UPDATE 1-Argentina's Macri denies wrongdoing at 'Panama Papers' offshore firm

[Judi Lynn]

Mon Apr 4, 2016 6:18pm EDT

UPDATE 1-Argentina's Macri denies wrongdoing at 'Panama Papers' offshore firm

By Sarah Marsh

President Mauricio Macri, who won last year's election in Argentina partly on promises to fight corruption, on Monday denied any wrongdoing in his connection with an offshore company in the Bahamas which emerged in a leak of documents.

Macri was among the tens of thousands of rich and powerful people named in the leak of four decades worth of documents from Mossack Fonseca, a law firm based in the tax haven of Panama which specializes in setting up offshore companies.

The "Panama Papers" showed that he moonlit as director of Fleg Trading Ltd, which was founded in 1998 and dissolved in January 2009. Opposition lawmakers demanded on Monday that he explain his role at the offshore company.

In a short television interview with La Voz, Macri said that his tycoon father Franco Macri, one of the richest men in Argentina, had founded the company through a "legal operation".

"It was an offshore company to invest in Brazil, an investment that ultimately wasn't completed, and where I was director," he said. "There is nothing strange about this."

More:
http://www.reuters.com/article/panama-tax-argentina-idUSL2N1771LB?rpc=401

[center]

What is Mauricio Macri holding, a cattle prod? [/center]
Please, everyone leave that nice Mr. Macri alone. He's such a nice, good man.

[enid602]

1. Venezuela

Headline in 4/4's English edition of 'El Pais' (Spain): "“Venezuela” shows up on 241,000 documents in the Panama Papers." Doesn't look like the problem is limited to capitalists. Many are saying that Venezuela's patrimony is invested in Panama these days.

[Ghost Dog]

4. There are no super-rich in Venezuela?

Good grief.

[enid602]

6. Venezuela

You bet. Both the old guard right-wing capitalists, and the members of Maduro's government. Both have put their money in Panama.

[Judi Lynn]

2. Where are all the Americans in the Panama Papers?

the panama papers universe

Where are all the Americans in the Panama Papers?

April 4, 2016 3:52 p.m.

This weekend, Fusion and more than 100 other media organizations started publishing the Panama Papers, a global investigation into the secrets of offshore finance. So far it has yielded huge revelations about heads of state and politicians around the globe. Some of the biggest names to come out of the files include close friends and associates of Vladimir Putin, as well as the prime minister of Iceland, the president of Argentina, and the family of Chinese president Xi Jinping. But we haven’t seen a lot of high-wattage U.S. names in the headlines.

So far, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) has only been able to identify 211 people with U.S. addresses who own companies in the data (not all of whom we’ve been able to investigate yet). We don’t know if those 211 people are necessarily U.S. citizens. And that figure covers only data from recent years available on a Mossack Fonseca internal database — not all 11.5 million files from the leak.

In other words, that 211 number comes from just a small sliver of the data. “It’s a complete underestimate,” says Mar Cabra, head of the data and research unit at the ICIJ. Finding a precise number of Americans in the data is difficult.

Not surprisingly, though, a lot of people are asking: If this is the biggest data leak in history – and our biggest window ever onto the offshore world – where are all the Americans? After all, an estimated $150 billion in potential U.S. tax revenues disappears into offshore tax schemes each year, according to a 2014 Senate subcommittee report. We asked top experts in offshore finance to break down the American-related aspects of the Panama Papers leak.

More:
http://fusion.net/story/287671/americans-panama-papers-trove/

Good Reads:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1016150854

[Judi Lynn]

3. Opposition presses Macri over 'Panamá Papers' offshore firm

Monday, April 4, 2016

Opposition presses Macri over 'Panamá Papers' offshore firm

Argentina's opposition exhorted President Mauricio Macri on Monday to explain why he had moonlighted as director of an offshore company in the Bahamas, as revealed in a leak of documents from a Panamanian law firm.

Macri, who won last year's election partly on promises to fight corruption, had worked occasionally in the past as the director of an offshore firm related to his father's business in the past, his administration confirmed on Sunday.

It added, however, that he had never had a stake in the now dissolved company, Fleg Trading Ltd, so he had not been required to disclose the connection in his asset declarations.

Macri was among the tens of thousands of rich and powerful people named in a leak of documents from Panama-based Mossack Fonseca published by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists on Sunday.

Opposition lawmakers said that while Macri may have committed no fiscal crime, he should address Argentines' concerns about his role at an offshore company, given these were often created to hide funds, launder money and evade tax.

More:
http://buenosairesherald.com/article/211956/opposition-presses-macri-over-panam%C3%A1-papers-offshore-firm

[bemildred]

5. Well it ought to keep him busy Con-splaining for a while anyway. nt