora's Box. By doing this, there would be many major unexpected problems in the future. Pandora Papers are named after this idiom. But what are these Pandora Papers exactly? It is similar to the Panama Papers published in 2016, the Pandora Papers are a financial data leak. A financial data leak that shows how the super-rich people of the world, the top 1% rich people of the world, how they avoid paying their taxes, or simply don't pay their taxes. Two years ago, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists received a tip. The ICIJ is an international network

of more than 100 media organisations spread across more than 100 countries. It is basically a body of journalists. They were given the data by someone, and it was substantial data, of 14 off-shore companies. This data had more than 11.9 million files. Data of more than 3 TB. 6.4 million documents, 100,000 images, and 1.2 million images. This data showed how the various super-rich people handle their money. And how they hide their money across different countries. And basically not paying the taxes. At a time when the tax burden on the common people keeps on increasing. These people have so many ways of tax evasion. Obviously, because of the size of the data, it took some time to process it. So ICIJ invited more than 600 journalists from 117 countries, to participate in this investigation and to help them process the data. To filter the important data and to draw a conclusion from it. All those journalists participated in this investigation. For example, the BBC from the UK, The Guardian, a reputable newspaper from the UK. From India, The Indian Express had participated in it. And the journalists took about 2 years to process this data. And finally, they made this expose now. Many influential people and powerful world leaders were named in these Pandora Papers. More than 35 world leaders, including current and former Presidents Prime Ministers many governmental public officials, many ministers in the government judges, mayors, military generals, of various countries. Apart from these, more than 100 billionaires, celebrities, rock stars,and business leaders.

Before going into the details of these names, let's understand what does Pandora Papers tell us exactly. How do these rich people hide their wealth and avoid paying taxes? What are the techniques?To be honest friends, there are a lot of ways to do this.

Like creating shell companies, forming foundations and trusts, sending the money from one company to the other, sending it to other countries, money laundering, but I would like to focus on one specific way in today's article. That is the most common way, according to the Pandora Papers. Off-Shore Accounts. Literally, 'off-shore means outside the borders of one's country. But in this context, off-shore generally means Tax Havens. Countries where it is easy to set up companies. Countries with no Income Tax or Corporate Tax, or one has to pay a nominal amount in taxes. Countries where the laws make it difficult to identify the owners of the companies What happens is that the rich people try to set up off-shore companies in these tax haven countries. But generally, they don't want to do it in their names, to maintain their privacy. So they go to a lawyer or a tax advisor or a wealth manager. They give the money to the wealth manager, who sets up a company on their behalf.In his name. To hide their names.

And thus an off-shore company is set up. And this off-shore company has a separate bank account. And often they use this bank account to buy expensive things. Like buying properties or private planes or boats. They buy it in the name of the off-shore company. So that their real identity would never be revealed. And because this off-shore company is in a tax haven country, they would have to pay almost no taxes on all this money. And they often deposit their money in the account of the off-shore company so that they have to pay little to no taxes in the country they live in. Friends, the most interesting thing is that it is not necessarily illegal to do it in every situation. It is not illegal to pay tax advisors and lawyers so that they could find loopholes in the tax system so that you can reduce your tax liability. It is not illegal to do it Tax Avoidance and Tax Evasion are different. And it is very important to differentiate between the two.a One thing that is not illegal and that can be used by any person to protect their privacy online is a VPN.