Offshore leaks

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Offshore financial centers 2010 according to data from the OECD and the Tax Justice Network

Offshore-Leaks (also OffshoreLeaks ) is a leak from April 2013, which affects the in-house databases of the two world market leaders for the establishment and management of trusts in offshore financial centers . It is an excerpt from a larger database that was sent to various tax authorities in 2010 and three years later to the journalists of the International Consortium for Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) via an anonymous person . The scope of the data is far greater than in all previous leaks: The documents contain data on customer relationships, which affect around 130,000 people from different countries, including Germany, Austria and Switzerland. They also contain information about the involvement of numerous major banks in this business.

Worldwide media reported on the uncovered capital movements. The journalists claim that the dealings disclosed were for tax evasion in tax havens ; However, it was also pointed out that such constructs can use the foreign legal system to benefit from bureaucracy relief in international trade and from tax structuring options.

At the beginning of April only a very small part of the material was seen. According to its own statements, the news magazine Focus , which was not involved in the original disclosure, has data records on deposits and withdrawals, according to which 100,000 Germans are hiding assets in offshore financial centers.

In June 2013, parts of the database were made searchable online for the public.

"Offshore leaks" project

Origin of the data

The hard drive with the data collection comes from an anonymous source. It is data from companies that were founded by the two trust companies " Portcullis TrustNet " and " Commonwealth Trust Limited " (CTL). In the case of the data available to Focus, it is still unclear which trust companies are affected.

Extent of the data

The leak comprises 2.5 million documents with a data volume of 260 gigabytes. This makes offshore leaks the largest leak to date . The data provided by the anonymous source cover a total of nine tax havens: British Virgin Islands and Cayman Islands ( British overseas territories ), Mauritius , Singapore , Cook Islands , Samoa , Seychelles , Hong Kong and Malaysia . Numerous other tax havens are not affected. In May 2013 it became known that a data package with offshore tax data of around 400 gigabytes in size had been leaked to the tax authorities of various countries, whereby the data package originally only evaluated by journalists is said to have been part of this overall package.

Evaluation of the data by journalists

"Offshore-Leaks" is an extensive, month-long research project in which over 86 journalists from 38 newspapers as well as radio and television stations from 46 countries are involved. The cooperation is historically unique and one of the largest cross-border investigative research in the history of journalism . The consortium has not yet commented on the selection process. Employees from the BBC , The Guardian , Washington Post , Le Monde , the Schweizer SonntagsZeitung , and in Germany from Norddeutscher Rundfunk (NDR) and Süddeutsche Zeitung (SZ) are involved in the analysis . The amount of data was evaluated with the help of computer forensics by first making the data searchable and then establishing relationships between companies, accounts and people.

In a project-wide concerted action, the disclosure of the great tax haven machinery began on Thursday, April 4th, 2013. The data cover a period from the 1990s to 2011. At the time of the disclosure in early April 2013, only a few percent of the material had been viewed , for example, Austrian cases had hardly been investigated. The evaluation of the data continues.

NDR and SZ have undertaken not to hand over the data. The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) examines whether parts of the material can be made publicly accessible while respecting the protection of sources .

Evaluation of the data by tax authorities

In May 2013 it became known that the American, Australian and British tax authorities were already offered a data package with offshore tax data of around 400 gigabytes in 2009 and that it was actually handed over in 2010, whereby the data package later evaluated by journalists was part of this overall package should be. It is not yet known why the data package handed over to the tax authorities in 2010 was initially not evaluated for years. Federal Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble confirmed that in May 2013 the Federal Ministry of Finance was also informed about the existence of the data and promised to get access to the data and to be able to evaluate it. Accordingly, the USA, Great Britain, Australia and Germany are jointly evaluating the data in an internationally coordinated action. According to the authorities, this includes data on letterbox companies , foundations and trusts in the Cook Islands, the Cayman Islands, Singapore and the British Virgin Islands. Schäuble stated that the Federal Ministry of Finance would forward the data to the responsible tax authorities of the federal states as soon as possible for evaluation and further use.

