BY
Tax authorities in Australia and New Zealand are
probing local clients of a Panama-based law firm at the center of a massive
data leak for possible tax evasion.
Other jurisdictions are likely to follow suit
following the leak over the weekend of details of hundreds of thousands of
clients in more than 11.5 million documents from the files of law firm Mossack
Fonseca, based in the tax haven of Panama.
The documents are at the center of an investigation
published on Sunday by the International Consortium of Investigative
Journalists and more than 100 other news organizations around the globe.
The German newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung said it
received the huge cache of documents and shared them with the other media
outlets.
The leaked "Panama Papers" cover a period
over almost 40 years, from 1977 until last December, and allegedly show that
some companies domiciled in tax havens were being used for suspected money laundering,
arms and drug deals and tax evasion.
"I think the leak will prove to be probably the
biggest blow the offshore world has ever taken because of the extent of the
documents," said Gerard Ryle, director of the International Consortium of
Investigative Journalists.
Britain's Guardian newspaper said the documents showed
a network of secret offshore deals and loans worth $2 billion led to close
friends of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Reuters could not independently
confirm those details.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov did not immediately
respond to a request for comment from Reuters on Monday.
Last week, Peskov said reports about the financial
dealings of concert cellist Sergei Roldugin, a friend of Putin, and other
related reports, were part of a politically motivated campaign to discredit
Putin ahead of a cycle of elections.
The Australian Tax Office (ATO) said it was
investigating more than 800 wealthy clients of Mossack Fonseca.
"We have now linked over 120 of them to an
associate offshore service provider located in Hong Kong," the Australian
tax office said in a statement. It did not name the Hong Kong company.
ATO Deputy Commissioner Michael Cranston said his
office was working with the Australian police and the anti-money laundering
regulator AUSTRAC to cross-check the data, and some cases may be referred to
the Serious Financial Crime Taskforce.
The 800 individuals under investigation include
taxpayers who had previously been investigated and others who had reported
themselves to the tax office under a voluntary disclosure initiative which
allowed people to come forward and avoid steep penalties and criminal charges
and has since ended.
However, the ATO said those under investigation also
included many taxpayers who had not previously come forward.
DATABASE "HACK"
The head of Mossack Fonseca has denied any wrongdoing
but said his firm had suffered a successful but "limited" hack on its
database. The firm's director, Ramon Fonseca, described the hack and leak as
"an international campaign against privacy".
Fonseca, who was up until March a senior government
official in Panama, said in a telephone interview with Reuters on Sunday the
firm, which specializes in setting up offshore companies, has formed more than
240,000 such companies. The "vast majority" of these have been used
for "legitimate purposes", he said.
The papers also showed the involvement of Pakistini
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's family in off-shore companies, including his
daughter Mariam and son Hussain. Pakistani Information Minister Pervez Rasheed
denied any wrongdoing on the Sharifs' part.
"Every man has the right to do what he wants with
his assets, to throw them in the sea, to sell them, or to establish a trust for
them. There is no crime in this in Pakistani law or in international law,"
Rasheed said.
Hussain Nawaz, speaking to Geo TV, also said there was
nothing illegal either about the family’s ownership of the companies, or about
the activities of the companies themselves.
"I have never hidden anything and neither do I
have any need to hide them...these companies are allowed under British law so
that one does not need to pay unnecessary taxes," he said.
New Zealand's tax agency said it was working closely
with its tax treaty partners to obtain full details of any New Zealand tax
residents who may have been involved in arrangements facilitated by Mossack
Fonseca.
Separately, media reports said the leaked data pointed
to a link between a member of global soccer body FIFA's ethics committee and a
Uruguayan soccer official who was arrested last year as part of a U.S. probe
into corruption in the sport.
FIFA's ethics committee said on Sunday that Juan Pedro
Damiani, a member of the committee's judgment chamber, was being investigated
over a possible business relationship with fellow Uruguayan Eugenio Figueredo,
one of the soccer officials arrested in Zurich last year.
Damiani told Reuters in Montevideo he broke off
relations with Figueredo when the latter was accused of corruption.
(Additional reporting by Brian Homewood; Writing by
Sam Holmes and Angus MacSwan,; Editing by Philippa Fletcher)
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