THE MESSAGE:
What some people won't do for money!
THE PANAMA PAPERS
The Panama Papers consist of millions of leaked documents that detail financial and attorney–client information for more than 214,488 offshore entities. The documents came from a Panamanian law firm and corporate service provider. They were leaked in 2015 by an anonymous source.
The documents contain personal financial information about wealthy individuals and public officials that had previously been kept private. While offshore business entities are legal, investigators found that some of the shell corporations were used for illegal purposes, including fraud, tax evasion, and skirting international sanctions.
OH THOSE RUSSIANS!
A $2B trail leads back to Vladimir Putin. Money from Russian State Banks is hidden offshore.
WHAT ABOUT THE BRITS?
WHAT ABOUT THOSE YANKEES?
Will Trump’s Tax Records Be the Next Pentagon Papers?
FUGGETTABOUDIT!
THE BLURB:
MEANWHILE IN CANADA
UNDERGROUND BANKS AND MONEY LAUNDERING IN BRITISH COLUMBIA
A Postmedia investigation shows. Paul King Jin, the alleged suspect at the centre of a major RCMP probe into money laundering and underground banking, is connected through big B.C. real estate loans to “high-risk” VIP gamblers from China,
The RCMP’s investigation, dubbed E-Pirate, alleges that Jin and his associates used an illegal cash exchange business in Richmond, B.C., to lend cash from Chinese underground banks to high-roller gamblers. The loan money was believed to come from criminal drug trading.
The 'gamblers' used massive wads of small bills to buy chips in B.C. casinos. They would then gamble with the casino chips and afterwards cash them in. In this manner they would acquire 'clean money'. They could then pay back these loans in China, thus ending up with cash in Canada while avoiding China’s tight capital-export controls.
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| SAM COOPER VANCOUVER SUN |
In the diagram below, Sam Cooper explains the laundering of cash in an article from the Vancouver Sun
Finance Minister Bill Morneau is proposing tax changes that would close loopholes often used by doctors and lawyers to reduce their tax burden. The government plans to crack down on spreading income to spouses and adult children and other practices the government described as legal but unfair.“Many of the richest Canadians are unfairly exploiting the tax rules designed to help businesses thrive,” Morneau said in a written statement.
”One option would have been to propose banning certain professionals, like lawyers and doctors, from incorporating at all. “The government will continue to study, identify and address tax loopholes and tax planning schemes; while ensuring that corporations continue to benefit from competitive tax rates."
TAX HAVENS
One company, Gildan, reduced its taxes by more than 90 per cent in 2015. The Montreal-based clothing maker earned $396 million in profit last year, but paid just over $6 million in cash taxes. This translates into a rate of about two per cent. Much of the company's day-to-day operations including design, sales, manufacturing, customer service, marketing and distribution are carried on in Barbados, where it has around 200 employees out of a global workforce of 42,000.
THE QUESTION:
THE LEMON:
Awarded to Paul King Jin for his money laundering in Canada.
"This stand wasn't because I feel like I'm being put down in any kind of way. This is because I'm seeing things happen to people that don't have a voice: people that don't have a platform to talk and have their voices heard and affect change. So I'm in the position where I can do that, and I'm going to do that for people that can't." Colin Kaepernick
THE CLIP:
Finance Minister Bill Morneau is proposing tax changes that would close loopholes often used by doctors and lawyers to reduce their tax burden. The government plans to crack down on spreading income to spouses and adult children and other practices the government described as legal but unfair.“Many of the richest Canadians are unfairly exploiting the tax rules designed to help businesses thrive,” Morneau said in a written statement. ”One option would have been to propose banning certain professionals, like lawyers and doctors, from incorporating at all. “The government will continue to study, identify and address tax loopholes and tax planning schemes; while ensuring that corporations continue to benefit from competitive tax rates."
The small business tax rate was designed to help growth and employment.
It was not intended to reduce individual income tax obligations for high-income earners.
Canadian corporations have avoided paying taxes on $55 billion in international profits over the last five years.
Another estimate reveals that $80 billion leaves Canada every year, untaxed. Much of it is siphoned off to Canadian-made offshore tax havens.
In some cases, money funnelled into offshore tax havens can be brought back to Canada, tax free, by multinationals based in Toronto, Vancouver and Calgary.
In 2010, Canada joined an initiative launched by the Organization of Economic Co-operation and Development to make tax havens more transparent and started signing Tax Information Exchange Agreements (TIEAs) with notorious tax havens like the Cayman Islands, Jersey, the Isle of Man and the British Virgin Islands.
The tax code was altered to allow any Canadian multinational corporation doing business in a TIEA partner country to bring profits home tax free. American multinationals have to pay tax when they repatriate international profits. But, in Canada, the TIEAs mean that profits can be declared in a tax haven, where there is little or no tax, and brought back without paying a penny more.
Canada’s tax treaties have for decades encouraged businesses to work out of Barbados, where the tax rate is between 1 and 2.5 per cent, the TIEAs have opened up a new chapter of legal tax avoidance in zero-tax countries like Bermuda, the Bahamas and Panama.
Many of the leading corporations on the Toronto Stock Exchange now have a presence in tax havens and use Canada’s treaties to dramatically reduce their tax bill at home.
Drug maker Valeant, based in Laval, Que., booked $1.1 billion in profit in 2014 but paid only $110 million in tax.
THE BARBADOS TREATY
The Caribbean country has had a tax treaty with Ottawa since 1980. The pact allows Canadian companies with subsidiaries in Barbados to bring their offshore profits back home subject only to the low Barbadian income tax rate of between 1 and 2.5 per cent.
There are more than 1,000 Canadian subsidiaries with offices there, including titans like Petro-Canada and Loblaws.
The amount of Canadian money in zero-tax Bermuda has more than doubled since 1980, while about $20 billion has left Canada for the Cayman Islands. Those two countries together now have more Canadian investment than Mexico, Brazil, China and Australia combined. Canada's big banks partake as well and have branches everywhere from Anguilla to St. Lucia.
THE QUESTION:
Which is more effective in creating change; public group protests, leaks to the press, affirmative action, morals education in schools, good parenting, music or government mandates?
THE LEMON:
Awarded to Paul King Jin for his money laundering in Canada.
THE QUOTE:
"This stand wasn't because I feel like I'm being put down in any kind of way. This is because I'm seeing things happen to people that don't have a voice: people that don't have a platform to talk and have their voices heard and affect change. So I'm in the position where I can do that, and I'm going to do that for people that can't." Colin Kaepernick
THE CLIP:
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