Research results

Affected persons and banks

Numerous individuals and all major banks such as Deutsche Bank , JPMorgan Chase , UBS appear in the data that has become known . Among the few people known so far are celebrities such as Gunter Sachs (heir to Opel and ZF Sachs ), who died in 2011 , James Mellon (heir to Mellon Bank and the Gulf Oil Company ), and Denise Rich (divorced wife of commodity trader Marc Rich ), Russian oligarchs like Michail Fridman as well as children of politicians like Imee Marcos , daughter of Ferdinand Marcos , the daughters Leyla Əliyeva and Arzu Əliyeva of the Azerbaijani President İlham Əliyev and the two sons of the Colombian ex-president Álvaro Uribe Tomás and Jerónimo, which have more than 2,000 mailboxes.

According to NDR research, the German cases include “self-employed people such as a tax advisor from Stuttgart or a German winemaker residing in Mallorca, a technology manufacturer from Kempten, a furniture entrepreneur from North Rhine-Westphalia, wealthy Russians residing in Hamburg or bankruptcies such as the former owner of a hospital chain in southern Germany. ”In April 2013, connections to Franz Wolf , the son of the former head of the foreign intelligence service in the GDR Ministry for State Security, Markus Wolf , became known.

According to data from a hard drive leaked to the Focus , far more are said to be hiding in Germany, namely "at least 100,000 people from Germany (...) their assets in international tax havens". The dataset shows "260 million deposits and withdrawals on tax haven accounts as well as inquiries about account balances or customer advice".

On April 25, 2013 it was announced that the Deputy Speaker of the Great Chural State and former Minister of Finance of Mongolia , Bayartsogt Sangajav ( Democratic Party ), had been dismissed by parliament with 56 to 8 votes due to the revelations. Bayartsogt is said to have temporarily deposited over 1 million US dollars in a bank account in Switzerland and was also co-owner of a company in the British Virgin Islands.

The Gunter Sachs network

The Süddeutsche Zeitung , the Norddeutsche Rundfunk and the SonntagsZeitung worked together to research the entanglements of the German-Swiss industrial heir Gunter Sachs, who died in 2011, in offshore financial centers . Numerous scanned documents such as certificates and contracts, copied ID cards and billing statements, internal e-mails and faxes, but also handwritten letters from Gunter Sachs and the companies, trusts and lawyers involved were viewed in the data. Sachs received several tax advice from the Swiss law firm Lenz & Staehelin .

The tax data from 2008 onwards from Gunter Sachs were checked on the basis of the reports by the tax administration of the canton of Bern, which found no suspicions that would have warranted the initiation of tax proceedings.

Establishment of trusts and bogus companies by Deutsche Bank

According to research by SZ and NDR, Deutsche Bank is particularly active among the major banks in offering its customers tax evasion models. It has set up 309 companies and trusts through its Singapore branch alone. Portcullis TrustNet , service provider in Singapore, registered these companies and trusts for Deutsche Bank and appointed Regula Limited , a subsidiary of Deutsche Bank, as director in several cases . In its publications, Deutsche Bank offers its customers - in cooperation with their legal or tax advisors - the "establishment, management and administration" of trusts, companies and foundations in various countries. Deutsche Bank advertises Mauritius to its customers as a “tax-neutral environment”.

Avoiding wealth tax in Spain on works of art

The watermill at Gennep image acquired by Nautilus Trustees Limited

The Spanish daily El Confidencial reported on April 4 that Nautilus Trustees Limited bought Van Gogh 's watermill from Gennep from the London auction house Sotheby’s for 589,000 euros on June 24, 1996 . The end of 1996 the work was on loan from the Nautilus Trustees Limited , located on the offshore financial center Cook Islands , the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza in Madrid bequeathed. The data research revealed that the company is owned by the art collector Carmen Cervera , heir to Baron Thyssen ( Thyssen AG ). According to the Boletín Oficial del Estado (BOE), the picture was valued at EUR 2.7 million in 2004. The avoidance of the Spanish wealth tax on works of art is criticized . If the numerous works by Carmen Cervera were reported in Madrid, she would have to pay around 13.4 million euros in taxes every year.

Offshore companies from Greece

The data records are said to contain 107 offshore companies with a connection to Greece , only four of which were known to the state. In total there should be around 6500 offshore companies with connections to Greece. As a result, the state loses six billion euros in tax revenue every year. Offshore firms served various purposes here. Real estate owners used them when they wanted to avoid taxes, businesses when they wanted to hide profits, and politicians when they had amassed illicit assets. The Greek newspaper Ta Nea , part of the journalists' network, makes it clear that the publications “do not in any way suggest illegal actions by the owners”. Because "everyone said that they did nothing illegal".

