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If you haven’t heard, another wide-ranging investigative report (similar to the Panama Papers) has just come to public light. It details how and where the uber-wealthy stash their owner-class profits, in offshore accounts — far from the annoying requirements of the Tax Officials in their home countries. This new report is called the Paradise Papers which documents the Tax Avoidance strategies of corporate giants like, Apple, Nike, Uber, et al.
And some Politicians too, are only too eager take advantage of these “unpatriotic” Tax Breaks — that the most of the rest of us will never see … [From ICIJ Investigations (aka. International Consortium of Investigative Journalists): ]
One offshore web leads to Trump’s commerce secretary, private equity tycoon Wilbur Ross, who has a stake in a shipping company that has received more than $68 million in revenue since 2014 from a Russian energy company co-owned by the son-in-law of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
In all, the offshore ties of more than a dozen Trump advisers, Cabinet members and major donors appear in the leaked data.
Here’s a few excerpts from the NPR coverage of this ground-shaking report, which illustrate some other beneficiaries of these Tax Scams, who put their personal wealth first, and their country’s health and well-being dead last:
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Other notable names include tech giants Facebook and Twitter — which the news site Reveal says benefited from large investments that were indirectly made by "two Russian government-owned firms known as vehicles for the Kremlin's politically sensitive dealings."
Those investments — reportedly $191 million, in the case of Twitter — were used to buy early stakes in Twitter and Facebook via the investment firm DST Global, according to Reveal, which adds that DST's founder, Yuri Milner, and others made profits of more than $1 billion when it sold some holdings after the two social media giants took their stocks public.
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"More recently, Milner invested $850,000 in Cadre, a real estate firm co-founded by Trump's son-in-law and White House adviser, Jared Kushner," the ICIJ reports.
The ICIJ adds, "[Yuri] Milner is a Russian citizen who lives in Silicon Valley. His ties to Twitter, Facebook and Kushner's firm have been previously disclosed. But his links to the Kremlin financial institutions weren't known."
[...]
Another Trump Cabinet member, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, is mentioned in the documents as a former director of a Bermuda company named Marib Upstream Services Co., which the ICIJ says was "created to conduct oil and gas operations" in Yemen. Tillerson reportedly served on Marib's board for roughly a year, from 1997 to 1998.
My oh my! And these Trump-patrons have nerve to demand another Tax Cut, even though they are already going to great lengths to avoid paying any taxes in the first place. I guess they’d rather have their tax-free earnings in an account, a bit easier to access.
The perhaps sadder thing is, that their Republican spokesmen (in Congress) are fighting like hell — to give it to them. All under the guise that these Uber-wealthy stooges will invest their “windfalls” back into “American Jobs”.
Hah! That’s rich … uber-selfishly-rich. Which we should file right into the circular-files of the Trump-agenda and Fake News.
Here’s a search engine for the Paradise Papers.
Here’s a Wikipedia listing of some of the people and companies found there.