Journalist Explains How Panama Papers Opened Up The World's Illicit Money Networks (Terry Gross, Fresh Air)

Reporter Jake Bernstein helped break the story of the Panama Papers, the leaked documents that detail the offshore tax havens of the super rich. His new book is Secrecy World.
Interview:
https://www.npr.org/2017/11/20/565319852/journalist-explains-how-panama-papers-opened-up-the-worlds-illicit-money-network

Hiding, Secret and Shell

The Looming Mystery Behind the Panama Papers: How Did the Largest Document Leak In History Even Happen?

“Hello. This is John Doe. Interested in data?” That line — apparently written in English and using an American cultural reference — is much of what we know about the source, possibly a hacker, behind the Panama Papers, a massive trove of documents on which four hundred journalists have been collaborating for up to a year, detailing how a Panamanian law firm called Mossack Fonseca has helped some of the world’s most powerful people set up shell companies capable of concealing vast amounts of wealth. The source reached out to Bastian Obermayer, a reporter for Germany’s Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper, over a year ago, explaining, “I want to make these crimes public.”....
http://www.alternet.org/visions/looming-mystery-behind-panama-papers-how-did-largest-document-leak-history-even-happen+

Obama Kills Largest Corporate Attempt Yet To Flee Overseas And Dodge Taxes

The largest-ever corporate merger to skip out on American tax obligations is now kaput.

Drug giant Pfizer is giving up on its corporate marriage to Ireland-based Allergan after an Obama administration policy change designed to prevent U.S. companies from fleeing taxes by moving their mailing address abroad. The $160 billion merger cemented last fall would have produced significant tax savings for Pfizer, at the expense of the American public.

The sudden collapse of the deal comes as news organizations the world over comb through the huge Panama Papers leak that exposes how individuals take similar advantage of the cracks in international tax law to conceal their personal holdings and business dealings with offshore shell companies. The leaks are bringing a burst of fresh attention to a long-standing problem: It’s very easy, and often legal, to slip out of the taxman’s grasp by way of clever accounting....
http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2016/04/06/3767056/pfizer-pays-150-million-escape-merger/

Could Citizens United Help Foreign Billionaires Buy This Election? An FEC Commissioner Speaks Out

The release of the Panama Papers comes amid growing concern about undisclosed campaign contributions here in the United States, so-called dark money. Now, some members of the Federal Election Commission are calling for greater enforcement of campaign finance regulations and a narrower interpretation of the Citizens United ruling, which opened the floodgates for unlimited corporate spending on election campaigns...

Obama Speaks Out On Panama Papers, Corporate Looters, And The Politicians Who Enable Them

With journalists and law enforcement officials still combing through a massive leak of documents to uncover the global networks of offshore companies the wealthy and powerful use to hide their activities, President Obama made a rare appearance at the daily White House briefing to call out some of the people who encourage and enable such deception.

After laying out new Treasury Department rules intended to discourage American companies from using international mergers to get out of paying their taxes, Obama connected the dots between such “inversion” mergers and the revelations of the Panama Papers. While the early stories to come out of the leak focus on foreign figures and sanctioned governments, he said, powerful Americans use the same elites-only financial clubhouse too...
http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2016/04/05/3766664/obama-reacts-panama-papers/

6 Things You Need to Know About the Bombshell 'Panama Papers' Leak

The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung and more than 100 other media partners dropped the explosive “Panama Papers” leak on Sunday.

The trove is described by ICIJ, a global network of investigative journalists, as “11.5 million leaked files to expose the offshore holdings of world political leaders, links to global scandals and details of the hidden financial dealings of fraudsters, drug traffickers, billionaires, celebrities, sports stars and more.”...

 Here are six things you should know about the massive revelation:...
http://www.alternet.org/world/6-things-you-need-know-about-bombshell-panama-papers-leak