Swiss intermediaries

The Süddeutsche Zeitung researched together with the Swiss Sunday newspaper that hundreds of Swiss lawyers and other financial intermediaries (= intermediaries, intermediaries, brokers; this means lawyers, trustees, tax advisors and financial advisors) have helped their wealthy clients to set up dodgy mailbox companies and trusts in tax havens . Beat von Rechenberg, President of the Swiss Bar Association since 2011, estimates that of the roughly 9,000 lawyers in Switzerland, around 1,000 work as financial intermediaries.

At first, Switzerland assumed that it was only marginally affected. The federal prosecutor Michael Lauber found, however, that bribes for arms deals were handled by offshore companies. Switzerland played a greater role in organizing the accounts. This emerged in the investigation against the former defense minister of Greece, Akis Tsochatzopoulos .

In connection with the Cahuzac affair , the Geneva bank Reyl & Cie came into the focus of reporting in France. In addition to deposits from Cahuzac, she is said to have transferred accounts of prominent and wealthy customers from France and Belgium to financial centers overseas.

Arms deal of the Congolese ex-president Pascal Lissouba

In April 2013 the Süddeutsche Zeitung and the South African Mail & Guardian Online reported on an arms deal by Pascal Lissouba , President of the Republic of the Congo from 1992 to 1997. In the run-up to the presidential elections planned for July 1997, tensions arose between Lissoubas and supporters of the former president Denis Sassou-Nguesso . When Lissouba's government troops surrounded Sassou's house in Brazzaville on June 5, 1997, Sassou ordered his militias to resist. Large parts of the capital Brazzaville were destroyed in the fighting . The government troops also attacked the ex-president's militias with helicopters. At the beginning of October 1997, Angolan troops intervened on the side of the ex-president, and in mid-October the government was overthrown. Since then, Denis Sassou-Nguesso has been president again. As it became known through offshore leaks, shortly before the fighting broke out, the troops of Lissouba received the helicopters from stocks of the South African Air Force (SAAF) - apparently through the mediation of the German arms dealer Rudolph Wollenhaupt (Ebar Management & Trading Ltd. in Jersey ) in Johannesburg. In the following months, two Mil Mi-17 helicopters from earlier Soviet production, as well as four transport aircraft and at least 290 trucks were delivered to Lissouba or had already been pre-ordered. The armaments were paid for through an account controlled by Lissouba at a bank in Paris, on which money from oil profits lay. To cover up the deal, payments were made through the mailbox company Exotek Management Services Ltd. in the British Virgin Islands , a bill signed by Lissouba for $ 19.9 million for four helicopters was discovered. As an agent for Exotek Management Services Ltd. the South African Esmond Myhill and the two US citizens Richard Parker and Roy Segers acted and registered the mailbox company with the Commonwealth Trust Limited (CTL). Lissouba has lived in exile in the 17th arrondissement in Paris since 2004 . According to Jovial Rantao of the South African Independent Online South Africa on October 5, 2002, the four Puma 330L helicopters ordered and refurbished in 1997 from Armaments Development and Production Corporation (ARMSCOR) are to be officially paid for on behalf of Lissouba before his fall but there was no delivery.

The simplicity of starting an offshore company

SZ journalists expressed surprise at how easy it is to set up offshore companies. Trusts or offshore companies can be set up by email . Wishes (for example, to invent directors for a pretense or to remain anonymous themselves) are no problem for the executing financial service providers . Such special requests cost about $ 300 to $ 400. For example, a German businessman offered to set up an offshore company within a week for 1,427 euros. Reasons for starting an offshore company are concealing assets (useful in a bankruptcy or divorce, for example) and avoiding taxes, e.g. B. Inheritance Taxes.

