How is this different than when Apple, Microsoft, Cisco, Oracle, HP and Google "hide" their money offshore in places like Ireland and the Cayman Islands, which helps them avoid repatriating their profits overseas and paying taxes on them?
It isn't. The point of this is that Putin is doing it.
I'm no tax professional, but it sounds like this leak is about a large number of wealthy people actively evading tax, by hiding their assets/source of income and other shady things. This is very illegal, and if true, I imagine some of these people can and will be prosecuted for it.
Tax avoidance is legal, tax evasion isn't.
Presumably, big corporations are not only avoiding tax via legal means, but they are creating these legal means to avoid tax. Why do it illegally, when you can bribe/buy politicians, who then pass laws and allow you to avoid all the tax you want.
It could be 100% legal (not bribery specifically, but campaign financing for example), but i don't think most people are really okay with it.
I'm perfectly okay with someone finding a legal loophole, i am not okay with them blocking said loophole, or introducing new ones.
HMRC has been notoriously lax in enforcing and collecting tax nominally owed by the largest corporations - most recently Google, which "negotiated" a payment of £130m in back taxes due on £4.6bn in sales.
The details of the "negotiation" have been kept confidential, so we have no way of knowing how they were calculated.
1) Legal: Take advantage of different national/state tax laws, exemptions, etc. and conduct business within those territories or have money move through them in a way that you minimize your tax obligation.
2) Illegal: Just lie about what money you have. Hiding it in offshore accounts and funneling it through intermediary channels when you want to make use of it.
There's a real fundamental difference between having people look down at you as a conniving scoundrel who took advantage of the law, and being behind bars.
I am a tax professional and this is pretty much the motto of the profession. ;)
Anyway, I don't think the significant thrust of this story pertains to tax avoidance or evasion. There are some relatively minor figures implicated by the usual offshore tax shenanigans, but the really important news is the evidence of fraud, money laundering, and corruption at the highest levels of government, business, sports, and society across the globe. This shit makes tax evasion look like shoplifting.
We all may have suspected Putin of bribery and using illicit financial assets to fund his network of cronies, but now we have direct proof. What's more, we can now see how his activities (and those of many other powerful figures across the world) contribute to a massive shadow financial system which operates utterly unbound by moral or legal principles, enabling money laundering, human trafficking, drug and arms dealing, corruption in sports, corruption in politics, and just about every other shitty, awful, poisonous human activity you can imagine. This system is monumental in scale and the evil it sustains unfathomable in scope. Sunlight is the best disinfectant, though, or at least we had better hope so.
Wild speculation and story spinning is not proof of anything - except of the complicity that bias media has in forming public opinion.
So the real scandal is what's legal not what's illegal.
Apparently the most likely explanation is that by enriching his friends, he wins their loyalty, and they will then buy him whatever he wants. But unfortunately having loyal and rich friends is not illegal nor tax evasion. I don't see how Putin would go down for this even if he lived in the west.
Sure you say that now, but when President Trump comes to power is it still true?
(I have no clue how much he is actually worth, just countering that heads of state can have significant legitimate private wealth)
If people discover he is doing something like that it would cause a drop in the stock market, it is extremely risky behavior.
Google for "site:guardian.co.uk double dutch sandwich" or Double Irish
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=site%3Aguardian.co.uk+double+dutch+sand...
So to paraphrase your point:
"It isn't. The point of this is that Apple|Cisco|... is doing it."
In addition Icelandic PM and Cameron's late father.