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'Panama Papers' Leak
- Thread starter VanHalen
- Start date
Argentinian President Mauricio Macri proposes amnesty for tax dodgers
Macri acknowledged he has US$1.25 million in an account in the Bahamas in a mandatory asset declaration, which showed his fortune had doubled from the year before.
PUBLISHED : Saturday, 28 May, 2016, 1:31pm
UPDATED : Saturday, 28 May, 2016, 1:31pm
Agence France-Presse
Argentinian President Mauricio Macri, who has been swept up in the Panama Papers controversy over offshore assets, announced plans on Friday to grant amnesty to those who repatriate undeclared funds from overseas.
The conservative president, who has launched sweeping pro-business reforms since taking office in December, said the country needed Argentines to invest at home to boost the sputtering economy.
“Argentines have billions of pesos overseas because they didn’t trust in the state. We need to tell them to join us, to be part of our new era. We invite them to wipe the fiscal slate clean,” said Macri.
The president himself acknowledged he has US$1.25 million in an account in the Bahamas in a mandatory asset declaration published on Thursday, which showed his fortune had doubled from the year before, to 110 million pesos (US$7.8 million).
The son of a wealthy business magnate and former mayor of Buenos Aires, Macri was caught up in the controversy unleashed last month when millions of documents were leaked from Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca, showing the offshore financial dealings of the rich, powerful and criminal.
The episode revealed Macri was on the board of directors of a company listed in the Bahamas and vice-president of another in Panama, both linked to his family.
Macri, who had not declared the firms in his mandatory asset declarations, denied wrongdoing.
The president said on Friday he would send a bill to Congress offering three options for Argentines with undeclared assets overseas: pay a tax, convert the funds into Argentine bonds or put them in long-term investments at home.
The bill sets a January 1 deadline for the amnesty. Until then, the tax rate on undeclared funds will be five per cent for up to US$56,000 and 10 per cent for larger amounts.
After January 1, the rate will rise to 15 per cent. Finance Minister Alfonso Prat-Gay said those who fail to comply by that date will also face prosecution.
The government did not say how much money it expected to collect with the plan.
The Tax Justice Network, a watchdog group, estimates Argentines have US$400 billion overseas.
Argentina, Latin America’s third-largest economy, has a history of hyperinflation, crises and runs on the bank that have made many people wary of keeping their savings in the domestic banking system.
'Panama Papers' firm demands prosecution of suspect in Switzerland
AFP on June 17, 2016, 11:05 am
Panama City (AFP) - The law firm at the center of the "Panama Papers" scandal says it expects the prosecution of a worker from its Geneva office detained on suspicion of stealing company documents.
Mossack Fonseca said in a statement from its Panama headquarters that it had lodged complaints in several jurisdictions against people believed to be "involved in the theft of information that occurred in our company."
That referred to the leak last year of a massive number of documents covering nearly four decades of business by the law firm, which specializes in setting up and managing offshore companies.
Reports based on the purloined documents resulted in the "Panama Papers": revelations of how many leaders, politicians, celebrities and a few criminals around the world used entities started by Mossack Fonseca to stash assets.
Though offshore companies are not in themselves illegal, they can be used to engage in illegal activities such as tax evasion or money laundering.
Mossack Fonseca said in its statement it was "fully confident" that authorities in the various countries would "see through the corresponding (legal) processes in a transparent and effective manner."
On Wednesday, Swiss authorities announced that an information technology employee for the law firm working in its Geneva office had been placed in provisional detention on suspicion of stealing confidential documents.
The spokesman for the Geneva's prosecutor's office, Henri Della Casa, told AFP that "a criminal case has been opened... following a complaint by Mossack Fonseca."
He declined to comment on whether an arrest had been made.
News of the detention was first given by the Swiss newspaper Le Temps, which said it had no information on whether the arrested individual was the so-called "John Doe" who has claimed credit for the unprecedented "Panama Papers" leak.
Mossack Fonseca said in April that the leak was the result of a hack that came from foreign servers.
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