China's power elite

On January 21, 2014, a second wave of publications on research results of the ICIJ was started, which includes more than 21,000 offshore companies belonging to customers from China and Hong Kong - which were initially deliberately not made public. The documents show how China's political elite has been secretly and on a large scale for years, handling financial transactions through tax havens abroad and moving billions of dollars out of China in order to hide their wealth. Close family members of important politicians also manage transactions via anonymous mailbox companies in the Caribbean:

  • Deng Xiaoping (actually ruled from 1979 to 1997) - his son-in-law Wu Jianchang (married to the second oldest daughter Deng Lin) is associated with "China Nonferrous Metals Holdings Ltd." 1994-2006 and "Join Truth Ltd." 1993-2000 both Cook Islands .
  • Ye Jianying (one of the founders of the People's Republic of China) - his nephew Yeh Shuen-ji is affiliated with "Qiao Xing Holdings Ltd." 1997, "Qiao Xing Universal Telephone Inc." 1994 and "Wu Holdings Ltd." 1997 all British Virgin Islands.
  • Peng Zhen (" Eight Immortals ") - his son Fu Liang is associated with "Greenway Property Group Ltd." 1997, "Hua Tian Enterprises Ltd." 1998-2000, "Powers Mix Group Ltd." 1997-2000, "South Port Development Ltd. "1999," Perfect-Union Overseas Inc. "2000, all British Virgin Islands.
  • Xi Jinping (President since 2013) - his brother-in-law Deng Jiagui, married to his eldest sister Qi Qiaoqiao, founded “Excellence Effort Property Development Ltd.” in 2008 British Virgin Islands. Deng, Qi and their daughter Zhang Yannan have millions of dollars in luxury real estate in Hong Kong , Shenzhen and Beijing .
  • Hu Jintao (President from 2003 to 2013) - his nephew Hu Yishis is the managing director of “Charter Best Investments Ltd.” in 2002, “Morich International Investments Ltd.” in 2007 and from 2007 to 2008 for “Universal Yield Investments Ltd.” in 2007 all British Virgin Islands.
  • Li Peng (Prime Minister from 1987 to 1998) - his daughter Li Xiaolin is the managing director of "Tianwo Holdings Ltd." in 2005 and "Tianwo Development Ltd." in 2005, both British Virgin Islands.
  • Wen Jiabao (Prime Minister from 2003 to 2013) - his only daughter Wen Ruchun (worked for Credit Suisse), who often calls herself Lily Chang and is married to Liu Chunhang (works for China's banking regulator), founded "Fullmark Consultants Ltd." in 2004 British Virgin Islands. The son Wen Yunsong, who often calls himself Winston Wen, founded "Trend Gold Consultants Ltd." 2006-2008 British Virgin Islands.
  • Dai Xianglong (former governor of the central bank ) - his son-in-law Che Feng is managing director of "Cyber ​​Touch Ltd." 2000-2002 and shareholder of "Worthope Innovative Company Ltd." 2002-2006, both British Virgin Islands.
  • Yang Guoqing (real estate entrepreneur, Country Garden Holdings) - his daughter Yang Huiyan (who was already 26 years old as the richest woman in China) is the managing director and shareholder of Joy House Enterprises Ltd. 2006 British Virgin Islands.

Members of the National People's Congress are listed as well as some of the richest people in the country and executives of state-owned companies who have been involved in corruption scandals. None of the families of politicians affected responded to the request.

The documents document that Western banks - including Deutsche Bank and the Swiss UBS and Credit Suisse - are helping to set up and maintain clandestine structures (clandestine in the sense of secret and forbidden) in tax havens for Chinese customers. 107 billion US dollars are illegally transported abroad from China every year, according to an estimate by the non-governmental organization Global Financial Integrity . "This dimension shows how far the Chinese elite has moved from the normal population and suggests that among these company accounts there are some that are supposed to conceal assets or hide bribes," said Markus Meinzer of the Tax Justice Network .

The internet supervisory authority in China blocked the website of the ICIJ in Washington on the night of January 22nd, 2014. The network versions of the media partners - such as the British Guardian , the Spanish El País , the NDR and the Süddeutsche Zeitung - were partially censored, as well Accounts of the short message service Weibo . According to the non-governmental organization GreatFire.org , so many sites have rarely been blocked in China before.

