“The amount of untaxed wealth hidden offshore by the richest 0.1 percent exceeds the entire wealth of the poorest half of humanity (4.1 billion people), according to a new Oxfam analysis published on April 2, 2026, ahead of the 10th anniversary of the Panama Papers.

The findings show that, a decade later, the super-rich continue to exploit offshore systems to evade taxes and conceal assets, highlighting the urgent need for coordinated international action to tax extreme wealth and end the use of tax havens.

An amount of $3.55 trillion in untaxed wealth was stashed offshore in tax havens and unreported accounts in 2024, according to Oxfam’s estimates. “This sum exceeds the GDP of France and is more than twice the combined GDP of the world’s 44 least developed countries,” a statement by Oxfam noted.“

https://www.downtoearth.org.in/governance/untaxed-wealth-hidden-offshore-by-richest-01-surpasses-entire-wealth-of-the-poorest-half-of-humanity-oxfam

#TaxHavens #Offshores #TaxEvasion #Inequality

"The broader point is this: offshore finance allows elites to insulate themselves from the risks of weak governance without having to fix it themselves. Rather than push for judicial reform, more transparent institutions, or limits on executive power, they can arbitrage the rule of law. They don’t need better laws at home if they can choose better ones abroad.

Because not everyone gets to play the offshore shell game, we then have a bifurcated legal system between economic elites and everyone else. And that doesn’t just suck normatively. It’s empirically damaging. Rule of law is one of the strongest correlates with economic growth.

These potentially debilitating political effects of offshore finance are the main reason I decided to spend the last 10 years studying how oligarchs resolve their legal troubles abroad. But I’m certainly not the only one to think this matters. mentions this potential de-democratizing effect in his monumental book on global inequality, while Katharina Pistor postulates an analogous logic in her legal scholarship. Sharafutdinova and Dawisha focus on Russian use of the London legal system to draw out these conclusions.

As often happens with emerging ideas, several of us were running down the same track from different academic angles. None of us can be sure we’re right. It is very hard to assess the effects of the rise of tax havens on something as broad as liberal political development. But the clearest test I’ve seen comes from Maxim Ananyev. He shows that more offshore wealth correlates with future weakening of democracy levels."

https://thepriceofpower.substack.com/p/why-arent-the-rich-fighting-against

#TaxHavens #TaxEvasion #Offshores #Billionaires #RuleOfLaw #Democracy

R to @AnaMartinsGomes: Além da “eficiência” da #desgovernação, é caso também para comparar patriotismo/sentido cívico dos ricos em #Portugal e em #Espanha: 22,34 % do PIB de Portugal em #offshores. Contra apenas 10,5% do PIB nos nossos vizinhos nas mesmas paragens “paradisíacas”…

🐦🔗: https://nitter.cz/AnaMartinsGomes/status/1716776620055265338#m

[2023-10-24 11:20 UTC]

#Australia #OECD #TaxHavens #OffShores: "The OECD helped persuade Australia to water down a law that would have required thousands of multinationals to publicly say where they pay tax.

Two people familiar with the discussions told the Financial Times that the OECD pressured Australia’s ruling Labor government to drop a key part of a new finance bill that would have required some multinationals to publicly disclose their country-by-country tax bills.

The Paris-based organisation, which has driven efforts to force the world’s largest companies to pay their fair share of tax, believed the bill would have undermined its own efforts to make multinationals’ affairs less opaque.

However, the Australian bill would have exposed unprecedented details about companies’ tax affairs in each country they operate — a move campaigners say could have helped clamp down on tax avoidance by forcing companies to reveal how much of their revenues are booked in low-tax jurisdictions."

https://www.ft.com/content/b21cfde0-8940-45db-b3e3-3e9807d7b957

A friendly reminder: OCCRP website is available as a #Tor Hidden Service, too:
http://occrpweb4n2vlmih.onion/

Here's #ParadisePapers:
http://occrpweb4n2vlmih.onion/en/paradisepapers/

And here are some of our past projects:
http://occrpweb4n2vlmih.onion/en/panamapapers/
http://occrpweb4n2vlmih.onion/en/laundromat/
http://occrpweb4n2vlmih.onion/en/makingakilling/

#MoneyLaundering #Offshores #ArmsTrade