Background tax evasion

According to a 2012 study by the Tax Justice Network based on data from the IMF , the super-rich hide between 16.4 and 25 trillion euros of financial assets in tax havens in order not to be taxed. The EU assumes that a huge amount of tax is lost every year due to tax havens in the EU, the figures vary between 836 billion and one trillion euros. That is significantly more than all EU countries spend on health care for their citizens. The chairman of the German Tax Union estimates that more than 400 billion euros from Germany's black money are invested abroad. Since the hidden assets belong to the wealthiest in a society , hiding them also means that the concentration of assets is significantly greater than publicly known data show.

According to the TJN's shadow financial index, the top ten countries for tax evasion are in descending order: Switzerland , Cayman Islands , Luxembourg , Hong Kong , United States , Singapore , Jersey , Japan , Germany and Bahrain .

Reactions

As one of the ICIJ journalists involved in the unveiling explains: “The super-rich have many options for managing their finances. The common man, on the other hand, has little choice. It is the normal citizen who is either asked to pay more or has to do without more because he is fleeced by the tax authorities in his home country. "

The German government and the state government of North Rhine-Westphalia have announced that they are investigating possible cases of tax evasion. Tax evasion is also determined on the basis of the data in other countries. Various politicians have called for a common European approach to tax havens as well as an approach (already discussed by the EU) based on the US FATCA law that came into force in 2010 . With this, the US obliges all banks to pass on the relevant data of all US citizens to the US tax authorities. The German trade union federation called for additional tax auditors to be employed. Each tax auditor brings in around one million euros a year (around fifteen times his salary including social security contributions), and each individual tax audit for millionaires leads to an average of back payments of around 135,000 euros. The Bavarian Finance Minister Markus Söder has announced that the number of employees of a special commission on serious tax crimes will be increased from 50 to 100 (Söder: "After the offshore leaks have been discovered, we need more staff").

The request of the German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble on April 4 to the media to hand over the data to the finance and investigative authorities was rejected by NDR and SZ on the grounds that passing on the data to investigative authorities would jeopardize the protection of sources and question further research would. However, the consortium is examining whether part of the data is made available to the public.

The SPD chancellor candidate Peer Steinbrück called for harsher penalties, including the withdrawal of the banking license , for the banks involved. State Secretary of State for Finance Steffen Kampeter explained against the background of the revelations about the involvement of Deutsche Bank in such activities that the license could already be withdrawn from an institute that is systematically involved in tax evasion.

The President of the Federal Financial Supervisory Authority, Elke König, sees the banks as having a “special responsibility” with regard to tax evasion and announced that if there are indications that “an institution systematically violates tax law or helps with this, we will investigate this with the supervisory authority”. According to several commentators (including Der Spiegel ), the reaction of financial service providers to the revelations shows that this responsibility is not being taken: "The industry is stealing from responsibility - and prefers to blame its customers." On April 22nd In 2013 the Süddeutsche Zeitung reported that the Federal Financial Supervisory Authority will examine the business of German banks in tax havens. The responsible executive director Raimund Röseler reports that the BaFin is primarily interested in the business that the banks call "asset management". “There you will find the very rich of this world. But we now want to know exactly what is really hidden behind this, ”explained Röseler.

A spokesman for the International Monetary Fund expressed the thesis that legal tax optimization does more damage than tax havens. Measures against this are "the key question".

The journalist Wolfgang Michal , co-editor of the blog Carta , asked whether there was possibly some kind of pre-filtering by the bearer of the data, by the ICIJ consortium itself (which apparently did not give the raw material to the journalists) or by the editorial offices involved. It is also questionable what motive the sender of the data package had, how he got this data, why established media in investigative journalism such as the New York Times , Der Spiegel and El País were not involved and how the 86 journalists involved worldwide were selected.

In an interview with the daily Kurier on April 7, 2013, the Austrian economic researcher Karl Aiginger and since 2005 head of the Austrian Institute for Economic Research (WIFO) called for the abolition of banking secrecy in its current form and practice. So far, the protection interests of small savers are used to favor large tax avoidance and illegal money transfers .

See also

Web links

German
English

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ dpa: Offshore Leaks: Huge data set reveals secret deals in tax havens. In: Zeit Online. April 4, 2013, accessed April 7, 2013 .
  2. ↑ http://www.icij.org/offshore/secret-files-expose-offshores-global-impact
  3. ↑ Leak much bigger: millionaires, business people, pensioners - 100,000 rich people from Germany go offshore , Focus online from April 6, 2013
  4. ↑ database ; View into the shadowy realm of tax havens ( Memento from April 27, 2015 in the Internet Archive )
  5. ↑ a b c German investigators can access offshore data. sueddeutsche.de, May 10, 2013, accessed on May 10, 2013 .
  6. ↑ a b Bastian Brinkmann: How computer forensics decrypted the offshore system , sz.de, April 4, 2013
  7. ↑ Facts about tax havens. Where offshore customers from Germany live. In: Süddeutsche.de. April 5, 2013, accessed April 6, 2013 .
  8. ↑ a b Huge network of tax evaders exposed , Wiener Zeitung, April 4, 2013
  9. ^ Secrecy for Sale: Inside the Global Offshore Money Maze , The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists
  10. ↑ a b Offshore Leaks: Networks in Tax Haven Uncovered , Kurier, April 4, 2013
  11. ^ "Offshore Leaks": Tax havens and straw men ( Memento from April 7, 2013 in the Internet Archive ), NDR
  12. ↑ a b Offshore Leaks: Are tax havens exotic exceptions or simply “part of the game”? , FM4, April 5, 2013.
  13. ↑ Offshore Leaks. Swiss banks also involved. In: KURIER.at. April 5, 2013, accessed April 6, 2013 .
  14. ↑ a b "Offshore Leaks": NDR does not pass on any information ( memento from April 9, 2013 in the Internet Archive ), NDR, April 6, 2013
  15. ↑ "If you evade taxes, then we'll get you!" Die Welt, May 11, 2013, accessed on May 12, 2013 .
  16. ↑ "Fight against tax havens: German investigators get offshore data". Spiegel Online, May 10, 2013, accessed May 12, 2013 .
  17. ↑ Schäuble wants to pass on offshore leak data to countries. Wirtschaftswoche, May 12, 2013, accessed on May 12, 2013 .
  18. ↑ Offshore Leaks: Gigantic network of tax evaders revealed , Der Spiegel, April 4, 2013
  19. ↑ Worldwide revelations. Canton of Bern wants to examine the Sachs case, Hollande in distress. In: Süddeutsche.de. April 5, 2013, accessed April 6, 2013 .
  20. ^ Dangerous pleasure on the hard drive , Süddeutsche Zeitung April 7, 2013
  21. ↑ a b A Kiel merchant and the tax promise , NDR, April 6, 2013.
  22. ↑ Leak even bigger: pensioners, millionaires, business people - 100,000 rich people from Germany go offshore , Focus, April 6, 2013.
  23. ↑ http://www.handelszeitung.ch/politik/schweizer-konto-bringt-mongolischen-politiker-zu-fall
  24. ↑ Interactive: Gunter Sachs' Offshore Network , The International Consortium of Investigative Journalist
  25. ↑ Playboy in the Tax Paradise - The Sachs System , Süddeutsche Zeitung, April 4, 2013
  26. ↑ The million games by playboy Gunter Sachs ( Memento from April 4, 2013 in the Internet Archive ), NDR, April 4, 2013
  27. ^ "Offshore leaks" notes also lead to the Canton of Bern , Canton Bern, April 4, 2013
  28. ↑ Gunter Sachs tax case: Offshore leak runs aground; NZZ v. June 26, 2013
  29. ↑ a b Tax havens: banks face severe penalties ( memento from April 9, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) NDR website, authors Lena Gürtler, Mareike Fuchs and Christoph Heinzle, April 5, 2013. Accessed April 5, 2013.
  30. ↑ Did Deutsche Bank help tax fraudsters? , Tagesschau, April 4, 2013
  31. ^ Deutsche Bank helped with offshore business , Süddeutsche Zeitung, April 4, 2013
  32. ↑ La baronesa Thyssen oculta su patrimonio a través de varios paraísos fiscales , El Confidencial, April 4, 2013 (Spanish)
  33. ↑ Der Spiegel, April 5, 2013
  34. ↑ Τα Νέα, list of 107 offshore companies, 103 of which are unknown to the Greek tax authorities (PDF; 7.0 MB)
  35. ↑ South German April 7, 2013: Swiss lawyers help the super-rich
  36. ↑ www.sav-fsa.ch ( Memento from December 26, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
  37. ↑ sonntagszeitung.ch: The flight of money into paradise
  38. ^ SRF: Federal Prosecutor fears damage to image
  39. ^ Marie Jégo: La boîte de Pandore d'une banque suisse très prisée des VIP parisiens , Le Monde , 7–8. April 2013, pp. 2–3
  40. ^ Barclays held cash for massacre , The Guardian, Nov. 28, 1999
  41. ↑ http://mg.co.za/article/2013-04-05-00-offshore-records-solve-mystery-of-civil-war-chopper-deal
  42. ↑ Archived copy ( Memento from September 30, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
  43. ↑ http://www.iol.co.za/news/africa/congo-demands-r35m-refund-1.95203?ot=inmsa.ArticlePrintPageLayout.ot
  44. ↑ a b Tax havens: China's powerful people allegedly made fortunes in the Caribbean , SZ January 21, 2014
  45. ↑ China's princelings storing riches in Caribbean offshore haven , The Guardian January 21, 2014
  46. ↑ Leaked Records Reveal Offshore Holdings of China's Elite , icij.org, January 21, 2014
  47. ^ The delicate deals of the power elite ( Memento from January 22, 2014 in the Internet Archive ), Tagesschau.de January 21, 2014
  48. ↑ An island for the elite - interactive graphic: Chinas Geldadel ( Memento from January 22, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) NDR, January 21, 2014
  49. ↑ Internet China censors offshore leak reports , SZ January 22, 2014
  50. ↑ Tax Justice Network : Findings on the costs of the offshore system (summary of the comprehensive study from 2012 (PDF; 587 kB) by James Henry, here, p. 5. The TJN holds the figure of 25 trillion euros (32 trillion dollars) for a conservative estimate that does not capture significant non-financial assets (yachts, real estate, etc.)
  51. ↑ Offshore Leaks: How tax havens work , Süddeutsche Zeitung of April 5, 2013: The general public bears the damage. The European Union estimates that one trillion euros are lost to tax evasion and avoidance in the EU every year.
  52. ↑ Offshore Leaks: Tax evasion made easy Year after year, the European Union loses 860 billion euros through tax evasion, more than its countries spend on the health of its citizens, as the British economist Richard Murphy has calculated.
  53. ↑ a b c Global network for dubious financial transactions revealed , Reuters, April 4, 2013
  54. ↑ Der Spiegel: Capital Flight Study: The Rich Stash More Than $ 20 Trillion in Tax Haven , July 2012
  55. ↑ Cf. Nicholas Shaxson , John Christensen and Nick Mathiason: Inequality: More than half remain hidden (or why the inequality is greater than we thought) (PDF; 658 kB)
  56. ↑ Euronews: Offshore Leaks: The “Tsunami” for the Tax Haven , April 5, 2013
  57. ↑ International Revelations - Schäuble Asks Media for Offshore Leaks Data , Stern, April 4, 2013
  58. ↑ Giegold: Tax evasion is not a natural phenomenon, politics belongs to it , Deutschlandfunk, April 4, 2013
  59. ↑ Jürgen Zurheide: Tax havens revealed - German investigators are left out , Der Tagesspiegel, April 5, 2013
  60. ↑ Bavaria enlarges the tax FBI .
  61. ^ Offshore Leaks: On our own behalf - Why the SZ will not give the offshore data to the state , Süddeutsche.de of April 5, 2013
  62. ↑ Business in tax havens: Steinbrück calls for harsher penalties for banks . In: Spiegel . Retrieved April 4, 2013. 
  63. ↑ "Offshore Leaks" overseer: Banks have a special responsibility in tax havens . FAZnet website, Frankfurter Allgemeine Wirtschaft, April 5, 2013. Accessed April 5, 2013.
  64. ↑ Tax haven affair: The banks steal away , Der Spiegel, April 5, 2013. Similar to Die Zeit : Banks plead innocent, April 5, 2013
  65. ↑ Offshore Leaks: Financial regulators examine banking transactions in tax havens. In: Spiegel Online . April 22, 2013. Retrieved June 9, 2018 .
  66. ^ IMF on Offshore Leaks: Tax optimization bigger problem than oases , Wiener Zeitung, April 6, 2013.
  67. ↑ http://carta.info
  68. ^ Kurier.at